Moab

We got to our prime destination this morning. Dorothy says it is like coming home. We have been to Moab six times starting in 1992. This is our third year in a row. We love the red rocks. Our fav place along the Colorado River was full, but we got second place just up the road. Only staying one night, before we head south to The Needles District in Canyonlands. Moab is crowded this week and there are no events going on.

Our last blog entry had in us in western Kansas. Our next jump got us to Chatfield SP in Denver for the night. It’s one of Colorado’s over-priced parks at $30 for electricity. No dry camping option. We “discovered” a better option when we return in a few weeks closer to the city center for $10 less.

Backing up to Kansas, this motel sign was at the turn into our campground. The plastic banner says Dusty Farmer, so the ‘er’ dropped off the main sign. Either way we thought it was a hoot. The Caddy Hearst was camping in Chatfield SP. Probably a low-miler camper.

Tuesday, we took the, long for us, five hour jump to Grand Junction and parked at our friend’s home for the evening and had a fine meal of pork tamale's and chili relleno’s at Las Maria’s downtown. Big surprise, downtown is several blocks of upscale stores that cater to the young set.

We were awake at four Wednesday, impatient I suppose, and got away at 7:30 before our host was awake. We will see you and Boone in few weeks Dale.

I did another dumb thing this trip. We had never driven the Denver area. We did a fly and drive over a decade again, but driving a passenger car over Loveland Pass is just not the same as driving a MH towing a Jeep up the Rockies. I should have looked at our Mountain Highway Driving Guide, but it never occurred to me. So west we go with me wondering when the heck we would top out. 7,000, and it was easy to see were were not there yet. At 8,000 we were on a flat stretch doing 60 for several miles so I was thinking we will see signs warning of a steep decent soon. Oops, up we go again, 9,000 and no top in sight and darn if I didn’t miss a pull off where we could unhook the Jeep. Then we got trapped behind three trucks grinding along slowly. We lost our RPM and there was no way we recover it and we are not supposed to tow above 7,500 as it strains the drive train. At over 10,000 we find a pull off and unhook. Finally Koko can catch her breath. We topped shortly at 11,000 and started down seven miles to the valley floor. That is the longest high stretch we ever towed. It gave us a respect for highest pass in Rockies.

Rubi, our new Jeep Rubicon, has less than 1,000 miles on her. Now she has double that in towed miles. It took us 11 days of rolling the wheels to get here. That’s our quickest crossing ever. It usually takes us 14+ days to get here.

The case of the toad battery discharging - After reading the owner’s manual again, I found that the towing instructions are continued on the next page where is says to disconnect the battery. Huh? That means it does not have a wheel lock. It means I can not see any reason to even have the key in the ignition. And we have towed that way the last two days. End of story?

We will be off the grid in Canyonlands. We are going there do two Jeep trails and take some pictures of places we have not seen. We will probably get back to civilization Sunday. Until then.