Death Valley

Boy, it's been a while sense I have updated this.

I arrived at Death Valley Furnace Creek last week.  

Has been a lot of fun and seen some great sights.

It was hot last friday. Friday night the wind started up.  I recored a 71 MPH gust, it got cloudy and started raining.  Saturday was cold and cloudy most of the day.  At night we got a real nice show of colors at sunset.

Here is a link to more photos.

At Auburn again

Moved to Auburn once again for my granddaughters second birthday.

Staying at the Auburn Fair Grounds for now.  Next plan to spend a few days at Boca Lake if not too cold and then to Death Valley.

Here is a LINK to the Auburn Car Show

Back at Winchester

Back for this month,  The Roving Rods will host the annual crab fest at the end of the month.

I have been working with another blog software hosted by Apple.

It is here  

We (Bill & Sharon)  have been on some great motorcycle rides the last few weeks.

The picture above is at the jetty at Bandon, Or

Auburn

In HOT Auburn. But getting some things done.

Had a great engagement party at Son's Nicks house

Some pictures here---

Nick and Meghan

More Winchester

Been having a great time this week.  We had dinner with John & Lynn, and Bill & Sharon

Bill, Sharon and I went on a ride John suggested.  We took the lower Smith River road  to Hy 38.  It was a 60+ mile ride up a river canyon and down another.  Went from 60° to over 90°.  From sea level to 1200 feet and back.  I have ridden a lot of "beautiful" places but this beats them all.

Bill looking all mean behind me.

One place on the Smith was called the 'Water Falls'. 

Swimming holes every where and could sit under water falling on you.

Been Awhile

It has been a while sense I last posted here.  Having a lot of fun and very very busy trying to accomplish my goal which is doing Nothing - I am about half way done today.

A few Pictures -

The Coast Guard was right out my window the other day practicing  and burning a lot of Jet A fuel.  If you blow it up you can see the guy jumping out the door.

Then there was a WWI air show at a grass strip called lakeside.  Have never been around so many nice biplanes.  If you asked you could get a ride in any you wanted.  I got there too late.

And the last item I will put up here is a small movie of the Vendor area of Dune Fest for my kids.

Too bad you guys missed it this year.

The 4th at Winchester

One nice thing about Winchester Bay is there 4th of July celebration.

This picture is out of focus but just wanted to show all of you that everyone had coats on. :)

There were fireworks everywhere.  The town puts on a nice show. 

But people are more fun to watch. Some have to spend more on fireworks than the town.  It looked like fun for all.

This guy across the bay had a radio controlled boat towing a barge full of fireworks. It must have lasted 5 minutes.  Notice the tow boat in front of the barge.  He got a big applause.

And, below is a small movie of the fireworks.  The reflection off the water made it twice as good.  To bad I did not get much of it!

Winchester Bay

Finally made it back to Winchester Bay.  Had a good drive - got about 10mpg but still cost over $350.  Might stay here a little longer than planned 

Brad, my son, just came up last night.  He will stay for a week and we will ride the sand duns together. :)

This picture is out my front door.

 Another great camp spot here.

Bill and Sharon, Glen and Maggie, Dave (oldphoneman) and Dennis are here right now.  The camp host is John and Lynn of RR's

Taking Off

Hope to take off this week 16th or 17th for the cooler north.  I am also (for the first time seriously) taking off pounds.  I missed too many good hikes while in AZ and UT a while back.

Have lost 28 lbs in the last two months only &^*^ more to go :)

My friend Bob, told me about 

The Hackers Diet
How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition

Written by John Walker, the founder of AutoDesk Way back in the 80's.

It's working for me because he was honest and said its going to hurt an be hard..

Damm, its lunch time - got a go

Maintenance time for truck and my body

It has been a month now and I am amazed how long it takes to get anything done.

First and foremost I had to take a stress test

to check out some chest tightness I had three months ago. Happy to report all is well, but scared me into a diet and have lost 30 pounds so far.

Next I have this RV tow truck that can carry all kind of weight.

For over a year I have been thinking about how to carry extra water and extra waste. One of my genius sons, Nick, came up with the idea below, and he got it done in less than two days. I can now live off grid very nice for over two months.

There are two 65 Gal tanks, one on each side. I think we could have fitted 85 gal tanks, but this works fine. The really genius part, besides how to mount it, was fitting a air chuck on each tank. The truck as 125 lbs of air, so a small regulator set to 10 lbs - no need for any pumps. Its so simple. Works great. 10 pounds of air has pumped the waste tank over 20 feet high with no problems.

Top is the driver side water tank Have not finish

ed plumbing it yet.

Next is to mount the wind generator on the truck. I have a flag pole shipping this week. Should work fine and easy to set up.

Oh, one more thing. I am now a mac user. After 15 years of unix and loving it. It's far easer and just as powerful.

My goal is to leave this month for Winchester Bay, OR. to see some good friends and do some Sand Dunes ridding on the small KTM. Thrn up to the Columbia river george for some fishing and back to the coast with the Roving Rods to fish and crab.

The Drive back to Auburn

Time to get back to Auburn, CA to take care of business. The first day was a 350 mile drive from Moab to Nevada's Great Basin National Park. The campground ($6 a night) was about 7500' and nice. Very few people, at lot of animals including wild turkeys and a stream down the middle. Oh, it snowed for about 10 minuets.

Day two, Hy 50 from the Utah border to Reno, NV . Billed as 'The Loneliest Road in America'. I really enjoyed driving this road. Something to see almost every mile. Only three towns, Ely, Eureka and Austin. Again had Sun, Wind, Rain, Lightning and Snow.
Small videos of each town is below.

La Sal Loop and Castle Valley

Yesterday took the La Sal loop. Its about a 65 mile loop that starts or ends at Moab, UT.
The first 17 miles follows the Colorado River north. Turn right and in a few miles your in Castle Valley.
I came in at the far end of the valley, if you click on the picture you might be able to see where it got its name. Jennifer, I was here when you called. What a view. There was a little haze in the sky from dust.

The road continues on the valley floor then starts to climb quickly. I think I got up to near 8000'. It was COLD on the bike. One of the best motorcycle roads I have been on.


Once over the La Sal mountain range, Moab and Spanish Valley came in view.
Besides all the other things to do in Moab, I would recommend the drive, but start in Moab and drive it backwards from what I did. Much better views.

Arches

Went to Arches today. It's a great motorcycle road. Again I was just impressed about how large every thing is. There are quite a few hikes back to some arches. Many can be seen from the road but the other many features of the park are just as impressive like the slot canyons and rocks magically balancing. Here is a link to more pictures.
But, the best part of the day was Laurens and Atie had Bob and myself over for a homemade dinner. It just does not get any better than good food, a little wine and good friends sitting around a campfire. It must have been Christmas sense I have had a real home made meal. Look what a professional can do with the same picture!!








Once again here is a small video of part of my ride in Arches. Was trying to show the scenery along the road, unfortunately I did not get the really good parts. Was so interested looking I never thought of the Flip Camera.

Moab - Arches and Canyonland

It has been a real lazy 4 days. Just working on things and we had to move once. The road we took to get here follows the river and is supposed to turn to dirt, climb 1500' and end up at Dead Horse Lookout in CanyonLands NP. A 100 mile loop. I left too late to complete the whole loop but had fun on the dirt part. Every corner you turned there was a "how did God do that" view. I cannot figure out what keeps this rock up. Here is a Link to more pictures if interested.
It is interesting how a picture just does not capture the grander of a place, but they will have to do.

Below is a 4 min video of part of my ride back down. I ran out of room on the Flip Video camera just as the Colorado River came into view. The road would be a fantastic quad and dirt bike spot.

Moab - Arches and Canyonland

150 miles today from Gooseneck to Moab. It was a very enjoyable drive. Lots of new scenery and as high as 7200' with snow still left over to 4200' at the Colorado River where I am parked.
At Gold Bar BLM, a small group campground. Hope to stay a few days and take the bike to the parks.
More later

Here is where I am parked for now.

GooseNecks

We are parked at GooseNeck overlook. The above picture is out my rear window. The river makes at least four sharp turns that I can see.

In the morning we saw a bunch of rafters going down the river. Yesterday I met a man traveling on a bike - BMW 650, and he said he has rafted the river and it looked a lot better from up here then down on the river. You really never knew you were turning so sharp..

We were going to leave the next day but the wind started comming up very fast. It got bad within an hour. Too much to drive in. There had to been gust to 50mph with a steady 20mph. I closed everything up to stop the dust from comming in the RV, brought the dish down. At one point we all moved our rigs to poing into the wind to lessen the RV movement. It got hot also, about 80 and could not open the windows.
This is a pictue of three of us stuck in our rigs.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

View out my back window. This place was a little more than I expected also. There is a 17 mile loop that I did not have time to take. Bet it was nice. Took a lot of pictures and will put them up on the picture Gallery as soon as I can.
Here is more information on Monument Valley

Still at Lake Powell

Met a very nice Dutch couple, Laurens & Attie Hoddenbagh who also happens to be a professional photographer and a man of God. He took one of my normal pictures and did his magic which is above. You might want to click on it to get a better look.
He has taught me a lot, most of witch has gone way over my head.

The beaches and water of Powell around here are very nice. The sand is clean and the water very blue.
Took a 60 mile ride today up Hy89 two the Wave and the old 1870 town and movie set of Pahreah. All of the movie sets have burned down but was supposed to be very interesting. Made it about 5 miles from the turn off and decided to turn around. It was getting very windy and the Utah roads!!!! Hy89 North has to be the most uncomfortable in the nation. No potholes, just very rough, I have rode on washboard dirt roads that were smother.
Should leave Sunday or Monday for Monument Valley for a night and then on the the Goose Neck area.
Had to throw in the clever one with the mirror :)

Cottonwood,AZ to Lake Powell.UT

It was only a 4 hour drive which I easily made into a 6 hour drive. This drive was the most interesting yet.
Camp Verdi HY17 to Flagstaff was a climb from 3000' to over 7000' in a short distant. Did not see much of Flagstaff but from what I did see I really liked it. The camera was in the 5er so no pictures.
Flagstaff to Page was high desert and some very nice canyons once in the Navajo Nation.

After leaving Page, AZ you get to see this bridge. What a site. The speed limit was 25 and I think I only was going at 10 too see the view. No one was behind me.
At the other side was the Glen canyon visitor center. I pulled into the parking lot to look and take some pictures.


Once in the parking lot you could see Glen Canyon Dam. Not as big as I thought it would be after spending a lot of time on Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. The water level is very low. tomorrow I will go to the visitor center and find out how low.

The old water line must be 100 feet above the water. Below is taken from the visitor center. Wonder what it looked like when it was full?
The last picture is taken out my front door. Camped in a very nice place.

Ride to Sedona

Went for a ride to Sedona. I have not been there in over 20 years, sure has changed.
I was completely surprised by how red the rocks are. One can look at all the pictures, can look at doctored pictures but you cannot duplicate nature.



Wanted to take what is called the upper loop of Red Rock Canyon but was getting a little too late to fix a flat or whatever. So took the shorter lower loop which at one point went by the multi million dollar housed I have heard about. Broke my camera so missed the houses but got some nice shots on the way.
When I pulled over to the side of the road to take a picture there was a Native American girl out of site from the road making and selling necklaces. Two for $10.00. This was so out of place.
Maybe it was the Big old man in a black leather jacket, but she was not friendly at all..



Here is the last picture before the camera broke. I was trying to show the redness of the rock and as usual it does not work. Right to the left of this picture was one of the expensive houses built into the wall of the red rock.


And I will finish this off with a very poor video of the road I was on.
My Flip camera mount was loose, so its a little shaky.
The reason I put this here is to look at the scenery along the road.

Moved from Dead Horse Campground to Forest Service land near Thousand Trails.
14 day limit but two campers at the very end look like they have been here 14 years.
The days have been in the mid 70's and lows in the 40's
The Lat/Lon are 34.66875N 111.96240W.
It has been a little windy, about 10 - 15MPH which is good for my wind generator but might get a little irritating for most.
I now have the wind generator hooked up the house batteries and let the Solar take care of the Inverter batteries. Without tilting the panels this time of the year I have see over 54Amps. More than enough for my daily needs.

Cottonwood.

Nice drive in AZ. Speed limit is 75. Was impressed by Kingman, nice town. Purchased a battery for the generator and a new tire for the trailer. I then made the mistake of taking Hy 89 Alt North to Cottonwood. It was only 15 miles but it was the hardest 15 miles I have every driven. Very sharp turns but the worst was how narrow and how close the guardrail was to the pavement. Only touched the rail twice. Then, it dumped my in the town of Jermone with its very narrow streets.

Got to Cottonwood and found Dead Horse Ranch State Park. This is the place to stay if in this area.

Trip to Sedona AZ

Started on March 21 from Auburn, CA. First stop was at Lancaster, CA to see ny good friend
Terry. We had a nice visit.
Left on the 23ed. Molly and I learned stop ever 2 hours and stretch, really help me out.
Had a trailer flat about 6 miles before Needles. Tire pressure monitors did not work. $220 later we were back on the road. Found a very nice campground before crossing the Colorado river.