We’re in Moab, Utah

 

Sunday, September 11, 2011                                                                                                                                       Lorraine’s report

Hello from Moab, UT, the OK RV Park about 5 miles out of Moab. We came here on Wednesday morning, leaving good friends, Katie & Joe in Tooele. Thank you Katie, Joe and boys for all your kindness in sharing and showing us your beautiful area; we appreciated it very much!

Do you remember where you were 10 years ago “When the World stopped turning?” and our old way of life ended, without your permission? So much has changed since then! I kinda miss our free, easy, innocent, and not so complicated way of life we lived in those golden days. What a terrible way for all those innocent people to die, my heart and prayers still go out to all the families that lost loved ones.

As is often the case with us, we have been busy as ever. Last Sunday found me up and ready for Katie to pick me up at 8:20 to drive into Salt Lake City to go to church and hear the Spoken Word and music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The service is recorded and the live broadcast is open to the public every Sunday at 9:30 am. They close the doors to this service and you need to be in your seat by 9:15. We were there with time to spare.

I was not disappointed as the choir and orchestra started with one of my favorite hymns, “How Great Thou Art” all done in their perfect harmony and precision; it made my heart soar, it was so beautiful! To worship in such a great place exceeded all my dreams.

Following the service, Katie took me by a couple of the buildings we hurried through to hear the choir practice on Thursday evening. I again marveled at the way the artisans from the olden days did their beautiful work, without all the modern day tools and technology to help them.

Completing several chores, Katie took me home while she went home and then to her local church to teach her Sunday School Class. In the meantime, I started preparing dinner for Joe, Katie and the boys. Katie remembered having my potato salad at a party while we were still in our home, and while we were visiting, she asked if I would make it while we were with them. I told her I had planned on making fried chicken, potato salad, fresh corn on the cob, watermelon and apple pie, and having them for dinner. She mentioned that her boys were not into that food, so I also made them macaroni and cheese, which wasn’t like what Katie made for them, so all for naught. Oh well, the adults all enjoyed everything else.

We spent a fun evening following dinner teaching Joe and Katie how to play Pass the Love. Katie was a fast learner as she was the evening’s big winner.

Labor Day was a lazy day for Chuck and me. We stayed around the rig; I did laundry, shopping that sort of stuff. Katie and Joe asked us to go with them to the zoo in Logan, but we just wanted to take it slow. They had a very long day, leaving by 9 am and didn’t get back until after 6:30.

Tuesday found us going to the walk in clinic just down the road from us. Chuck had had a hard time with his breathing the previous night, and we went into the doctor’s to ask for O2. The altitude is so high for us at over 4500 feet, as well as the much higher temperatures we were not used to, and we were heading into even higher country, going to the National Parks, Moab Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, etc.

Ask and ye shall be given, so we headed off to find a place to pick up the oxygen to take with us. No problem getting it; Chuck used it that first night and slept very well; he really needed that extra oxygen.

We took Katie and Joe and boys to dinner that last evening to a Mexican place, La Fuentes. They served huge portions and a take out box was in order. We said our good byes to Katie and Joe shortly after, and headed home to pack up the rig. Again, thank you Katie and Joe for all the many kindnesses you showed us, we greatly enjoyed the time with you!

We were up and off the following day at our usual time. Traffic wasn’t bad through Salt Lake City, the weather was mild, the roads pretty good so we pulled into this park around 4 pm. We set up the rig and headed back into town to try and see what we could see.

We stopped at a visitor’s info place, and the guy there told us what to see and do on our visit to this area. He mentioned that there was an experienced ex-deputy-sheriff that had been head of the search and rescue team for 22 years and he was taking another couple out for a sunset tour to the desert on a Polaris 4 wheel rig, and he could take us on a Polaris Ranger 4 wheel rig.

He told us the price, which was quite a bit off the normal price and said it was leaving at 5:30. We thanked him for his info and brochures, went back to the car. I said to Chuck we should take this tour, so we went back inside to take the tour, even though we hadn’t eaten dinner or seen anything else.

This was a good move on our part, even though when we first got to the desert part, we went up what Kent, our guide called “The Rattlesnake’s Back.” I don’t know how I managed to stay inside this rig, or even keep going on farther. We were driving on huge boulders, some places only 3 wheels touched the ground and the angle was over 45-50 degrees; one place we were at a 60 degree angle. I pulled my hat down over my closed eyes and prayed hard.

It was so scary, yet so exhilarating, and the views were magnificent. Kent kept asking me did I love this tour? I told him it was okay, I was enjoying it. The sun slowly dropping over those red colored canyons was absolutely breath taking. It was a glorious trip, one we can mark off our bucket list, well worth our time and effort. Chuck said while we were out on the tour that this tour was what he wanted to see/do/experience when we were visiting this area of Red Rock Country. We both slept well that night!

We have been to Arches National Park, Canyonlands-Islands in the Sky National Park and Dead Horse State Park, these past several days. All our tours to each park have been absolutely wonderful! This must be experienced to capture the full value of this incredible area, the beauty is beyond words.

To see all those exquisitely carved out canyons, cliffs, buttes, mesas, fins and arches all created by water, gravity and the weather is pretty amazing. Pictures don’t do it justice, even though the movie industry did use this area for many major movies.

I can’t say which park is my favorite so far, I have loved them all, the parks are unique in their own way and such a joy to view; I would say if you can go see these parks do it, it’s well worth your effort!

Congratulations to our niece, Samantha, for being homecoming royalty, way to go! That’s it for me.

Until next time….

Lorraine

 

9/11/11                                                                                                                                                                         Chuck’s report

Today is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack against our country.  I hope everyone stops for moment to remember all those who lost their lives and to everyone in our military who are trying to protect us from another attack.  Without getting political here, let’s hope we keep all the fighting over there and not inside our borders.  

I know we will have lots of pictures on this blog so I will keep my written report short, at least that’s my plan. 

Last Sunday Lorraine and Katie went into Salt Lake City to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir preform and hear the Spoken Work at the Conference Center.  Lorraine was thrilled to see the Choir preform.  I remember when my sister, Corliss, graduated from high school and got a bus ticket to come to Washington to visit with us.  She had a lay over in Salt Lake City and was very disappointed to not be able to go into the Temple or see the Choir.  The only thing we couldn’t see on our trip was inside the Temple so we were not disappointed at all.

After services, Lorraine fried up chicken, we had a good dinner at their house.  After dinner we played a good game of Pass The Love, which Katie won (Beginner’s luck??).  Another good day with our friends. 

Monday was sort of an off day for us.  Joe/Katie and the kids headed off to the zoo in Logan, we decided to stay close to home and rest up, the altitude is still affecting us I think.  On Tuesday, I went to the walk-in clinic to see about getting some oxygen, it takes a prescription from a doctor for them to let us have it.  We are getting used to the altitude but know we will be going higher and wanted it as “insurance” when we get higher.  It wasn’t too much of a hassle and soon we had an O2 concentrator and a 6 pack of portable O2 bottles, on loan to us for a month. 

Later, we met with Joe/Katie at a Mexican place for dinner then back to their place for one more visit before we leave.  We had a good time visiting with them and sure appreciate them being such good hosts and guides for us. 

Wednesday we were on the road at our normal time, headed SE to Moab.  We got to our park, OK RV Park, another Passport America membership park, got set up and headed into to town for a look around.  We stopped by a place that said they were a visitor’s center to get some information and advice on the area.  They had 4 wheel tours into the mountains just to the East of Moab three times per day, Sunrise, afternoon and Sunset tours.  We happened to be there just in time to get on the Sunset tour so we signed up.  There was a couple from Holland who elected to drive their own Polaris 4 wheeler, we elected to ride with the guide in a bigger one so there was only two 4 wheelers and 4 of us, plus our guide. 

Lorraine and I are not experienced in 4 wheeling and didn’t know what to expect when they said we were going to explore “Hell’s Revenge” area.  We started of with a steep climb that almost was enough for us to say stop right there but we hung on.  We went over lots of hills and ridgebacks, down some steep hills and gullies.  The guide was very good, explained a lot about the area and his experiences there.  He was a retired deputy sheriff and the head of the local search and rescue so he had lots of stories to tell. 

We had a very enjoyable time on this tour, it was just over 2 1/2 hours.  We were in awe of the beauty of the area, something we haven’t seen except for pictures and movies.  The rock formation and colors was just amazing.  And to think, all this happened due to rain, wind and erosion over millions of year. 

Next morning we decided to explore Arches National Park via our car.  Once again we saw lots of rock formations, high mountains, deep valleys and of course, the Arches.  The colors were mostly all shades of red with almost every other color found in a large box of kids crayons.  Too pretty to describe and the pictures sure don’t do it justice.  It’s something you would have to see for yourself to understand.  We spent about 4 hours on our tour, didn’t see everything but our senses were almost on overload so we headed back to the coach for dinner.

We had a bit of a problem with the electrical power at our coach that afternoon, I think there were too many people running their air conditioners for the wiring in the park to handle.  Our voltage got low enough for the surge protector to trip off, twice.  I then hooked up our voltage controller or autoformer.  We use this appliance when the voltage to our coach gets too low, it boosts the voltage enough to allow our surge protector to keep the power going through it.  So we were set but I talked to our neighbor who didn’t have an autoformer and he couldn’t run his air conditioners for the rest of the afternoon.  Sure glad we have all this electrical stuff, we don’t need it every time or place but when we need it, it sure is nice. 

The next morning we had trouble with our internet connection, not sure what happened or why it stopped working.  I was on the phone to the help desk with the folks who sold us our router for over 45 minutes before I gave up and hung up.  Amazingly, it started working while I was on the phone, like I said, I don’t know what or why but “I fixed it”.

We also had a spring break inside one of our window shades.  I have a part on order, it will be sent to us at our next stop.  That’s three things that have gone wrong so here’s hoping we’re set for awhile. 

Afterwards we took off to tour Dead Horse State Park and Canyonland’s National Park.  I think I liked the formations and views in Dead Horse the best of all we’ve seen here so far.  Once again, the pictures don’t do it justice but we still took a bunch.  These two parks are somewhat in the same area so we decided to see Canyonland after Dead Horse.  We went though the visitor’s center and started driving to one of the overlooks when we decided to head home instead.  The dark storm clouds were building up with lots of lightening strikes all around us and some large rain drops.  Not wanting to be caught out there in a bad storm and us being at some of the highest points in the area, we left and made plans to return the next day instead. 

Once we got back, Lorraine drove back into town to walk the shops and see what was there.  She came back a couple of hours later, having enjoyed herself and bringing Subway sandwiches for our dinner.  While she was gone, I did some more research on our next stop, the 4 Corners area.  I need to make a couple of phone calls yet but think I have our RV park picked out. 

Saturday we got a bit earlier start as we didn’t want to get caught in another afternoon storm while up there.  Once again we saw lots of sights we had seen in pictures or movies and were in awe once again.  What a nice area of the USA this is and we haven’t even been to all the parks in the area.  As I said earlier, our senses are on overload, there is so much to see and experience around here. 

We are sure liking this weather we’ve been having, high 80s with low humidity.  It’s even cooler when we get up in the hills, I think we actually saw some low 70s yesterday at about 6000’ elevation.  Both Lorraine and I have trouble catching our breath at 6000’ but haven’t had to use the O2 yet. 

Tuesday we will be heading to Cortez, CO. for a few days.  While there we will visit the cliff dwellings and the 4 corners area plus another National Park in the area.  I think the town is big enough to have a Wall-Mart too.  We will then drive on over to Jacob Lake, AZ., a few miles away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We’ve been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon but want to see it from the other side this time.  Both of these stops will be above 6000’, hope we don’t have any breathing problems due to the altitude but we do have the O2 just in case.   

I said I would try to keep my written portion short due to the large amount of pictures I would add so guess I’ll get started on them now. 

 

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and orchestra on Sunday.  Lorraine and Katie went to the service in Salt Lake City. 

 

 

Lorraine and Katie.  The picture on the right is where the Choir used to preform and still does during the winter months. 

 

Lance, Katie, Jared and Joe at their home.  Jared lost his first tooth while we were there too.

 

On the road from Salt Lake City to Moab. 

 

 

 

 

Notice all the horns and antlers in the driveway on the right. 

 

 

 

 

This is the Polaris 4 wheeler were rode in.  That’s our driver/guide, Kent. 

 

 

Dinosaur footprints in the rocks, lots of them around here once we found out what to look for.  

 

 

 

The setting sun and the rising moon.

 

Now we’re in Arches National Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

We saw one of these in Alaska, this is the transportation and mobile hotel for about 20 adults. 

 

 

Now were are in Dead Horse State Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, that’s Lorraine out on the point all by herself, pretty brave don’t you think?

 

 

Notice the storm clouds on the right, lots of lighting and some rain. 

 

 

Here we were in Canyonland’s Island in the Sky National Park. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whew, lots of pictures like I thought but not even close to the amount Lorraine took this week.  You can see the formations, canyons, and such but the colors don’t show up at all, sorry. 

Thanks   Chuck