05-27-10

Okay, I guess I have a couple of days to catch up.

We have had one day where the wind has not been blowing at gale force in the last 7 days. This place is even windier than Quartzsite.
In the last post I mentioned the dust in the air and the rain squall that came through. The rain was a "MUD rain". The next morning there was mud all over the windows and side of the RV and the jeep. I have never experienced "mud rain" before.
The wind is still blowing today and according to the weather on the computer will be windy through Saturday.

On Tuesday Patti went to the casino in Cortez Colorado with Harry, Barb and an other couple. She lost $59 but it took all day so I guess that isn't too bad
I stayed home.
I wanted to see if I could get the starter out of Plan "B". Yes the starter is still messing up.
Everything is so close down there that even though I could get a socket on the top bolt there wasn't enough room to move the ratchet. I had three 4 inch extensions and one 6 inch extension connected to the ratchet but still couldn't get passed the exhaust and other obstacles. I struggled with it for a while and decided to give it a rest and think about it for a while.

A few days ago I got an email from my brother, Sonny telling me about hunting around Newspaper Rock and describing the area as it was then (probably 40 years ago). I was curious to see if I could find the places he mentioned so around 12:00 I headed south on 191. I was surprised how far the turn off was from Moab. It turned out to be about 14 miles north of Monticello. You turn onto Hwy 211 at Cathedral Rock.

Then drive around 11 miles to newspaper rock (See blog for 04-08-10). When I got there I looked around for the camp spots that Sonny had mentioned but only found a parking lot and some native guys selling jewelry. I drove on down the road for a while and didn't find any camp ground so I turned around and went back past the rock.
About a quarter mile east of Newspaper Rock I found a large turnout to the right so I turned out.

I found a portagee gate across a small dirt road. I went through the gate and think I found the area that Sonny had mentioned. The road was very small,
I followed it for a ways but after a while, I realized that there were no vehicle tracks on the road only foot prints. The road got very narrow with the brush closing in on both sides. I found a break in the brush large enough to turn around so I did. On the way back I stopped to take a few pictures of the camp spots along the creek,

the canyon and the road.

Is this the way you remember it Sonny?

Wednesday morning, I realized that I had a couple more socket extensions and a swivel in the Jeep tool box so I dug them out and crawled back under Plan "B" and was successful in removing the starter so I went to the local parts store and purchased a new one and had it installed by 10:00. I tried it several times and it worked every time.

Around 11:45 Patti and I took off for a ride to the Deloris River overlook. To get there we drove out Hwy 128 which goes east from Moab along the Colorado River.

About 30 miles from Moab, just before the new Dewey Bridge, we turned onto Entrada road.
The road is a wide graded road and except for all the rock on the road is a pretty easy ride, not very challenging but very bumpy.

We wandered through the canyons for almost 18 miles until we got to the end on a high point of land overlooking the Deloris River.

The wind was blowing very hard so we once again had lunch in the jeep.

The views of course were impressive

and there were some new wild flowers along the way.

On the way back we saw a bright green lizard running down the road. I stopped the jeep and got out to see if I could get a picture of it. I was lucky because he ran under a piece of brush and stopped there thinking he was hidden.

I have never seen as brightly colored lizards as they have around here.

We got home around 4:30 and around 6:00 went to dinner at the third of the Mexican restaurants in town "The Fiesta". We decided that the "La Hacienda" is the Best.