Jerry's Stardates

Northwest USA, 2011

2011-09-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

Because of MANY requests…OK, OK…one or two, here’s your Stardate report for the first half of the first trip.

Two years ago, we agreed to do the 2011 West Coast America trip, the same trip we did in 2009 (which was the inaugural trip). That trip was a bear…there’s another word that starts with a “B” that better describes it, but I won’t use that word since this is a family publication. Anyway, back in our more ambitious days, we had asked to tailgun the Northwest USA trip but were turned down because the trip already had a Wagonmaster and Tailgunner assigned.

So, one day we were sitting watching television (probably some hunting show) and the phone rang. It was the office (Adventure Caravans). They wanted to know if we wanted to Wagonmaster the NW USA trip. WTF????

I thought we already had this conversation. As it turned out, the people that had been assigned as WM’s had to back out due to family problems. OK, why weren’t the assigned Tailgunners moved up? They were established Wagonmasters in their own right. (We didn’t ask. We thought about asking, but didn’t). After a day or two of deliberation, we accepted the challenge. It would be a harder trip since we hadn’t done it, but we have been to most of the places on previous excursions. Besides, we are professionals!

Now we have triple the work to do. The West Coast America (WCA) trip would be fairly easy. We have done it, but there are many changes. That equals 1¼ trips worth of work. The NW USA trip equals at least the remaining 1¾. We started getting things organized. After a few phone calls, we then re-organized what we had organized. We then re-re-organized after a few more phone calls. We were now afraid to answer the phone and let the answering machine pre-screen our calls. After a month or so, we thought we had a handle on both trips.

D-Day (Driving Day) was approaching. I was juggling rehab appointments (from two shoulder surgeries), fishing trips, a hunting trip and a visit to the vet to make Choka (Claudia’s kitten) into an “it” instead of a “he”. Choka was just five months old but he weighed 12 pounds. The doctor kept saying “That’s a BIG cat!”. Choka came through the surgery fine and we left five days later. First stop…Sam’s Town in Las Vegas. Despite her best efforts, Claudia dropped about $40 into the slots. I dropped $20 at the buffet, but got a great dinner for my money.

We drove to the Elk’s Lodge in Bountiful, UT for five nights before moving to the KOA in Salt Lake to start the trip. Six of the couples there had travelled with us before so we all had a great reunion and reminisced about old times. While in Salt Lake, we visited Temple Square, heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir , went to the Hoagle Zoo and had two ice cream socials at the RV park.

We moseyed out of Salt Lake after four days and headed north to Meridian, ID. The highlight of our stay was a guided tour of the Old Idaho Penitentiary. Our guide was the son of one of the guards who had worked there so he had personal knowledge of the goings- on and knew some of the prisoners that were once housed there. Great tour!

We then moved on to Pendleton, OR. Now, when I think of Pendleton, I think of great woolen shirts and blankets. We did, in fact, visit the Pendleton Woolen Mill. It was shut down for maintenance but that made the tour better. We could actually hear the guide. If the mill were running, we would have had to wear headsets with radios in them. After the mill tour, we headed for the Pendleton underground tour. I found out that a lot of the “ladies” that inhabited the area were seamstresses. The police kept raiding the “hotels” in the area and always found that the men in the rooms with the “seamstresses” had no pants on. The “ladies” seemed to always be hemming the men’s pants when the police arrived. They had an intricate alarm system to alert all the residents when outsiders were entering the premises. It gave the ladies just enough time to grab the men’s pants and start working on them. After the underground tour, we ate lunch at Crabby’s and headed for the Pendleton Roundup building for a self-guided tour of rodeo memorabilia.

On our second day, we visited the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute. That’s OK. I can’t pronounce it either! It was a big building of injun stuff. The displays were really professional and nicely done.

Our next stop was the Peach Beach RV Park in Maryhill, WA. This park was at a beach, a rocky one albeit, but still a beach and had an extra-large, double-huge peach orchard adjacent to it, hence the name, “Peach Beach”. We visited the Goldendale Observatory,

a replica of the Stonehenge Memorial and the Maryhill Winery for a little tasting party. We visited the orchard and bought about forty pounds of nice ripe peaches and I prepared a delicious peach cobbler in my largest Dutch oven, a-la cowboy style!

After two days in Maryhill, we moved on to Cascade Locks, OR, stopping enroute for a ride on the Mt. Hood Railroad. One our second day, we climbed aboard the “Columbia Gorge”,

a true old sternwheel riverboat for an all-day tour that took us through a 60-foot lift lock twice. We went downriver as far as Multnomah Falls before turning around to return to the dock. There was a bunch of spectacular scenery, some very pretty scenery and some just plain pretty scenery. It was all eye candy! We saw eagles, osprey’s, seagulls (rats with wings) and swallows. Fun day!

On our third day here, we visited the Bonneyville Hatchery and Dam. Our dam tour, not “damn tour”, was really interesting. Our tour guide was a ranger by the name of Claudia, not my Claudia, another Claudia. She wasn’t as cute as mine but she did give an outstanding tour. We got to go right inside the power generating portion of the dam and visited the fish ladders and the salmon-counting station, manned, or in this case “womaned”, by two college co-ed volunteers. They had to hold me back when I saw the size of some of the fish going through the counting window.

We pulled out the next day and headed for Castle Rock, WA, the home of Mt. St. Helens. Now, I would give y’all a detailed description of how much the flora and fauna has improved and prospered since our last trip here except for one little thing. It seems that Claudia took our car over to the Visitor Center about five miles from the park to pay our entrance fees. When she returned to the car, the “giddiup” worked, the “whoa” worked but the “back up” went “neigh”. She put it in (forward) gear and limped back to the RV park. After several phone calls over two days, we made arrangements to leave the car at the park and pick it up after this trip is over. We will pick it on September 13^th and drag it to Tillamook to a tow yard. They are going to pull the transmission, take it to Portland to be rebuilt and then put it back in, all before the 22^nd when we leave for Newport, OR…or so they say! We shall see. The rest of the group went on the 99-mile round trip drive to see Mount St. Helens.

After Castle Rock, we again headed north and stopped in Kent, WA at the Seattle South KOA. We toured Pikes Market and saw the “Flying Fish”

where the fish mongers throw the salmon from the ice-filled display cases to the guys behind the counter where they are caught right out of the air and prepared for sale or shipment. It’s quite a show! We also toured the Space Needle, the Boeing factory and the Museum of Flight. The Boeing tour and Museum of Flight ranked high on my “Whoopi-O-Meter” but barely lifted the pointer on Claudia’s. Oh well! On our free day, most of the group boarded a tour boat and headed for Blake Island where we went to a First Nation salmon luncheon and show. It was a great lunch. The salmon were prepared by staking them out on cedar stakes and staking them around an alderwood fire,

cooking them for precisely 45 minutes on the fleshy side and an additional 15 on the skin side. They were de-freakin-licious!

Our next stop was Canada! Welcome to Burnaby! We did a bus tour of Vancouver and threw a Welcome to Canada party for the guests. We then went to Langdale via our first ferry crossing and then Powell River where we did a hatchery tour and a luncheon cruise. After Powell River, we headed for Qualicum Bay to visit a scallop farm and then on to Chemainus where we did a tour of the murals that were painted all over the town. We toured by horse-drawn trolley and I soon remembered that I have recently become allergic to horses. I was sitting in the front seat and could soon barely see. My eyes were red, watering, hurting, mostly closed and I was miserable. The first thing I did after the trip was to head for a washroom and soak my eyes with lots of cold water. I soon returned to a near-normal state.

After Chemainus, we headed down the island to Victoria, where we are right now, and settled into an outstanding RV park right on the water. We have float planes coming right over us to land on the water, cute little water taxi’s

putting all over like little tiny toy boats and flocks of Canadian geese honking right over us. They are flying so low you couldn’t shoot them. There wouldn’t even be enough left of one for a sandwich if you hit one square. There are also many “float homes” here.

These are two and three-story houses built on concrete floats or barges like in “Sleepless in Seattle”. I could live in one! We did an open air bus tour of Victoria, went to the Empress for High Tea, visited the Parliament building and finished off by visiting Butchart Gardens.

Tomorrow, we return to the USA.

That’s it! Now you are all caught up. As you probably noticed, I started paraphrasing toward the end of this musing. Sorry!

High School Graduation – California style!

2011-06-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

After getting home from Texas with Kyndi in tow, we settled in for “Round Two” of the high school graduation festivities. It was still a secret that the Texas cousins would be here for Brooke’s party and her graduation. On Wednesday morning, Claudia headed for Lakeside to pick up the animals while Kyndi and I went to the shooting range in Escondido to shoot pistols, a varmint rifle and two black powder rifles.

First up were the pistols. Kyndi didn’t particularly like them because they were hard to aim. While we were shooting, the local resident red-tailed hawk flew down and sat on the fence to watch what we were doing. I think it was hoping we might accidentally hit a gopher or ground squirrel and he/she could swoop in for an easy meal. Although a few of Kyndi’s shots missed the target, none hit any of the local varmints or critters and Ms. Hawk flew off with an empty stomach. We then switched to the rifle range.

First rifle out of the case was my new varmint rifle, a Remington 788 bolt-action in .222 caliber, which is a 22-caliber bullet pushed with a LOT of powder. This isn’t a 22-caliber “plinker”. It’s a very serious rifle. Anyway, I set up a target at 50 yards, Kyndi peered through the 9-power scope and torched off 10 rounds. The resulting pattern measured under 2”, an excellent group for her first time shooting a rifle. She thought the rifle was “nice”.

I then broke out the 50-caliber black powder hunting rifle. Although I only poured a half-load down the barrel, Kyndi proclaimed it to be a “mean” rifle, due to the kick when it went off. Two rounds were enough of that one!

I then broke out the 45-caliber Hawken black powder rifle the she immediately dubbed the “cute” rifle. This time I only poured a quarter-charge down the barrel. She put about eight bullets into the target this time and we then packed up and headed for the campground for a picnic lunch that Grandma had fixed for us.

The following day, Claudia, Kyndi and I headed into La Jolla for a tour of La Jolla on Segway’s, an electric-powered HPV (Human Propulsion Vehicle).

Kyndi liked the tour but was more impressed with her instructor and tour guide, Dimitri.

Jacque, Jeff and Rachael flew in the next day and, as far as we knew, the surprise was still intact. Brooke didn’t have a clue they were in town. We picked up the motorhome on Saturday, brought it home and loaded all the food, decorations and party supplies.

Sunday morning…”Party Day”. I took “Godzilla” down to the Cardiff Seaside State Beach parking lot about 7:00 am in order to get one of our pre-scoped out spots.

We had three spots picked out for the party. Two had already been taken by surfers but I grabbed our second choice spot, right next to the sand and rocks and started setting up the rig for the party. Jeff soon arrived with more supplies and we finished setting up as best we could without adult female supervision. Claudia, Jacque and the girls soon arrived followed shortly by Alisa, Corey and Erron. Brooke and Alan (Brooke’s boyfriend) were trailing by about 30 minutes, having been sent on an ice run, which delayed them just enough to set up the surprise meeting when she got there.

All was in place with the Texas family all hiding inside the motorhome. Brooke arrived

and we soon sent her inside on the pretense of getting Gizmo. All I heard was a huge “SURPRISE!!!!!!” from inside the coach.

She was! After all the squeals and hugs subsided, we commenced to party! Jeff, Corey and I began cooking the carne asada, pollo asada, brats boiled in beer and hamburgers that weren’t hamburgers.

Claudia had gone to the store and found a big chunk of London Broil on sale so she had that ground up for “steakburgers”.

Shortly after noon, people started arriving and we soon had out section of the parking lot full of chairs and people.

The food flowed and the conversations dwindled…at least for about 2-3 plateloads of food. Some lifeguards drove by and were waved in by Claudia (and Kyndi) and soon joined the food line.

Kyndi made sure they were made welcome! Jeff, you are going to have to watch her!

I grabbed all the under-18 kids and we soon had a game of Beanbag Baseball going. It was no contest. The boys hammered the girls 8-0. It was then cake time and Alisa brought out a huge Flower Power cake.

We did a pretty good job of destroying it but did manage to have a little left over to take home.

Brooke scored pretty well on graduation gifts

and we all packed up to go home. It was a great party…California Style!

Wednesday, June 15^th…the fateful day! Brooke graduated!

After the ceremony, our little graduate

was crushed by family

all wishing her well and posing for pictures.

The day was wonderful. We finished in style and ended two weeks of non-stop partying.

High School Graduation - Texas style!

2011-06-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

On June 2^nd, Claudia and I walked across the street at 7:45 in the morning and boarded the Coaster, our local commuter train. After a 45 minute trip to downtown San Diego, we transferred to the city bus for the short trip to Lindberg Field. The entire trip took one hour and five minutes and lightened my wallet by $7.70…for BOTH of us! Nice! We soon boarded a Southwest Airlines plane and arrived in Houston after a nondescript three hour flight. Jeff, our son-in-law, met us and brought us to our temporary home in League City…in 100-degree heat and 85% humidity. We were soon joined by daughter Jacque, granddaughters Rachael and Kyndallyn and their dog, Marley. The two cats remained aloof and out of sight. We unpacked and, at Kyndallyn’s incessant urging, jumped into the Expedition for a trip to a great Greek restaurant.

Day 2 started out with trips to various and sundry stores for graduation party supplies and other necessary “stuff”. The girls went in one direction and Jeff and I in another. Jeff and I got a propane tank filled and then checked to make sure the “guests of honor”, about 70 pounds of mudbugs (crawdads or crayfish to you heathens) would be ready for the party. After being assured that they would be ready for us in the morning, we headed home to drop off our supplies. Jeff needed a second propane burner so we headed for my second most favorite outdoors store, Academy Sports. Jeff got his burner and I picked up a rifle case for my latest acquisition, a Remington 788 in .222 caliber, which is a varmint rifle, for the rest of you uninformed heathens. I also got a sling and bipod for the rifle and danced out of the store. Happy was I! We then returned home to find that the girls had also scored on clothes and supplies. We went to bed early.

Day 3 was “Prep Day” as we got ready for Rachael’s graduation at 7:30 that night and the party on Saturday. The party was a dual graduation party for Rachael and her best friend, Kylee. Rachael opened her graduation present, a new Toshiba laptop

and we all got cleaned up for the evening’s festivities.

We were perched in the nosebleed section of the Clear Creek High School bleachers and had a great view of the festivities.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and we soon welcomed a new graduate.

Rachael earned a Certified Nursing Assistant license in addition to her high school diploma and will soon be heading to one of three nursing schools that are still on her short list of “Rachael-approved” institutes of higher learning.

Day 4 – “Party Day” – Jeff, I and John Sikora headed for Alan’s Seafood Market,

picked up two bags of “bugs”

and returned to the house to let them play in a salt water solution to purge any impurities from their bodies. As the girls prepared the food in the kitchen,

Jeff, John and I started getting the cooking area ready

and the cooking process going. The seasonings were readied

and the bugs loaded into the cookers.

The end result was visually and aromatically magnificent.

The dinner was loaded into an ice chest and the feast began. Crawdads, corn, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, onions and mushrooms were loaded into the finest redneck plates available (cardboard beer case trays).

In addition to the aforementioned goodies, Kylee's father, Kelly, provided three of THE BEST smoked briskets I have ever eaten.

They were amazing, at least a “15” on a 10-point scale! He also had a pot of baked beans seasoned with the same rub that was on the briskets. Delicious! He gets the seasoning from a professional redneck barbecue chef friend of his and has absolutely no idea what’s in it. The chef competes on a barbecue team and it’s their very special secret rub. The recipe is definitely NOT available. Damn! Everyone got their fill…and then some!

One guest did double-duty

as she sat at the edge of the pool. The party was magnificent and a complete success. It was a tribute to the proper way to host a redneck barbecue. We cleaned up and went to bed.

The next day, John left for Sacramento, Jacque and Jeff went to work, Claudia and I just “chilled” with Rachael and Kyndi, did laundry and got ready to leave for home the next day. I was wondering how my new carry-on bag (the rifle case) would excite the TSA folks at the airport. As it turned out, I only was stopped two additional times for a couple of quick questions about the contents. The TSA was quickly satisfied and our trip home was without further incident.

We caught the city bus at the airport and ran for our Coaster connection back to Encinitas. We made it with 30 seconds to spare. The conductor wouldn’t even let me buy tickets, telling me to buy them when I got off the train. I did!

Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-11-11T19:27:00.000-08:00

This musing starts back somewhere around 1985 when some undesirable scumbag broke into our garage and stole all my hunting equipment, including two bows I really loved. After that episode, I stopped hunting.

Now…fast forward to somewhere around the early 2000’s. Somewhere, somehow and in some way, I came into possession of two Kentucky percussion muzzleloaders, similar to what Daniel Boone used to slay a “bar”. You’ve seen them in movies about the Civil War. Stand the rifle upright, pour black powder down the barrel, insert a bullet (usually a round lead ball) and shove it down the barrel with your ramrod. Then you either pour powder in a “pan” for flintlocks or place a primer cap on the nipple in the case of a percussion rifle.

Anyway, I now had two identical rifles to play with. I took them to the shooting range many times to have fun punching holes in paper targets. After a while, primal urges began to stir inside my body and I started watching the Pursuit Channel and Outdoor TV every chance I got, which was every time Claudia wasn’t home and I didn’t have anything solid to do. I started hunting vicariously through television shows.

May 28, 2009 was a special day for me…my 70th birthday! After much research and very little thought, I asked for gift cards to Cabella’s to buy a brand new, highly recommended Thompson Center Omega 50 caliber muzzleloader. Everyone came through and I soon had my rifle. I started collecting all the “stuff” one needs when one shoots this type of weapon and soon filled a 5-gallon bucket and a fishing tackle box. Let the fun begin!

I spent a lot of time going to the shooting range out in El Cajon. It seems that only a VERY few ranges allow black powder shooting. First of all, most shoot pure lead bullets…read “TOXIC”. Secondly, they shoot black powder. When the gun goes off, there is a huge white smoke cloud that pours out of the front end of the gun. Al Gore would not approve. After several sessions at the range, I had worked up loads for several different bullets in case I ever actually got to go hunt for something. I had loads worked up for ground squirrels to elk and everything in between.

I had several conversations with Jeff, my Texas-based son-in-law, about hunting hogs. REAL hunters refer to this as a “hog hunt”. “Hogs” sounds fiercer than “pigs”, which are barnyard animals, not fierce wild animals with huge razor-sharp tusks that will rip you apart if they charge you.

Sometime around the middle of 2010, we started talking in earnest about me flying to Texas for a hunt. Around September or October, I got a great price on an air flight to Texas and started planning. Unfortunately, Jeff was having problems at work that required his full attention so the hog hunt was off, at least for now.

I happened to be playing on my computer one day (so what’s new?) and hit on a website about hunting hogs at Camp Roberts, an Army National Guard base north of Paso Robles. They were offering a “pigs only” hunt in November and I started planning for that one. I called my shooting buddies to see if they wanted to go. One said “yes” and the other was “no”. “Yes” and I were going to go up in the motorhome and stay in the RV park on the base for $10 a night for FULL HOOKUPS! We were going up on Thursday, scout on Friday and hunt Saturday and Sunday. Deal done…right? Nope! “Yes” turned to “No” due to a schedule conflict. Rats! Oh well, I would go alone. Claudia then decided that I would NOT go alone. I re-thought my position and decided not to go.

Claudia then suggested a guided hunt instead, since this would be my first hunt in a long time and my first-ever hog hunt. I scoured the Internet again and found a guide up in San Miguel, just south of Camp Roberts. His bio sounded good and I made the call. Everything was fine until he said that his minimum hunt was for two hunters. I had only me! I asked if he ever got singles that wanted to hunt. His answer was that it was strange I should ask. He had another single asking the same thing just last night and asked me if he could give the other hunter my name and phone number. I said “sure” and we hung up. Five minutes later, the phone rang.

Now this gets interesting, so pay attention. The other hunter’s name was also Jerry. He, like me, was a retired cop. He was 75. I am 71. He shoots a muzzleloader and so do I, although on this hunt, he was going to shoot a 30-06, a “normal” hunting rifle. We hit it off and decided to book a hunt. I booked it the following morning. We decided on November 1-3 for the dates.

Now, San Miguel is up in “condor country”. Kalofornica has decreed that hunters must use non-lead bullets when hunting within the condor range. This is to keep condors from getting sick from eating lead bullets that might be found in the gut pile of a freshly field-dressed animal. Now, there has NEVER been ANY documentation of this happening BUT, on the teenie weeniest, micro-miniscule possibility of this happening, the law was passed and is now in effect. This meant that I had to go back to the range for more shooting to work up a load for a non-lead bullet. Oh darn! After a bit of research, I settled on the Barnes Expander MZ bullet, an all-copper hollow point expanding bullet. I ordered some and was soon back at the range. My best pattern was shot using 100 grains of powder, about two tablespoons of the black stuff.

I was ready to go! Sleep was not coming easy!

On October 31st, I packed up the truck and drove to Jerry’s house in Santa Clarita to spend the night. He and his wife, Annabelle, welcomed me with coffee and a slice of cherry pie. We talked, reminisced, told hunting and cop stories and finally went to bed around nine. I actually slept pretty well that night, despite being totally wired.

The next morning, November 1st, Jerry (the other Jerry) and I headed for San Miguel. After a three-something-hour drive, we pulled into the hunting cabin, our home for the next three days. Bert Claassen, our guide and outfitter, met us at the cabin and got us all settled in.

The cabin has one main room with a sofa, dining table, chairs and kitchen. Two bedrooms with a bathroom between are behind the main room. It was quaint and comfortable. We had a few hours to kill before the evening hunt so we took out Jerry’s 22 rifle and proceeded to kill a couple of ground squirrels and scare many more.

At 5:00 pm, Bert showed up in his Jeep and we took off to a vantage point atop a hill to watch the alfalfa fields where the hogs had been rooting. We saw a bunch of fresh rooting spots and several deer, but no hogs. When it was too dark to shoot, we came back to the cabin for the night.

The next day, we got up at the ungodly hour of four-thirty, had breakfast and got ready for the “morning hunt”. Bert picked us up at 5:30 and we went to a riverbed to sit and watch. Again, nothing showed up. After a while, we got into the Jeep and started to slowly drive the roads on the ranch. We saw more fresh rooting and more deer, including several bucks, but no hogs. We returned to the cabin for lunch, a nap and more squirrel target practice. At 5:00 pm, we set out again. This time, I sat on a riverbed by the alfalfa fields and Bert took Jerry (the other Jerry) to a hill to glass for hogs. I was leaning against a live oak tree at the top of the bank above the creek. It was beautiful! I spent the time texting the grandkids and listening to a couple of hoot owls making music. Beautiful and peaceful, but no hogs…again!

The next morning, Wednesday, our final day, we headed back to the creek bottom. Bert did a bunch of glassing and walking the edges of the alfalfa. Again, no luck. Bert had seen two sows way up in the oaks, but they had a bunch of small piglets with them so they were off-limits. We hopped in the jeep and started a slow cruise. About 8:45, we slowly rounded a bend and spotted a huge hog lying against a tree, sound asleep.

Jerry (the other Jerry) and I had previously agreed that I would shoot (at) any hog that was less than 75 yards and he, shooting a 30-06 on this hunt, would take any shot over 75 yards. Bert quickly stopped the Jeep and looked through the rangefinder. 59 yards! My shot! I sat up on the rear seat and laid the rifle over the padded roll bar. I settled the crosshair of the scope right behind the shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle roared and the pig was obliterated with a cloud of white smoke. As the smoke cleared, I saw the pig start running to the left and stumble badly…a good sign. He made a right turn and started up the hill…a bad sign. He then turned right and took off along the side of the hill at a pretty good clip. Bert yelled to “Hang on” and gunned the Jeep. We flew down the road a couple of hundred feet and saw the pig. Bert slammed on the brakes, grabbed his rifle and snapped off a quick shot. The pig disappeared in the trees, still running. I was sick at the prospect of possibly missing the shot or losing the pig altogether.

We drove another hundred yards or so and stopped. There was nothing in sight. I was sicker! After a few minutes of glassing, Bert announced that he “might” see the pig. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like a pig lying against a tree up on the hill.

I looked through my riflescope. It looked like a pig to me too, but I thought it was wishful thinking on my part. Bert said we could drive to a spot above what we thought was the pig and come in from above.

Jerry (the other Jerry) took off walking to continue hunting and Bert and I took off in the Jeep. After a while, we came to the top of a hill and got out. Now we walked! Down a hundred yards, over a barbed wire fence and on another 50 yards. We saw a dark blob. I couldn’t make it out. Bert picked up a couple of rocks and chucked them at the blob. Nothing. Bert moved forward, pistol in hand. I walked forward, rifle at the ready. Then I saw it. It WAS the hog…and it was freakin’ HUGE! After we kicked it to make damn sure it was dead, Bert told me that this was one VERY nice hog that would easily go 250 pounds.

We rolled the hog to the bottom of the hill and I stayed with it while Bert went back to the cabin to get some rope and a pulley. When he got back, we tied the pulley to a fence post and ran the rope through it and down to the hog. Bert then used the Jeep to pull the hog right up to the road. It was really slick!

We loaded the hog onto a rack on the rear of the Jeep and headed off to pick up Jerry (the other Jerry). We found him sleeping under a tree.

We hunted on the way back to the cabin without any luck. Bert strung the hog up,

gutted it, skinned it and cut it up into quarters using a boning knife and a Sawzall, a sort of electric hacksaw. My shot had been perfect…right behind the left shoulder. The bullet went totally through the pig, exited on the other side and took out both lungs in the process. At least there was a hole on the far side, but we found the bullet inside the hide during skinning. The bullet had opened perfectly!

We put the meat in three ice chests and stuck them in the chiller while Jerry (the other Jerry) and I packed up to head for home.

We left at 1:00 and headed into town for ice, a hamburger, milk shake and some gas. We arrived at Jerry’s house (the other Jerry) around 5:00 pm, unloaded his stuff, grabbed a cup of coffee and I headed for home, arriving about 8:30. I unloaded just what had to be unloaded and headed for the shower. It had been a long, hard, very enjoyable day!

The next day, Claudia and I took the meat up to Tip Top Meats for processing. It will take about a week to do. We ordered two hams to be cured and smoked, two shoulder roasts, 1” pork chops, ribs, soup bones and the rest made into breakfast sausage with the heat at about a “7”. The next two days were spent washing the hunting gear, cleaning guns and putting all the gear back into its proper place. One of the hams will be the “guest of honor” for Thanksgiving this year.

Epliogue

2010-08-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

You remember that old saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”? I have a new one, “If you thought things were set in stone, it was probably plaster”.

Claudia, Gizmo and I are now home. I know, I know! Forget what I said in my last blog. At the time I wrote it, it was correct. We were scheduled to leave on a seven-dayer on Sunday, followed by seven days off. Well…our volunteers cancelled out on us late Friday night. We tried to get replacements but were unsuccessful. The trip was cancelled.

Rather than have us sit in Bullfrog, twiddling our thumbs for two weeks, our replacements graciously agreed to come to work a few days early and run Trip #17 for us and then take the TT down to Wahweap where they were scheduled to take over. That cut us free to come home. We spent Saturday cleaning out the TT and getting the Eliminator back into the water after its overhaul.

We left Sunday morning and made Las Vegas after about a nine-hour drive. Luckily, Bass Pro Shops was still open and I managed a one-hour shopping spree. Claudia went next door and did a one-hour gambling spree. She lost $19 and I spent $17. She had fun and I got some bullets I needed. We both won!

The next morning at O-Dark-Thirty, I got up to use the bathroom. When I got back into bed, she casually asked if I were awake. “No, I always pee in my sleep. Why?” “Well”, was the reply, “it’s almost six and it’s a good time to get out of Las Vegas”. “OK”. I got out of bed, got dressed and walked the mutt. I thought it looked awfully dark for 6:00 am and checked my watch. It was 4:45 am. Claudia hadn’t changed her clock. Rather than an early start, we got a VERY early start.

That early start got us home just before noon. We unpacked the rig (mostly) and got cleaned up to go out to dinner with Claudia’s lawyer and her husband after they did some quick work on her father’s trust. I am now falling asleep at the keyboard and Claudia is asleep in the bedroom in the midst of unpacking her clothes. We will sleep in to noon tomorrow.

By the power vested in me by the powers unknown, I now pronounce this year’s Lake Powell blog complete. It was fun. I hope y’all enjoyed following along as well. Goodbye from Claudia, Gizmo and me.

Trip #15

2010-08-23T21:56:00.001-07:00

Time’s a-gittin’ short! Trip #15 is in the bag! Two more to go…one seven-dayer and a fiver! Last week’s day’s off were a constant running around to fix the Eliminator. After I was told it was fixed, it wasn’t. The rectifier (a little black box that mysteriously does something with the electricity generated by the motor when it’s running and sends it to the battery to keep it charged so it doesn’t crap out like it did last week) that the mechanic put on was the wrong one and no amount of coaxing would change that. Now, if the Eliminator was down, so was the trip. We flat can’t do the job without it…period, exclamation mark and end quotes. After some serious soul-searching and deep thinking, he (the mechanic) remembered another XR6 Mercury motor “somewhere” in the boneyard.

Now, the “boneyard” is a high-security, fenced –in area with barbed wire adorning the top of the fence. Inside the “boneyard” are some customer’s houseboats and the remnants of old, decrepit, dying hulls of well-used and long forgotten rental boats awaiting their final demise, whatever that may wind up being. The gate to this high-security area is never closed. So much for security! Anyway, in this area, somewhere, in a pile of boat hulls, seats, trailers, and various and sundry boat parts was a Mercury XR6 and we needed to find it. It was the only XR6 on the lake, or within 3,214 miles for that matter. On this lonely black machine were, hopefully, two (probably) well-used rectifiers. Now, a rectifier is like being a little bit pregnant. It is or it isn’t! It works or it doesn’t! There ain’t no “maybe”. So, new or used, they work or they don’t…period! He was working on his day off and said he would go to the boneyard during his lunch hour and get the rectifiers.

Claudia and I went down to the boat about 1:00 and another mechanic handed me two used rectifiers. I picked one, clipped the four leads together and started the engine. It started! It ran! OK so far! I shut the engine down and got my electrical meter to check the voltages. I first checked the battery voltage. Hmmn…12.4 volts! OK, that’s fine. Now, start the engine. Check the battery. It read 12.7 (or thereabouts)! Hooray! It’s working! The battery is being charged! I shut it down and started to bolt it to the engine. There is an old saying when working around boats. It goes something like “When you are working around a boat, have extra parts available to drop in the bilge”. Well, I was working over the open lake and dropped the mounting bracket into the lake. That was it. No spare…except at the boneyard…maybe.

I drove to the boneyard and checked in at the office. I informed them I needed to look for the motor. I had no idea where it was, but I needed to find it. The world depended on it. I was given a green light. I drove to the area where the rotting boat hulls lay…the spot where Claudia and I scavenged the current seats for the runabout. As I turned the corner to the pile of rotting hulls, something black registered in the peripheral vision of my right eye. I stopped and looked. It was an engine, a Mercury engine. This was not earth-shaking, as we only use Merc’s here at the lake. OK, put the car in “PARK” and walk back to check. I closed the distance and saw the very beautiful “XR6” label on the cowling. What are the odds? The very first motor I come to was the one I was looking for. Things were lookin’ up! I found the spare brackets on the rear seat, grabbed them and returned to the Eliminator. This time I held the bracket very tightly as I installed the two bolts that held it. One last voltage check confirmed it was still working. I proclaimed it fixed and replaced the cowl. Done! Trip #15 is now a “GO”!

On Thursday afternoon, Claudia, Gizmo and I moved all three boats around to the Boat Rental dock in preparation for the arrival of the volunteers on Friday morning. After we secured the boats and did a few last-minute chores, we headed for the EDR (Employees Dining Room…remember?) for a delicious shrimp dinner. After dinner, we returned to the rig for an evening of television. We went to bed early to await an early wake-up. We try to get to the parking lot before 7:30 in order to get a parking spot close to the boat.

The alarm went off at 6:30 and we struggled out of bed. We got dressed, walked the dog and headed for the dock, skipping breakfast for the moment. There were no parking spots open. How could that be? Crap! OK…unload the car and drive to the upper overflow lot to park the car. Then walk the over quarter-mile back to the boat. As luck(?) would have it, there was an empty parking space right next to the dock when I got there. And the car was where? Oh yeah, today is Friday the 13th and it’s starting out that way. Great! We fired up the coffee pot, ate a quick breakfast of mini-wheat squares, got the ice chests loaded with block and cubed ice and awaited the arrival of the volunteers.

Our volunteers arrived around 9:30. We got them all settled and went through the welcome and safety briefings. When all was ready and the Social Director woofed his approval,

we cast off and headed uplake for Cedar Canyon.

The weather forecast for the week was for clear skies, high temperatures and a slight chance of afternoon showers and thundershowers later in the week. I can live with that!

We chugged uplake and turned into Cedar later on in the afternoon. The first few good spots were taken by jet skiers, small boats and campers. We continued on, deeper into the canyon. After some searching in the runabout, Claudia found a suitable spot and I nuzzled the boat against the bank. We set out our mooring lines and declared that we were now secured for the duration. We cleaned the immediate area of fireworks and other debris

and went for a swim. Dinner that night was prepared by Larry and was an almost duplicate of my favorite meal, Claudia’s “Hot Stuff”. The only difference was adding cream cheese to the chicken, chili, mayo mixture instead of sour cream. He made three versions of the dish, all of varying heat, which we promptly dubbed “Stuff”, “Medium Stuff” and “Hot Stuff”. The night was beautiful and was punctuated by two satellites, several meteors and numerous bats.

Day Two was a full day of Trash Tracking Cedar Canyon and Forgotten Canyon. We took a short break in Forgotten so the volunteers could hike up to the Defiance House ruins. Dinner that night was some deliciously marinated steaks and a vegetable-potato medley cooked in foil on the barbie. We “top-decked” it after dinner for a better view of the evening sky. The bats and meteors again dominated the evening.

On Day Three, we moved the boat down to the outer cove of Halls Creek Bay. After securing the boat to a moderate-sized rock and a tamarisk tree, we headed down the bay and worked until 5:30 before quitting for the night. We returned for a spaghetti dinner, punctuated by some far-away lightning and some not so far-away lightning, thunder and light rain.

Day Four! Ah yes, Day Four. The day started out under sunny skies, warm and humid. We finished the rest of Halls Creek Bay before noon and returned for lunch. The skies to the northwest were starting to darken. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction. The four volunteers and I jumped into the runabout to go exploring. We first headed for Lost Eden Canyon and my favorite slot canyon. There was a boat there so we had to wait about 20 minutes before I could slide the runabout into the (very) narrow entrance.

The volunteers couldn’t believe I was going to get the boat in there. I love a challenge! I got it in and they jumped out and scampered into the slot. After 20 minutes and a gazillion pictures, they returned and we left. As we entered the main channel, I looked to the north. The skies to the northwest were a little darker than before. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction.

I headed downlake toward some Moki steps

and Annies Canyon where we went for a swim in the large ampitheater. After the swim, we completed cruising Annies and ended at another slot canyon. We then again returned to the main channel. I looked to the north once more. The skies to the northwest were very much darker than before. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction.

I thought that it might be prudent to cut the sightseeing trip short and head for home, but there were only two things left to see and they were very close. I pointed the boat downlake for the third time and shortly came to Annies Arch and then went across the channel to Alice J arch. After seeing the Alice J, we headed uplake to return to the TT. As we entered the main channel, I looked to the north. The skies to the northwest were now VERY dark. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction. I hammered the throttle, just in case.

We got to the 90-mile channel marker, just five miles short of home, when it hit. The water went from only slightly rough to pure snot in a nanosecond. I had to back off from full-tilt boogie to a crawl immediately. Tom and Kathy, who were riding in the front seats, immediately dove to the back and we closed the center section of the windshield. It started to rain and then absolutely poured. I have NEVER seen it rain so hard in my life. Actually, it was a combination of rain and hail and it HURT when I dared to stick my head above the windshield to make sure we were still near the center of the channel. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the amount of rain was in the 5-8 inches per hour range. It was an extra-large, double-huge amount of precip…a true toad-choker, Charlie Brown! We weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. There was no danger, but I just kept the boat moving forward slowly in the center of the channel and we ate it! After 20 minutes or so, the rain slacked off and we again headed uplake, stopping occasionally to gawk at the many waterfalls now streaming over the tops of the cliff. One actually sprung out from a hole in the side of the cliff. It was spectacular…and then some!

After a short ride, we got to the entrance of Halls Creek and I called Claudia on the radio to see how she had fared. She and Gizmo had experienced a complete white-out, worse than we had suffered out on the lake, except that they were inside a warm, cozy boat and we were outside in a cold, wet boat and were totally soaked to the bone. Reassured that Claudia and Giz were fine, we headed to Halls Landing for some root beer floats and ice.

The radio was crackling about a young female further down in Halls Creek that had a near miss by lightning and had lost feeling in her arms and hands. I later learned that four boats sustained serious damage and one had sunk. To be fair, the operator beached the boat in the storm and the swells kept crashing over the transom, filling the boat. It took a crane to retrieve it. That one was a total loss. The other four had $5K+ damage each. Several of the docks here and at Halls Crossing either separated or had their covered roofs fall. I’m glad we were on the edge of the storm and not right in the middle of it.

After slurping down the floats, we returned to the TT where I put out a second anchor as a precaution. Dinner was barbecued chicken, broiled red potatoes, salad and garlic bread. We all went to bed early. The bats were safely home in bed and we couldn’t see much of the sky anyway.

We cleaned up in the morning and headed for the dock. We pumped and washed the TT and then took the Eliminator to the ramp to unload trash.

After we returned to the main dock to unload the volunteers and their gear, I took the Eliminator back to the ramp to pull it from the water and take it to the boat shop, where the mechanics are going to give it a complete overhaul in the next few days. This, hopefully, will solve the engine problems we have been putting up with. I will know next Friday or Saturday when I put it back in the water. We leave next Sunday for a seven day trip up to Hite Marina, the northernmost spot on the lake, and DON’T need any problems that far away from home.

After the Hite trip, Claudia and I are bringing the motorhome back down to Wahweap (Page) on Monday. We will fly back up to Bullfrog on Thursday and stay on the TT until Sunday when we leave for our final trip of the year. When that trip ends on Thursday (the 9th), we will offload the boat as usual but, as soon as we’re finished offloading, we’ll head downlake for a two-day trip to Wahweap and the end of our contract. Our contract actually ends on the 14th, but we have to meet with the people that are taking over for us and go over some of the changes we have made on the boat. We will probably head for home on the 14th or 15th, stopping for one night in Las Vegas so I can deplete some of our savings by shopping at Bass Pro Shops. Unfortunately, BPS adjoins a casino and I’m sure that Claudia will also deplete our savings even further. She may even go into Gizmo’s share!

Trip #14 - The monsoons have struck!

2010-08-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

Trip #14 started on Wednesday, August 4th on an ominous note. The weather forecast for the week was for rain, more rain and still more rain. Everything from showers to major thunderstorms was in the playbook. All the dock workers were giving us their condolences for having to go out. Great! The monsoon season has arrived!

We loaded the boat with 18 blocks of ice and one bag of crushed and finished the final preparations for the arrival of our volunteers. This week, we have four ladies from Colorado. They are all Special Ed teachers/aides who take care of very developmentally handicapped high school graduates. We loaded the boat, received our welcome briefing from Gizmo and Christine, a new ranger with the N.P.S. We then slipped the dock lines and headed north into Bullfrog Bay, our target area for the week.

After a short cruise up the bay, we slid against the shore in a semi-protected small cove and set out three anchors, two right and one left. I later added two more for a total of five due to the approaching bad weather. We had a quick lunch and took off in the Eliminator to get to work. On one of our first stops, we found a shark and a turtle.

At 3:30, we were chased back to the Trash Tracker by an imminent large thunderstorm.

It hit with a vengeance an hour later. We just lashed everything down that was outside and hunkered down with all doors and windows closed and locked. I fired up the grill (it was under an awning) and we had a delicious dinner of buffalo burgers

from one of the volunteers family’s ranch. They were cooked “low and slow” and were extraordinary! Everyone went to bed somewhat early.

At 1:00 am, I was semi-awake due to the rolling thunder and lightning in close proximity. At 1:13, everyone on the boat was instantly jolted awake by a simultaneous lightning strike and thunder clap. The boat lit up like a hundred 1000-watt halogen lights were instantly turned on. Gizmo was at the foot of our bed, silhouetted against the window, looking out the window with his ears perked wide and high. The “clap” shook the boat! That took care of any sleep for a while.

Due to little sleep and rain in the morning, we got a slightly late start but did finish most of Bullfrog Bay. The only stretch left was the shoreline from the boat to the marina. That was scheduled for tomorrow, weather permitting. The evening’s dinner was chicken enchiladas that reminded us of home. I ate 2½! The ladies started out sleeping on the “sun” deck but were soon chased below by more rain.

We started out on Friday by heading back toward the marina. We found several water and mud-soaked mattresses.

Each weighed several hundred pounds and had to be cut into manageable-sized pieces by the reciprocating saw.

One had to be cut into 12 pieces in order to be picked up. We also found a submerged kayak that also took a bunch of manhandling to get on board. With all the bags of trash, four mattresses and the kayak, the Eliminator was getting pretty full.

After picking up the kayak, I tried to start the outboard. Oops! Dead battery. Crap! I called the office and asked them to send out a chase boat for a jump start. I also called to a volunteer across the small inlet, telling her we had a dead battery and to just stay put and that help was on the way. There was a houseboat nearby and they obviously heard me call to Thea as one of the occupants approached with a portable jump start machine. Hallelujah! I connected the jumper cables and fired off the engine. Profusely thanking the boater, I backed off the beach…just as Robin (from the Boat Shop) and a mechanic arrived. I backed next to their boat and told them I got a jump and the engine was now running. I then put the engine in gear…and it died! Robin handed me a battery but it had the wrong terminals. Due to both batteries configurations, I was able to invert the new battery (it was a new sealed type) and press the exposed terminals against the terminals of the dead battery and start the engine. I kept the new battery for any future jump starts and Robin left for the Boat Shop. Whoa! Hold it! Robin looked in the boat and saw the purple kayak. “What’s that?”, she asked. “Trash. We found it sunk over there” and I pointed to where the motor had died. We asked if she wanted it as we were just going to throw it away. She replied that the dock employees would love to have it to fix up. No problem! That helps us out by giving us more room in the boat and gives the dock employees a new toy. We transferred the kayak to her boat and, this time, she did leave. We later got many thanks from several dock employees. Score one for the Trash Tracker! P.R. is the name of the game!

I picked up Thea, dropped Claudia and two other volunteers off to clean the final stretch of beach to the marina and headed for Bullfrog to get the correct battery and find out what was wrong with the engine. When I arrived, I installed the proper battery and waited for a mechanic. I estimated the wait time would allow us to make it to the dock store for a soft-serve ice cream and return before the mechanic arrived. I was correct! The mechanic found the engine was not charging the battery because the rectifier had fried. Wonderful! I got a new rectifier from Robin to see if it was the correct one. It wasn’t! This is the story of my life! OK, we’ll get it sorted out on Monday and get the correct parts ordered. We then picked up Claudia and the volunteers and returned to the TT for lunch.

Gizmo greeted us in his usual lavish manner and we all set to making our lunches. After lunch, the ladies and I jumped into the runabout and headed for Stanton Creek to find some family members camping there. We couldn’t find them and headed for Bullfrog for fuel. Although there was an approaching storm, there was no wind and the water was smooth and glassy. We pulled up to the fuel dock and filled the runabout. As I capped the fuel tank, it hit! The wind went from nothing to about 40+ Mph in less than 15 seconds. It was instant chaos! I bailed out of the boat, ran inside to sign the fuel bill and sprinted back. In less than two minutes, we had three-foot waves inside the “protected” area of the marina. We untied and I backed the boat out from the dock. As I turned into the eye of the storm, we started taking water over the bow. I fast-idled out of the marina…screw the no-wake rule…and headed for the safety of the Trash Tracker. We got soaked! The water was coming over the bow, the port side and from the skies. The ladies were shrieking with delight. They were having a ball!

After a water-soaked, ten minute, E-ticket ride, we arrived at the TT and got inside. I never thought a hot shower would feel so good! It felt WONDERFUL! I again fired up the Barbie for a delicious steak dinner. If any of you were thinking that I was going to lose any weight this summer…forget it! After we chased a bat out of the main salon, the ladies went to bed for another night of semi-sleep.

Saturday was our “Play Day” for two reasons. One, it was designated as such by Claudia and me and, Two, the Eliminator was dead and we couldn’t work anyway. The skies were threatening and the weather report was calling for thunderstorms in the afternoon. I felt we could do a short sightseeing trip safely, so the ladies and I jumped into the runabout while Claudia and Gizmo stayed behind to make sure the TT stayed safe.

We first ran uplake to Forgotten Canyon and the Defiance House ruins. Next were the dinosaur tracks at Tapestry Wall. Following the tracks, we headed back downlake to Hansen Creek Canyon and the now-famous dead cow. After the appropriate amount of “oohing” and “awwing”, we returned to the main channel, passed Halls Crossing Marina, Halls Creek Bay and pulled into Lost Eden Canyon. We turned into the first right fork to see the swim cave, moved to the middle fork for a huge cavern and finally to the left fork for the piece de resistance, a spectacular slot canyon. Although the N.P.S. was constantly belting out warnings to stay out of slot canyons today, mostly further down the lake, I felt it was safe to enter at the moment, as no significant rain had reached anywhere near our area as yet…with a major emphasis on “as yet”. I squeezed the runabout down the VERY narrow channel to the end and nosed it against a rock. With a warning not to dawdle, the ladies jumped out and walked quickly to a pool at the end of a flat sandy area. They heeded my warning and soon returned, squealing with delight. It was the highlight of the trip! We returned under the beginnings of a light rain to a chicken fajita dinner. The food on this trip has been superb! Thank you ladies!

The evening bat score inside the TT was Bats-3, Ladies-3. To determine the winner of who was going to occupy the main salon for the evening, the girls called on me. Now, I like bats. Bats are cute(?) and fuzzy and eat bugs, which is a very good thing. However, after some encouragement, the ladies won and I ushered the bats out of the boat. They went to bed but, as I heard the next morning, the bats came back for a recount of the vote. Thea pulled the covers over her head, Jane screamed insults at them and Kelly slept through it all. Fearing drastic measures were forthcoming, the bats finally left and the ladies went back to sleep(?).

Sunday was bright, sunny and beautiful. Go figure! After a slow get-up, we started cleaning amidst a breakfast of whatever was left in the refrigerator. Claudia and I settled for orange juice, cold cereal and two cups of coffee. We then pulled all five anchors, side-tied the Eliminator and headed for the pump-out dock. Following the pump-out, we went straight to the main dock to offload the volunteers. The fuel status on the TT is well above ¾ so we didn’t need to fuel it. The other two boats are going to have to wait and see what the mechanics are able to do with the Eliminator. If they can’t get the charging system to work before the next trip, we will have to cancel it.

P.S. – I just heard from Dani at the Boat Shop. She “thinks” that Matt (the lead mechanic) got the rectifier installed and working. The connecting leads were not compatible so he had to do some sort of “mechanic magic” to get it to work. This rumor will be confirmed in the morning. The Eliminator is also scheduled to be pulled out of the water after our next trip (if it goes) for a complete (and very necessary) total tune-up and make-over. Cross your fingers, toes and eyes that all goes well and that we finally have a decent running engine on the Eliminator.

P.P.S. – I just heard from Matt. It’s working! The rectifier is plugged in and charging, but he didn’t have time to mount it permanently. I’ll go down in the morning with my socket set and secure it and a ground wire and it will be good to go. Things are lookin’ up!

P.P.P.S. – My camera is toast! I was walking back to the Eliminator after an especially nasty cleanup of a fire pit that involved the use of a shovel. During the walk back, the camera swung against the shovel and smacked it good. It bent the lens tube and popped the lens and all internal parts out onto the ground, some intact and some in multiple pieces. Luckily, Claudia has her camera (my old camera that was handed down to her) which will continue to digitally record the trip from now on. Claudia’s first remark to me after seeing the now-defunct camera was, “Oh good! Now I get what I want”. Let me stew on that one for a while. At least I was able to retrieve the pictures from the trip before it hit the trash can. Anyone have a suggestion for a new camera?

Trip #13 - Unlucky? Nope!

2010-07-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

Trip #13 started out with the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. What else would you expect? What could we do about it? Absolutely nothing, so we will proceed on and have fun.

The trip was scheduled for six volunteers, all ladies, instead of the usual four. One had to cancel, so we started out with five. We also ended with five…just the way I like it. I don’t like loose ends. The ladies brought their gear on board, plus a goodly amount of beer. Hmmm! This might be an interesting trip. We did have a few lively discussions on the merits of Coors Light versus other brands. Anyway, once they got their gear on board, we turned the Master of Ceremonies loose on them. Gizmo instantly won their hearts and all was well. The NPS ranger came on board, did her thing and we took off for Stanton Creek where RV’s dry camp at the edge of the lake. It’s always dirty and is in need of constant cleaning.

We motored down to Haystack Rock and pulled into a great little secluded spot.

After a quick lunch, we headed off in the Eliminator and started sweeping for trash. Trash we did find! More trash we did find! Still more trash did we find! We ran into an interesting new tactic. It seems that some jet skiers (“Lake Lice”) were bringing carpeting to the beach. The carpeting was used to protect the bottoms from being ground up by sand, rocks and the like. The only problem was that they just left the carpet when they were through and went home. Nice! Now, take a guess what a 12’ x 12’ wet and very muddy carpet weighs. Probably about as much as 40 to 50 Gizmo’s. We couldn’t lift it. I broke out my “toy”, the DeWalt reciprocating saw, and went to town. I cut that carpet into about six manageable pieces in no time flat. The Eliminator took on a definite starboard list. We finished up the immediate area, called it a day and went back to the TT for a well-deserved beer. I even had two, very unusual for me, but today, I needed them. Dinner was shrimp shish kabobs. Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.

Day Two started out with a weather report. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. Hmmm! Nothing new. OK, time for work. Off we go! We spent the full day cleaning the rest of Stanton Creek

and almost filled the right side of the Eliminator. It now had a very definite starboard list, even with all five volunteers standing or sitting on the left side of the boat. Since we still had a few hours of daylight left, we came back to the houseboat. We then headed off in the runabout for Annie’s Canyon, about ten miles downlake. We first stopped at a huge cavern for a swim and then checked out the beautiful slot canyon at the end of the main finger. We then returned to the TT for a beer, a mango margarita and tacos for dinner. YEAH! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.

We had a choice for Day Three. We could either move back into Bullfrog Bay and clean it, or, if the weather permitted, we could move downlake to “The Rincon” and clean that area. OK…listen to the weather report. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. Hmmm…nothing new…again! We haven’t had any rain as yet, with a major emphasis on “as yet”. We have had some VERY nasty-looking dark cumulus nasties (thunderclouds)

coming right at us but, at the last minute, they either dissipated or went around us. Since the girls really wanted to see more of the lake, they “convinced” me to move to The Rincon.

We pulled in the anchor lines and set off down the lake. As we left, Claudia and one volunteer went to Halls Crossing for more ice and other needed supplies. Since we didn’t want to lose them, I stopped the TT outside of Halls, right next to a nice striper boil. Since we weren’t going anywhere anyway, I grabbed my fishing rod and promptly put three nice stripers into a cooler. Shar, a VERY competitive person when it comes to fishing, got skunked. Basically, as she kept saying, I kicked her a**! Actually, there wasn’t anything basic about it, she got a lesson…and I let her know about it. I was NOT a gentleman. :) She is an expert fly fisherman, but this was lure-fishing. The only flies around were the varmint kind!

Claudia soon returned and we continued downlake. We found a nice spot just prior to The Rincon and set up for the duration. I set two anchor lines off the left side, the anticipated direction of any major wind, and one off the right. Again, after a quick lunch, we hit the shores under ominous skies. It was getting darker, with solid dark thunderclouds in a big semi-circle, coming directly for us. We moved with a purpose. That purpose would be to clean up The Rincon before the storm hit. If that happened, we would find ourselves out on the lake in an aluminum boat in a major lightning storm. Not a pretty thought! After a couple of hours of hard work, we completed cleaning the area as the storm just went away without so much as a “pffitt”! We returned to the TT where I noted the wind was coming from the right side. OK, OK, I put out a second anchor line on the right. We now had four lines out, two on each side, all around big boulders. Let it blow! We weren’t going anywhere. Dinner was barbecued chicken, cooked to perfection! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.

Day Four was our “Play Day”…for the most part. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a 50% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. WOW…a change in the weather report! The threat was now at 50%. GREAT! Trash Trackers never quit, so we all jumped into the runabout and headed for the Escalante Arm of the lake, armed with cameras, lunches, fishing rods, trash bags and pickers. A short distance down the lake, I spotted a striper boil. “Game on!” Shar and I both chucked a lure into the foaming water. I hooked up immediately. She pulled her lure through the boil unscathed. After a short, heavy pull, my fish decided he wanted my lure and the line snapped. Phooey, shucks, golly, gee whiz and darn! We continued on and pulled into the Escalante. We went into Indian Creek and then Clear Creek where the girls climbed the rocks

to the rope ladder at the “Cathedral in the Desert”. We then headed for Davis Gulch and LaGorce Arch for lunch. It was then time to return to the TT.

Shortly after returning, I shamed Shar into joining me in the runabout to get at least one more striper for dinner. We started trolling with no success or boils. The radio crackled with a “Mayday” call. I waited for the NPS to answer, but they didn’t. I called the person reporting and found out it was only a badly damaged prop. Since they were about five miles north of Halls Crossing, the Bullfrog rangers took over and handled the incident. At the same time, another boater was reporting a problem and the incidents got a little muddled. Both Claudia (in the Trash Tracker) and I (in the runabout) were relaying emergency information between the two boaters and the NPS.

With the first incident settled, I concentrated on the second. That turned out to be houseboat M-20, just uplake at Iceberg Canyon with a disabled engine. Shar and I reeled in our lines and headed for the disabled boat. We found it adrift at the Iceberg entrance and pulled alongside. I tied the runabout to the houseboat and climbed on board. I told them who we were and that we worked for Aramark and asked the details of their problem. I pulled the cover off the outboard, checked a few wires and went to the helm. The balky engine started, but then died. I started it again, but this time it continued to run. They were looking for a parking spot where the kids could swim so I pushed the throttles up and headed for The Rincon, checking the engine performance as we went.

The engine ran fine. I really have no idea what was wrong, but it was now working fine. I found a suitable spot to beach the houseboat and pulled it gently against the shoreline. I then set out two anchors for them and started to leave. Unfortunately, as their son cleated off the second anchor, he dropped the line and it wrapped in the still-turning prop. The son and I both donned life jackets and jumped into the lake, as the knot that now entwined the prop was not a one-person fix. After twenty minutes or so, we cleared the line with (surprisingly) no damage. At that point, Shar and I did say goodbye and headed for home.

Dinner that night was going to be either lasagna or stripers. When we came on board, Claudia had decided it would be fish. She had chunked the fillets into “fingers” and was preparing a deep-fry setup on the barbecue.

Dinner was a pot-luck of deep-fried stripers, salad (with a couple of delicious avocados and tomatoes in it), a shrimp salad and baked beans. It was magnificent! Sleep came easy,,,VERY easy.

Day Five, the day we return to civilization. There was the threat of showers and thundershowers in the morning, followed by a (back to) 40% chance of showers and thundershowers in the afternoon and evening. We got all four anchor lines in and were underway by 8:00. Although I was on full “Striper Alert” for the return trip, no boils materialized and we snuck into Bullfrog Bay at 11:30 under beautiful, sunny skies with magnificent, white cumulus clouds off in the distance. Since the pumpout dock was totally full and had boats waiting, Claudia took the Eliminator to the launch ramp to meet the NPS trash truck. She and three of the volunteers emptied the boat and returned to the now-docked Trash Tracker. They had unloaded 61 bags of trash and 1000-plus pounds of other assorted junk. You know the rest of the drill by now. Yada, yada, yada, and we finished out the trip.

On the way home, we stopped at the EDR to look at the menu. Fish & Chips it was. That solved the dinner problem. Claudia ain’t cookin’ tonight!
After dinner, we checked our Internet at the lodge and returned home. I am now sitting at my computer station, typing this blog as the lightning and thunder crash incessantly all around us. 360-degrees of fire in the sky! We FINALLY got our rain!

Trip #12 and a harrowing experience

2010-07-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Trip #12 was scheduled to go about 30 miles uplake to Ticaboo Canyon in Good Hope Bay. The Eliminator was running very rough due to bad coils and was scheduled to have been fixed on our days off. I went down to the boat early on Friday morning and found the boat exactly as we left it…broken. A quick run to the office got a mechanic working on it immediately. When we came down later to load and prep the Trash Tracker, it was fixed…RIGHT! I took it out for a trial run and found it was better, but not “fixed”. It now started fine and ran at full speed without dying, a vast improvement, but at a moderate speed, it was missing badly. It would run well enough for the trip so I attached it to the side of the TT and we finished loading the boat and moved it to the main dock.

All volunteers were returnees and well-seasoned Trash Trackers. Three were teachers and one was retired from the Air Force where he was an explosives expert. He might come in very handy during the trip on something too large for the Sawz-all to handle! (Just kidding Cody!) All were heavy-duty fishermen and were in search of the mighty striped bass. They came over by boat on Saturday morning and we loaded the Tracker. Our N.P.S. ranger came over for her welcome and safety speech and we cast off all lines about 9:00 am.

After a three to four-hour trip to Good Hope Bay,

we cut the runabout loose with Claudia and Dave to look for a good parking spot inside Ticaboo Canyon. There were several possibilities, but one looked better to me and we slid onto a nice soft mud beach and tied our stern lines to two very large boulders. Perfect!

We were now home for the next few days. The first thing to do was to clean the immediate area. After all, we must set a good example. Once the area was cleaned, we all heard some very familiar splashing near the boat. Tiffany grabbed her rod and was soon fighting a nice striper.

Just to show us it wasn’t an accident, she did it again. Dinner that night was a delicious beer-butt chicken dinner. For you uninitiated heathens, that is a rubbed chicken, perched on a shallow tube (by its butt…hence the name) filled with beer and other spices, and baked on the barbecue by Master Chef Dave. It wasn’t just good, it was magnificent!

The next day started out bright and early…well, bright anyway! We actually got started before 8:00 and headed out in the jerky, but functioning, Eliminator. Since we were near the famed “Striper City” area of the lake, we brought along some extra, very specialized, lake cleaning tools. We cleaned the left side of Ticaboo as we headed for the bay and then went straight across to the east side. We turned south toward the bottom of the bay when a striper boil materialized a few yards away. Everyone grabbed their own specialized lake cleaning tool and tried to remove some unwanted stripers from the lake.

I must stop at this point to give a short lesson on striped bass, particularly here in Lake Powell. The bass were introduced a few years ago for various reasons. One was to entertain fishermen and provide a tasty source of protein for their endeavors. The fish more than cooperated. There are now so many stripers in the lake that there is no limit on how many you may take. The only thing the powers to be ask is that, if you catch a striper, you don’t throw it back. Striped bass are not “catch and release” at Lake Powell.

Anyway, backtracking to my previous point of removing unwanted stripers from the lake, Tiffany once again put the others to shame and took two fish to the others “none”. The stripers sunk out (went away) and we continued on our appointed task of cleaning the lake (of trash, not trash fish). We got a healthy chunk of the bay done by early afternoon and headed back to the TT for a late lunch and a swim. After lunch, we cleaned a small area we couldn’t get to earlier

and called it a day. After a swim in the nearby newly-designated “spa” area,

we took the runabout out for a short fishing trip. I neglected to take daily notes so my fish report is a non-report. I think we got skunked, but I wouldn’t bet a fish fillet on it. Day Two dinner was a bevy of beautiful rib-eye steaks, masterfully cooked to perfection by Eric, accompanied by garlic-mashed potatoes and green beans.

Day Three started out with us heading to the end spot of the previous day’s work. During our travels, we found a really neat petrified wood stump,

a Moki Marble

and a memorial plaque to a Dr. Tim Allison.

We finished the rest of the bottom of Good Hope and returned to the boat. Since it was too late to move the TT down to Sevenmile Canyon, our next and final destination of the trip, we decide to go for a swim and go fishing. We cruised around a finally found a school of “foamers”, a feeding frenzy of stripers feeding on shad. Game on! Four lures hit the water. Tiffany (of course) and Andy, our VERY knowledgeable professor of Southwest Studies and history at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, both hooked up simultaneously.

Barber’s Rules of Fishing went into effect immediately. Barber’s Rules are as follows: First fish on board equals $1. Biggest fish is also worth $1. The person catching the most fish also gets $1. Since Tiff and Andy hooked up simultaneously, they split the dollar. Andy, by vast experience, or half-vast blind luck, took the biggest striper of the trip and a dollar.

Tiffany, with four stripers, took the “most fish” category and a dollar. Dave and Eric went down in flames! So…the final results of the 2010 Trash Tracker Trip #12 Fishing Tournament are that Eric and Dave each owe Tiffany and Andy $1.50 each. Good luck on collecting! After the contest, Tiffany prepared a magnificent dinner of shish kabobs and barbecued corn. Losing weight on this trip is NOT an option!

Day Four! Ah, yes, Day Four. Another day that will live in infamy! After moving all the boats ten miles downlake to Sevenmile Canyon, we, as in Dave, Tiff, Andy, Eric and I, took off in the Eliminator to “trash the lake” as we fished. The first order of business was to head south to Hansen Creek to see the deceased burro found on the last trip. After a few short detours, we arrived at the final resting spot of the aforementioned varmint, a small cut way, way, way back in the canyon. Tiff and Andy jumped out for pictures and a closer look. They then made a short recon trip above the bones. When they returned, Tiffany, who owned horses and, I believe, grew up on a ranch, proclaimed that my “burro” was actually a cow.

It had split hooves, which burros do not. OK, OK, I stand corrected, but it was still the most unusual find of the year so far. (You know in your hearts that you wanted to see the picture a second time!)

When everyone was back in the Eliminator, I cranked the engine. Let me rephrase that…I turned the key to start it. Nothing happened! Oh shit! Let’s see, shift lever in neutral…check! Wiggle the shift lever…check! Look dumbfounded…check! Now what? I checked everything I could think of. Nothing was obvious and I came up empty. I tried calling N.P.S. dispatch on the radio (which was working) but got no response as we were deep inside the canyon. I was starting to take stock of what we had on board as I contemplated the very distinct possibility of having to spend the night in the canyon next to a dead cow. It was not a pleasant thought, especially since we were now getting pelted with rain from a very nasty-looking thunderstorm. We had 10 gallons of water and a roll of toilet paper. The essentials were there, but nothing else. A boat towing a bunch of kids soon appeared so I grabbed a life jacket, stood on the back of the boat and waved it back and forth. They saw me and came over to us. I told them of our predicament and asked to be taken to the main channel where the radio should work. The operator said he would take me, but would have to drop all the kids off at their houseboat first. He took off and I went back to thinking.

There was no power to the engine. I wiggled the main power wire at the shift control lever. Nothing. I then followed the wire toward the engine. Just where the wire entered the engine cowling, it was covered with a greasy red plastic tape. I moved the wire with my hand and it felt like an overcooked noodle, NOT like a stiff #2 wire should feel. I unwrapped the tape and the wire fell into two pieces. Drawing on my extensive electrical background, I deduced that a heavy-duty #2 wire could not carry any current to the engine if it were broken completely in half. I then grabbed both pieces of wire and touched them together and was rewarded by a big spark. YES!!! I then had Dave crank the engine over as I held the wires together. It worked! The engine started! We took off immediately and waved “Thanks” to the Good Samaritan as we rocketed by his houseboat. We headed for home as fast at the storm-ravaged water would let us go. The Trash Tracker was a beautiful sight as we pulled into our canyon! We immediately set out two extra anchor lines because of the wind, followed by a double-toddy and a do-it-yourself pizza dinner on the barbie.

I sincerely hope I never find out the name of the mechanic that “repaired” that wire.

The night was off-and-on rain…mostly “ON”. There were no sleepers on the top deck tonight. I woke up five times because of the rain, the last time about 7:00. Gizmo wanted no part of getting up, but I insisted, and we went outside to find a suitable Tamarisk tree or bush. After a “high five” with his right rear leg, Giz returned to the TT and we started getting ready to leave. All the anchor lines were pulled and stowed and I backed the boat off the beach. We headed back toward Bullfrog, arriving just after noon. We started cleaning the TT and then took the Eliminator over to the launch ramp to unload 47 bags of trash plus other assorted trophies.

After the unload, we washed all the boats down and pulled over to the main dock for the final unloading of our volunteers. Great trip! Thanks to all for the wonderful dinners, the hard work and the outstanding company.

Trip #11

2010-07-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

This trip was two against five…me and Gizmo against four ladies and Claudia. Not good odds! All in all though, it turned out to be a “10”.

We started off on an “iffy” note. We left the Trash Tracker at the dock while we cleaned Bullfrog Bay in the vicinity of the marina.

The Eliminator was running very badly. The motor was missing, running rough and had no power so we returned and had the mechanic look at the motor while we had lunch. The diagnosis was a couple of broken coil wires. He reassembled the broken coils so it ran, but gave no bets on how long the “fix” would last. I had the Parts Department research the inventory of replacement coils. I then found out that the motor and all parts were obsolete. Wonderful! However, after a computer search, they found out they (supposedly) had three coils somewhere in the warehouse on a palate of obsolete parts labeled “B-1”. They would try to find the coils while we were gone on our trip. We pulled out and headed uplake to Moki Canyon with crossed fingers.

Arriving at Moki, we set up in a picturesque spot and got settled in. We jumped into the Eliminator and cautiously putted around the local area to pick up trash. We quit at 5:00 and went for a well-needed swim. After the swim, I was sitting on the back of the boat, minding my own business, when the stripers started boiling like mad. I yelled at Claudia, grabbed my striper rod, and jumped into the runabout. Claudia drove me to the closest boil and I let fly with a Krokodile, a silver spoon that imitates a shad, the fish they were feeding on. The first cast resulted in a “bump”, a strike where the fish didn’t stick (get hooked). The second, third, fourth and fifth casts each netted a nice striper which Claudia netted and dumped into the ice chest. Let’s see…six people and a dog on board. Each striper produces two fillets. Two times four equals eight fillets. That’s enough! Fun’s over for the night! We returned to the TT where I grabbed my fillet knife, the four fish,

and headed for a nice flat rock in front of the boat. The stripers were soon transformed into a full baggie of fillets which was put into the refrigerator.

The next morning, Claudia broke out the cooking oil, a couple of eggs and some Zatarain’s Seasoned Crispy Southern Fish Fri (Yes, that’s the way it’s spelled)

and we all scarfed down a great fish fry for breakfast. We had two pieces of fish left over which Claudia and I later had for lunch. We then finished Moki, using the runabout, as the Eliminator motor was now almost not running. When we returned, the ladies and I went swimming. The ladies went off on their own and soon returned with a huge cottonwood log they found floating near the TT.

They named it “Puff the Magic Dragon Log” and were soon singing “Puff, the Magic Dragon” at the top of their lungs. They were having a ball! When we returned from the swim, Claudia had the CD player going full blast. The song of the day was “Puff, the Magic Dragon”, being sung by my Brother-in-Law, Joe Ghiglia on a “Walking Wounded” (the name of his band) CD. The ladies loved it!

The following day, we moved to Hansen Creek. Claudia went ahead of us, exploring in the runabout, and found a spot on the very small side. I almost had to get out and grease the pontoons to get the TT into the spot but, after one false shot, I did get it parked and we set out two stern anchor points, one around a big rock and one to an anchor wedged in some big rocks. As soon as we anchored up, we got hit with a thunderstorm but not much wind. We had to wait out the storm before we took off for work.

Due to the problem with the Eliminator motor, we split up into the two work boats to trash track. If the Eliminator crapped out, Claudia could tow me back with the runabout.

I was putting along slowly, minding my own business, picking up trash and doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing when I came across what has to be the “best” find so far…a dead wild burro.

Since a burro is a “natural” product, as opposed to being man-made, we did not collect it as trash. We did log it as a “find” in the log though. The Eliminator started running much better so we finished Hansen and crossed the main channel to Crystal Spring. We barely finished it when we were chased back to the boat by an approaching storm.

Thank God the motor had decided to run, at least partially. I was able to hold it at about ¾ throttle and we (almost) flew back to the TT…JUST in time. N.P.S. was blaring weather warnings on the radio so I strung out two additional stern lines as soon as we got back. We got slammed! Lightning, thunder and wind to about 45 knots. We buttoned everything up and rode it out. Everyone was VERY happy I had put out extra anchor lines. The storm soon subsided and the girls were able to spend the night on the top sundeck.

Day Four found us in the runabout, headed uplake. We visited several canyons, cleaning as we went. We stopped by to see the Peregrine Falcons but they had fledged and were now gone. The dinosaur tracks on Tapestry Wall were still there and we did see them. After the dino tracks, we headed for Warm Spring Canyon to “trash it”. Once again, I was just driving the boat, doing what I was supposed to do, minding my own business when I spotted a young male at the base of the cliff wall merrily drawing graffiti on the face of the cliff. We pulled up and very politely told him what he was doing was illegal (as if he didn’t already know it). I got a smart-assed reply. Not smart! I took his picture

and another of the boat he was with. We then told him we were employed by Aramark and associated with the N.P.S. and told him to knock it off. He sat down and we left. As we pulled away, he flipped us the “one finger salute”. Big mistake! BIG, BIG mistake! After the trip was over, I turned the pictures and a nice detailed report over to the N.P.S. rangers and they are going to file on him. YEAH!!! We then headed for the Defiance House ruins in Forgotten Canyon. We just got there and, once again, had to beat feet home ahead of another storm. Again, it was short-lived and the ladies spent their last night on the roof.

On Day Five, we took in all the anchor lines at 9:00 and headed for Bullfrog. After the usual pump-out, wash-down and clean up, we said goodbye to the ladies and the end of another great trip.

Lake Powell Poem

2010-07-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

This was written by Nancy Bowling, a guest volunteer on Trip #10.

“The Trash Trackers’ Trek”

One day while sitting in school,
Received e-mail from my sister ‘bout something so cool.
She said, “Let’s clean graffiti from the wall,”
“Or pick up trash where people let it fall.”

I talked with my son and said, “She’s crazy.”
“I like my vacation quiet and lazy.”

But then in February, early in the day,
We got on the internet and made our play.
We got lucky and hit the spot,
Got the “Trash Trackers” – a gig really hot.

So off we went in the middle of June
To Lake Powell in Utah, the time came so soon.
We donned our gloves and Tevas brand new,
Met our captain, Jerry; his wife Claudia, too.

They smiled at us and shook our hand,
Then told us the rules so we’d understand.
They said we’d work hard; we knew that already.
But hearing them say it made our hearts quite unsteady.

Then we met Gizmo, the dog on the boat.
He was our mascot, on him we did dote.
We had to work; he wanted to play.
He entertained us at the end of the day.

Hours later as we traversed the calm water,
The sun moved high in the sky; it got hotter and hotter.
We then docked the boat, tied up everything tight,
Ate a good supper, and then said good night.

Early in the morning we had to get up,
We were ready to work after our first coffee cup.
We picked up paper and broken glass, too.
We all felt so proud when our work was through.

But then we saw our very first fire pit.
We looked at it in horror and said, “ Oh ------darn it.”
This is what we came for, to clean up this place.
So we tidied it up with a smile on our face.

We continued to pick up cans, bottles, and sticks,
And even firecrackers stuck in the tamarisk.
At the end of the day we were so tired but still happy
That we left at least one place so clean and not crappy.

The “Eliminator’s” not a boat but a barge.
It’s not too little and not too large.
It’s just perfect for the trash we collect.
From all of the people who cause such neglect.

Now J 13 was an interesting lot.
They wanted their privacy; Jerry said, “Absolutely not.”
So then they decided to leave us alone.
And moved their houseboat to a place of their own.

A few days later, whom did we see?
Our friends from J 13 jumping into the sea.
The look on their faces when they saw The “Trash Tracker”
Was funny and priceless; it gave us such laughter.

Then off to Rainbow Bridge with all its power and might.
Ranger Chuck shared its story; what a magnificent sight.

As for Ranger Chuck it was easy to see.
His hero’s Teddy Roosevelt; he loves his history.
Chuck quoted so many things Teddy said.
How does he keep it all in his smart head?

Then on to Dangling Rope we went.
It was such a tiny place where the river is bent.
As a marina it can’t be beat.
We even had some of their soft serve ice cream to eat.

Then we saw the Hole-in-the-Rock.
Where the Mormons came over; if mountains could talk.
They’d tell the tale of how the families were driven,
To start a new life; to have a new living.

One night while watching the stars,
Captain Jerry told us ‘bout some Alaskan bars.

A sour toe cocktail is what you need.
It’s a little whiskey and a real toe indeed.
“If you swallow the toe,” Jerry did say,
“You’d pay a big fine---on the way out you would pay!”

Well, the lake’s a little cleaner, we’re happy to say.
And back home to Maryland, we’re soon on our way.

So Karen and Charlie, Mark, and I,
Say thank you Lake Powell and this is why.
You gave us the chance to do something neat.
We hope to come back soon to have a repeat.

Thank you Captain Jerry; wife Claudia too.
You kept us on task, took care of us too.
Your friendship we’ll value for a very long time.
We hope to see you again, in your home or mine.

July 5, 2010

Nancy,

A BIG "Thank you" from Claudia, Gizmo and me.

Trip #10 - The Escalante Arm

2010-06-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Escalante Arm of Lake Powell…probably the most spectacular area of the lake according to most locals. This was one of the longer seven-day trips due to the distance we have to travel just to get started. The entrance is something over thirty miles from Bullfrog. At six miles per hour, that’s five hours of travel time plus looking for a parking spot once you get there plus dealing with certain individuals as you are parking (more on that later) and then getting anchored, settled in and having an obligatory toddy. All that killed Day 1.

To backtrack somewhat, our four volunteers showed up at the boat Tuesday evening, the day before the trip, to stow some gear and food. They finished loading the boat Wednesday morning and we moved on to the required safety instructions. Our N.P.S. ranger was on her day off so our neighbor, Valerie, a N.P.S. volunteer filled in. Although this was her first welcoming gig, she did a great job. The volunteers were also welcomed by Gizmo and were soon very aware of his “Play with me” squeaks.

Nancy bonding with Gizmo

All were fast friends within a few minutes. Our volunteers came from Maryland and consisted of two sisters, Karen and Nancy, Karen’s husband Charlie and Nancy’s son Mark.

We took off around nine and headed downlake,

"Grasshopper Rock"

trailing the Eliminator and the runabout behind us.

Five hours later, give or take few minutes, we arrived at the entrance to the Escalante. Claudia and Mark took off in the runabout to find a parking spot for a few days. As the rest of us were slowly creeping into the arm, a small power boat pulled alongside and asked us to stop. He found a burned TV on the beach next to his parking spot and wanted to know if we could take it. Absolutely! He took off and soon returned with a now very used TV set.

We continued on. Claudia did not find a suitable spot so we turned around to look on the other side of the channel. When we got to the south side of the channel, we saw J-14, a rental houseboat, parked on the bank. About 275 to 300-feet to their left was a suitable parking spot so I cranked in some left turn and headed for it. (It later turned out to be 127 long paces from their boat)

I saw the folks on J-14 wave Claudia over and they began to chat. Claudia then pulled away from their boat and waved me into the bank. I nudged the Tracker against the bank and we broke out the lines to anchor the boat. Now came the fun!

Claudia beached the runabout and came to the Tracker with the news that J-14 had requested that we not park here. They further requested that we leave so they would have their privacy. RIGHT! As we were setting the anchors, two men and two dogs started over to talk. After the preliminary niceties, I explained that the Trash Tracker was an Aramark boat associated with the National Park Service and was here to clean the Escalante Arm. I further explained that we were parked a suitable distance from them and that we would not bother them or leave until we were through with our job. They mentioned that, since we would not leave, they would probably be leaving in the morning. I said “Fine, but we won’t bother you at all”. They complimented us on what we were doing and left. After a swim, Charlie barbecued some hamburgers for dinner.

That evening, actually until 1:00 am, we were treated to heavy wild partying, loud music and many screams and cat-calls punctuated with “Trash Tracker Sucks”, etc. I didn’t sleep too well as I was worried about a sabotage party. It didn’t materialize, but I still had some symptoms of sleep deprivation the next day.

We left for work about 8:00 or so with no one stirring on J-14 to say “Goodbye” to us. I felt slighted! We entered the Escalante and said hello once again to Rabbit Rock.

As we motored around the various inlets and bays,

Beautiful, huh?

Charlie spotted a hole in the side rock wall that went completely through to the top. We immediately christened it “Charlie’s Arch Hole” but then also immediately shortened it to “Charlie’s A (for “arch”) -hole”. We also found a nesting Blue Heron with two good-sized chicks in the nest.

After a full day of Trash-Tracking, we returned to home base and, lo and behold, J-14 had departed! We all gave a rousing cheer and rushed to pour a round of double-toddies to celebrate their absence. We slept VERY well that night.

Day 3 found us cleaning Indian Creek, Clear Creek, Davis Gulch and Fiftymile Canyon, named so because it is fifty miles from Escalante. The name has nothing to do with its length.

My eagle eyes picked out an old fire pit amongst the rocks in Indian Creek and I nosed the Eliminator against the bank.

The volunteers charged out of the boat. This was one of the most vile fire pits we have ever run into. We removed two full bags of cans, paper plates and other assorted trash. Emotions were high! High fives around!

When we got to La Gorce Arch in Davis Gulch,

we were hailed by a power boater anchored against the shore. One of his outdrives (the propeller system of his power plant) had somehow lost hydraulic fluid and would not drop into running position. We didn’t have any hydraulic fluid but did have a quart of two-cycle oil for our outboard. Relying on my vast (or is it half-vast?) knowledge of hydraulics, I suggested that he fill the hydraulic reservoir with the two-cycle oil. After all, oil is oil…right? At worst, he will just have to get the reservoir pumped out and flushed when he got home. We sold him a quart of oil and he refilled the reservoir. After a few seconds of pumping, the fluid lines recharged and the outdrive dropped into position. Success! Score one for the Trash Tracker! We waved goodbye and headed for the arch.

We immediately found a plastic raft but no body. Charlie speculated that it might have held a bikini-clad young lady and that we should proceed slowly so as not to miss her. Idling along at dead slow, we soon came across the bikini-clad young lady. She was probably about five years old and was with her mother, father and a small group. We returned the float to them and picked up their trash because they had cleaned the area when they arrived at the campsite. We continued to the end of Davis

Moqui steps (above)

and found several bags of trash floating in the water and on the shores.

Cleanup here took slightly longer than usual because I had to be very careful as I maneuvered the boat around a topless 35-ish young lady on a plastic float. She later waved at me and smiled, obviously grateful at my expertise in maneuvering the Eliminator so as not to disturb her or accidentally tip her into the water. I also noted that the volunteer ladies picked up far more trash than Charlie did. I did have my camera out as I maneuvered the boat, as is usual, to document the volunteers picking up the trash. I’m going to check those pictures later…VERY, VERY carefully!

Day 4 started with a run down to Rainbow Bridge and Dangling Rope for fuel. I had already refueled the Eliminator with the spare 15-gallons we carry but the fuel gauge was now down to one-quarter and we needed to refuel again. As we were nearing The Eye of the Needle Arch

(The "eye" is to the left.)

The picture above is called "The schooner" - it looks like an old sailing ship.

(at least that’s what I call it), a N.P.S. ranger boat passed us. On board were Chuck Smith and Amanda. Claudia and I have known Chuck from the past six Adventure Caravans trips to the bridge. Chuck is probably the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic ranger I have ever run into. He gave the volunteers an outstanding presentation.

Dinosaur track at Rainbow Bridge

When the first boatload of travelers from Wahweap arrived on the morning tour boat, he introduced all of us to them and launched into a dissertation of the Trash Tracker program, punctuated with many “Thank you’s” for the work we were doing. It felt good!

After the boat people left, Chuck took us underneath the arch to some plaques affixed to the rock walls.

I had never been underneath the arch before. In fact, I thought it was illegal and against Indian law because the bridge is a sacred site. It was a chilling and amazing experience! Claudia even got goosebumps.

We returned to the runabout and headed for Dangling Rope

for fuel and soft-serve ice cream. What? You think we would not go to DR and NOT get some soft-serve? Silly you! I filled the runabout and the three fuel cans we carried for the Eliminator and we headed back to our (now) quiet anchorage.

Refueled and recharged, we pulled the anchor lines and headed for Iceberg Canyon.

After several hours of cleaning the side canyons, we called it “quits” for the day and went for a swim. Most of the evening was spent on the top deck while we were bathed by the light of a full moon. We also were bathed by lots of bugs and bats. The bats were diving right between us, over us and almost under us. They were everywhere…and close…VERY close. We also saw the International Space Station cruise by on a northerly orbit. It was huge and moving very fast. I had never seen the space station before so this was really exciting for me. The bats finally claimed the top deck for their own and we all retreated to the main cabin. It was now time for bed.

We had finished cleaning the Escalante Arm and were set to move back uplake. To celebrate, Charlie made us all a delicious “kitchen sink” scramlet,

a sort of cross between scrambled eggs and an omelet with everything but the kitchen sink in it. With full tummies, we packed up and headed for our next stop.

As we passed Slick Rock Canyon, I dropped Claudia and the volunteers off in the runabout to “trash track” while Gizmo and I circled at the entrance. After an hour or so, they returned and we again headed uplake to The Rincon. Our original intent was to stop at Lake Canyon, but, since we had cleaned it on a previous trip, we continued on to Halls Creek Bay to finish cleaning it. If you remember, we were chased out of Halls Creek by 70 Mph winds last week and had a small section of the bay left to clean.

After cleaning Halls, we came back for a swim. We had been swimming every day of the trip and today was especially relaxing as the temperature was now near 100 if not slightly over. When I say “we” went swimming, I meant everyone but Claudia. She hasn’t even set her big toe in the water yet. Even Gizmo has been in every day. He’s funny when it comes to the water. He somewhat protests when I grab his life jacket, but goes along with being in the water. However, when he’s on his leash for a walk, he runs right into the lake up to his chest. Go figure! However, today, he would have nothing to do with going for a swim. As soon as I reached for his life jacket, he streaked for the water jug and hid under the stool it was sitting on. He got so far back that he was also partially under the settee. I gave up and hit the water. When I returned, I was severely chastised by Claudia for traumatizing the dog. Dinner that night included a delicious fresh fruit plate that Claudia prepared. As a special treat, she included a very fresh and delicious naval orange that we found floating in the lake today. I believe that is called “improvisation”.

Tuesday, our final day, started with another of Charlie’s now famous “scramlets”. After breakfast, we were treated to a poem that Nancy had been writing. She documented all the highlights of the trip and many references drew hearty laughs and a few tears. (I will publish it later when I get a printed copy from her) We then cleaned up, pulled the anchors and headed for the dock. We pumped and washed all boats after offloading the trash from the Eliminator. Our total count was just under1,400 pounds of trash removed from the lake. Claudia, Gizmo and I now have an eight-day-off stretch to contend with. Somehow, I think we shall prevail!

Trip #9 - The wind sucks!

2010-06-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

Trip #9

This trip was the definition of “change” and “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!” We started out on a high note…as in high pressure on the barometer. The sun was out. The birds were chirping (except for the ravens. ..they don’t “chirp”). All was lookin’ good! We loaded our volunteers and Terry gave her welcoming speech. I fired off the engines and we were off to Halls Creek, a whole hour away. We looked around for a suitable parking place, made a couple of false landings and then settled on a spot on an island with “marginal” anchor holds. (Remember this. It will come into play at a later time) We set a “water rock”, a rock that marks the lake water level so you can monitor how much the lake rises (or drops) over a certain period of time. We then had lunch and set off to pick trash.

The picking was uneventful and the bags of Styrofoam, water toys, plastic bottles and the like started piling up in the boat. Of course, as soon as we started running around Halls in The Eliminator, we found several really nice places to park the boat, but we stayed put on our little island. Dinner was beef stew followed by a nice shower, a relaxing drink and an early bedtime. It’s hard to go to bed around 9:30 or 10:00 when it’s still light. Usually, you are so tired you don’t care. I’m usually asleep within 45 nano-seconds after getting into bed.

The next day started. It was a beautiful day!

The first thing was to start the generator and plug in the coffee pot. The second thing was to walk the dog and the third thing was to finish getting ready for the day. By that time, the coffee is usually ready. With luck, I can get three cups down my throat before it’s time to leave for work. During my second cup, I usually listen to the weather radio for the forecasts. The weather-guessers out here are far better than those at home. When they predict wind out here, you can bet on it. Unfortunately, they predict wind fairly often this time of the year.

Tuesday’s wind was predicted at 15-25 in the morning and 20-35 in the afternoon. ..not exactly “nice”, but do-able. Winds on Wednesday were forecast to be 25-45 in the morning and 35-50 in the afternoon with gusts to 60 or 70! I had to wait for the radio to complete the forecast so I could listen to it again to make sure I heard the numbers correctly. Unfortunately, I did. We did a full day of “Tracking” to get in as much work as we could before the fecal matter hit the air conditioner.

With a day and a half of hard-at-it Tracking,

we got about 75% of Halls Creek cleaned up. We had a slightly unusual find that afternoon. I was on shore with two of the volunteers and Claudia was running the Eliminator with the other two volunteers to “leapfrog” around us to a new spot. As she was going by a houseboat named “Diane”, a cute little three year old girl who was floating on a raft while holding a tether to the boat, lost her grip and started floating out into the channel. Her mother started swimming after her but the wind was winning and she was getting further and further away from the boat. The mother yelled at Claudia who spun the boat around and pulled alongside the little girl. The volunteers pulled her into the Eliminator and then picked up her raft. They found out her name was “JC” and that she was three years old.

She wasn’t afraid at all and was given the chair of honor in the boat as the Eliminator returned to her houseboat. We logged an additional 35 pounds of floating vegetable matter and one water toy into the trash log before turning her over to her relieved parents.

That evening, after a glass and a half of wine and listening again to the forecast, I made the executive decision that we would pass on any more cleanup in Halls Creek and would move the boat to the Halls Crossing Marina for safety. Remember the aforementioned “marginal” anchor holds? I didn’t want to test them in 70 mph gusts. I was more than reasonably certain they wouldn’t hold. So, the next morning I made a phone call to Halls to make sure they had a place for us. Receiving a “Sure, come on over!” answer, we packed up and headed for Halls as the winds started to increase. We got to Halls about 9:00 and tied up right in front of the Harbor Office, the General Store and Snack bar, which, as we found out later, had great soft-serve ice cream.

We got in about four hours of cleanup before we got chased off the lake and back to the boat by the winds. We buttoned up the boat and hunkered down for the night, fortified by six delicious vanilla-chocolate swirl cones.

It was one hell of a night. We put all the fenders we had, plus a few “borrowed” ones, between the TT and the dock. In the morning, they were all blown…flat as pancakes! We later found out that Bullfrog had been hit by rain, hail and winds that broke the docks apart. One employee jumped across a seam just as the dock separated and made it, albeit unsteadily, to safety. The winds, as predicted, had subsided to about 15 mph and we prepared to take off for our “play day”. At the request of the N.P.S., we headed downlake to the Alice J Arch where the volunteers cleaned up the nastiest fire pit to date. They took two full bags of trash out of the ring.

The area was also covered with graffiti which will be cleaned up later by the NPS boat “True Grit”. We then hit several canyons as we headed back uplake. When we got to Annie’s, we found the water right up to the slot canyon we couldn’t get into last week. I wedged the runabout between two rocks and we bailed out to explore. It was fabulous, beautiful, neat, cool and a full 10 points on the “Whoopie-o-meter”. Even Gizmo loved it.

After Annie’s, we again headed northeast to the 109-mile mark to see Tapestry Wall and the dinosaur tracks followed by the double arch at the entrance to Knowles Canyon. We then moved to Smith Fork Canyon where we found a pair of nesting Peregrine Falcons, which was WAY, WAY cool!

We watched them while they watched us. After about 15 minutes, we left them in peace and returned to the TT.

Friday soon arrived…our last day. We did a quick two-hour stint at cleaning up the marina by the fuel dock and launch ramp. The back bays had collected a bunch of debris and we filled several bags along with some loose trash.

We then returned to the TT. Claudia took the runabout and headed for the pump-out dock while the volunteers and I brought the TT and the Eliminator. Leaving Claudia and Gizmo to pump and clean the TT, the volunteers and I took the Eliminator to the launch ramp to unload.

The rest was basic…we brought the volunteers to the main dock where they packed up and departed and Claudia and I then fueled and cleaned all the boats and put them away for a four-day “off duty” stretch. A nice hot shower at the RV and a great salmon dinner at the EDR finished off the evening. Trip #9 in now in the history books.

The end!

Trip #8 - Bullfrog Bay

2010-06-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

We are now home after fourteen straight working days plus a few before that which I have forgotten about or misplaced in my fuzzy memory. When we got home today, I met my neighbor, an NPS Interpretive Guide and Zebra Mussel Inspector. I told him I was the Trash Tracker Captain. His reply was, “Oh, you’re the one that got swamped!” (This is a small town/place/inhabited area) He told me they got the boat. I had the NPS radio on after the incident and heard a ranger stop a boat and issue a citation for reckless boating to a female from Colorado but didn’t realize it was our incident. I owe him a steak dinner! Happy, I am OB1Kenobe!

As I stated earlier, we are back, a fact that should be obvious as you are getting these musings. We left the boat at the Boat Rental dock last wheneverthehellitwasthatwegothere. We went to the boat at 8:15 and our volunteers were already there. We all loaded the boat with our appropriate gear. After stowing all the food, gear and other “stuff”, we introduced them to the Giz. He promptly ran to his toy stash, grabbed a favorite toy and ran to them with a “play with me” look in his eyes. They did and we started the trip on a good note. After a few toy tosses, I reined them in and gave my welcome/safety lecture. Near the end, Terry Bell, the NPS Interpretive Guide showed up. She gave her welcome speech and we then picked her brain for a few minutes about places to work and to play on our day off. She then took off and we fired up the engines. Our trip further into Bullfrog Bay took less than a half hour. Boy are we saving money for the company on this trip!

I was told to head up the bay, look for two big rocks on the right and pull in between them. Here were (supposedly) two places to park a boat. Well, one (the best) was taken, but the other was open and we pulled in and gently settled against the bank. We wrapped our stern lines around two fairly large tamarisk trees and called it “done”. After a quick lunch, we headed out to “Trash Track”. We returned at 5:00 with quite a few bags of trash removed from the head of Bullfrog Bay. The next day, we finished the upper end of the bay.

Day Three found us heading for the RV camping area known as Stanton Creek. However, we stopped short as we got behind the marina. What a pig sty! We kept finding heaps and gobs and bunches and piles of stuff and then hit the mother lode. It started with a 4’ x 10’ x 1’ block of waterlogged Styrofoam. Styrofoam, BTW,NEVER, NEVER, NEVER degrades or decomposes. Styrofoam is Styrofoam…FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, this piece of slimy, gooey, dock float weighed about 150 pounds. We stood it up

and I grabbed the now-slightly-used DeWalt reciprocating saw and started slashing.

Boy was I having fun! I cut that puppy up into four manageable pieces in nothing flat. We continued on and found more. Out came the saw again. Then we found a huge tent frame and the saw came out for the third time. We then added a sheet of plywood, the rear deck from a power boat and a folding table, and, and, and… The barge was getting full. We hit one last area and that did it…totally full. We called for a trash truck pickup at the main launch ramp. Two very nice NPS guys showed up and helped offload our treasures. They were amazed at what we had collected in such a short time.

For our third day, we finally got to Stanton Creek. We added to our totals and more than half-filled the boat in that one spot. This day we found more Styrofoam, plywood and a 250-pound mooring buoy. Now THAT was fun to wrestle into the boat…NOT! It took three of us to roll it into the barge. We also found three HUGE tractor tires that are used as a floating breakwater to protect the mooring areas.

There was no way we could retrieve them. They will have to be picked up by the mooring barge and its crane. Again, we called for a pickup. After offloading twenty-odd more bags, we called it quits and took the barge to the pump-out dock for a wash down. Our total trash collected for three days was 67 bags of trash plus the loose stuff. It totaled an estimated 4,665 pounds of junk removed from the lake.

Our fourth day was our fun day and we set out to do some canyon exploring. We visited Lost Eden, Lake Canyon, Slick Rock Canyon and Annie’s and found some really neat spots to park the boat in the future.

We removed nearly a full bag of trash during these travels. We then went uplake about 15 miles to see a huge tapestry wall that had a long horizontal crack in the face.

If you look at the bottom of the crack, you could see round white splotches that are three-toed dinosaur tracks.

The temperatures were approaching 103 degrees (“but it’s a dry heat”) so we all went for a swim. Well, almost everyone. Claudia opted out and sent Gizmo in her place.

Day five…the end of the first Bullfrog trip. We had previously refueled both the small boats during routine travel and the TT didn’t need fuel so we just headed to the Boat Rental dock and offloaded our volunteers. Claudia, Gizmo and I then took the TT to the pump-out dock to pump the holding tanks and give the boat a washdown. We then went to the Ghetto Dock to finish cleaning up. We found something new…mouse poop! Out came the mouse traps and some cheese. I personally like peanut butter but we didn’t have any. I will report the results of the mouse hunt later. We then found out that the Ghetto Dock does not have power or water. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful! We are going to talk to the dock boss tomorrow and this will be the #1 item of discussion.

After buttoning up the boats, we headed for the RV, a shower and a few chores. We got the car gassed up AT $3.60 A GALLON (less our employee discount. Boat fuel is $3.92) Our drive to work is only 1.5 miles so we might not have to fill again. One good thing here is that you don’t spend much money. We splurged tonight by going out to dinner at the “EDR”, as in Employee Dining Room. We had teriyaki pork chops, mashed potatoes (or au gratin potatoes) and green beans for $5.00. They also had a big slab of salmon for $3.75. Nice, huh? Oh yeah, soft drinks are free as long as you bring in your own glass or container. The biggest downfall is that we are so far away from any store. The closest place for supplies is a small store up at Ticaboo, about 15 miles up the road. The next closest fair sized store is in Moab and the next big store is in Grand Junction, CO. I guess you have figured out that we are approximately 237.4 miles southeast of Timbukthree, with nothing in between. Everyone here is really helpful and there are solutions for just about anything. The key operative word(s) is/are “just about”. I’m still working on getting the diesel fill tube brazed or a new one ordered from Freightliner. I also just found out the main awning is refusing to work. I hear a “click” and it sounds like it is getting power but nothing moves. Oh well, another project, another day!

Projects here are almost like “two steps forward and one step back!” I get one or two done and something else crops up. The biggest problem is that there ain’t nuttin’ here. Our front air conditioner continues to malfunction. It runs fine and then freezes up and blows hot air. I was told that it’s an “ice block”. Fine, so it’s an “ice block”. Fix it! Today’s modern fix is to replace the unit with a new one. Someone here knows how to work on air conditioning units. I just have to find out who.

Today, Thursday, is our first day off in over two weeks and we have a list going. I got the diesel fill tube ordered from Freightliner and some new suction cups for the windshield sunshade ordered. Sunshades are a vital necessity around here. They cut the inside heat factor down by at least 50%. The cups we have on the rig now have gone “flat” and don’t stick on in anything over a 4 mph wind. Our winds here are usually in the 15-25 mph range so the sunshade in usually on the ground when we return from our trips.

OK, Claudia is now off the phone and we are off to do “things”. BTW, the cell phone service here is like the wind…it doesn’t blow, it sucks! If you need to call us, use Claudia’s phone, (281) 714-8587, which is on the external antenna on the motorhome and has five bars of reception. A normal cell phone without an external antenna is very “iffy” around here. Tonight is “Steak Night” here at the EDR. For $6.00, yes, that’s SIX DOLLARS, you get an 11-oz. ribeye, a baked potato and beans. I miss the soft-serve ice cream and I’m still waiting on the espresso machine for the boat. Stay cool!

Moving Daze

2010-06-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

I forgot to tell you that our printer finally crapped out. I don’t know if was the many bumps we’ve gone over, the fact that it wasn’t made for the Vista operating system (although it’s worked ever since I got this Vista laptop), or that some nefarious gremlin got into the main chip and threw an early Memorial Day party. Anyway, a trip to WalMart and a debit card transaction of approximately $54.00 solved the problem. We now have a new printer and it is working flawlessly. It’s an HP Deskjet 4440 in case you were interested. It has to be a great printer with that model number. For you western history buff’s, a 44-40 was the bullet that the cowboys won the west with. The reason it was so great was that it was used in both their pistols and their rifles. A one-bullet-fits-all deal! If anyone wins anything with that bit of trivia, I charge 10% for a “finder’s fee”. Now back to reality!

We returned from Frank and Vivian’s boat about midnight after a mega-delicious tri-tip dinner. After a pretty good night’s sleep punctuated with only two “get-up’s”, one to pee and the other for a leg cramp, Gizmo and I got up and set out on his morning romp, returning to watch his favorite TV show, “Predator Quest”. We then headed down to see the boss and deliver paperwork and photos of the last trip. We then headed for the lodge to pick up email and see what the world had done while we were away. I spent the first 15 minutes deleting all the store offers, political emails and forwarded “must read’s” to get to the meat of my email. There were some legal documents for Claudia to be saved and (later) printed, Happy Birthday messages and attached information and other necessary reading. I then uploaded my latest blog and sent it out and uninstalled the not-asked-for-thing-that-suddenly-appeared-on-my-computer (Yahoo! toolbar). I hate it when some company bribes another to put unwanted items on my computer without asking. How do I set “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!” as my default answer?

After cleaning up the computers (Claudia’s got the same install), we returned to HR (Human Resources – I still can’t get used to that PC phrase) for our last bit of mail (I even got a free drink card from Starbuck’s for my birthday) and to let them know we were leaving for Bullfrog tomorrow morning. We then returned to the rig and printed up all the legalese for Claudia’s signature and set off to the Post Office to mail the forms back. We then went to the local vet hospital in Page to make arrangements for one night’s boarding. Our company plane has a “No pet’s” policy…not even an extremely cute, friendly, warm, fuzzy, freshly groomed with no fleas long-hair Chihuahua. So, we will drop the Giz at the vet’s in the morning as we leave for Bullfrog and pick him up the next morning when we fly down from Bullfrog to bring the boats back uplake for the duration. We will then head for either WalMart or Safeway, or both, to get supplies for Bullfrog. Included will be two nice juicy steaks, three ears of fresh white corn to go on the barbecue and the fixin’s for a delicious Caesar salad. The trip to Bullfrog is a two-day affair so we need a good meal for our halfway stop Thursday night. That’s it! Now you’re caught up as to what we’re doing/did/going to do this week.

We managed to get everything done on Wednesday but it took until 11:00 pm to do it. We were up at 6:30 on Thursday to get ready. After getting the motorhome ready for the jaunt, Claudia and I split up. She took the Giz to the vet’s for boarding and I went to the gas station, fueled the motorhome and met her in Page to hook up the car.

We headed out on Highways 98, 160 and 163 through Kayenta, Mexican Hat and Monument Valley. The directions I got said to turn left onto 261. I turned left…and stopped! There, right in front of me was a BIG yellow sign proclaiming there was a gravel road ahead with 5 mph hairpin turns with road grades of just slightly less than vertical. There was also a nice big turn-around for rigs such as ours who’s occupants didn’t know that 261 was the infamous Moki Grade. The turn-around appeared to be well used! We added one more rig to the total that have turned around there. We continued on, taking the longer, but easier, route. We climbed to over 7,000 feet with the temperature alarm sounding off occasionally but finally made it to Bullfrog about 4:30. We fueled up at the company gas station and met with the Housing Manager who led us to our assigned RV site. A car pulled in behind us and informed me that we had been spilling fuel as we made our turns. I checked the fuel fill tube and found that the air relief tube had broken off. Rats! Oh well, I have until September to fix it.

We finished setting up and set out in the Explorer to do some reconnoitering. We drove to the marina to see what we could see, which was not much. Things appear to be really spread out here, as in “Go here for fuel, go there for water, go somewhere else to pump the tanks, etc.” I think I’m going to get a lot of docking practice up here. We eventually wound up at the lodge where we had dinner and then returned to the rig to watch a movie and get some sleep. We take off at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Oh yeah, speaking of time, we are now in the Mountain Time Zone. So, if you were thinking of calling me some night because you know I stay up to watch the 10:00 pm San Diego news…don’t. The 10:00 pm news there is at 11:00 pm here and I will, most assuredly be in bed and fast asleep. However, if I need to call you before you go to work at 8:00, I’ll call at 7:00 which is actually 6:00 (your time), unless I remember that 8:00 is actually 7:00 in which case I’ll have another cup of coffee and probably forget why I wanted to call in the first place. OK?

OK, now…”The Move”. We were picked up by the employee shuttle at 7:30 and driven to the “airport”, a paved landing strip and small paved area for cars. That’s it! Nothing else…unless you count a lonely wind sock on a pole at the side of the runway. The plane soon landed. It was a Cessna 170 turbo (6 passenger capacity). Our pilot, “Gene, Gene, the Flying Machine”, got a few passengers unloaded and then got us loaded. Let me rephrase that…we got into the plane. I got to sit shotgun in the R/F seat. Yahoo! We took off and flew down the lake, taking in many sights. It was a GREAT flight! Here are a few random shots of the trip.

We landed at Page and Cody picked us up. We went to the vets to pick up the Giz and headed for the boat. We fired up the engines and took off about 9:00 am, heading uplake. We stopped for the night at the San Juan Arm. The dinner was great and the weather was great…at first! Later the wind came up and the temperature came up. We woke up at 1:30 from the heat and the wind. Claudia made up some beds in the galley and we settled back into bed with all the doors and windows opened up. It was either put up with the wind or the heat. We chose the wind.

After a fitful night, we reluctantly arose at 6:00, fired up the engines, pulled the anchors and, again, headed uplake. Next stop, Bullfrog. Hold it! Just a minute. It seems that we were minding our own business, putting uplake at 3400 rpm’s. I was driving, Gizmo was navigating

and Claudia was doing chores.

At some point around Mile 77, we were overtaken by another houseboat. It was to our left and was about 125 feet away. OK so far? Now…picture about a 40’ power boat coming towards us at warp nine full tilt boogie and throwing an extra-large, double-huge wake, something like the surfers wait for on Hawaii’s North Shore every year. Both houseboats were sort of towards the left side of the channel. There was a HUGE amount of room to my right for him to pass. He keeps coming. I look! He still keeps coming. No, he couldn’t be thinking of “that”. He keeps coming. Aw crap, he’s going to go between us! And he did! I grabbed the camera at the last second to get a picture of his boat but had to drop it and grab the wheel and go hard left, right into the wake. Claudia held on. Gizmo ran for cover. There was nothing we could do but take it. We went over the first wave but under the second one. The wave was higher than the (solid) front gate and solid front aluminum plating and we ate it! We had water running into the boat clear to the galley, some 6 to 8 feet past the sliding door . I grabbed the N.P.S. radio and told them what happened and gave a description of the boat. They dispatched a boat from Dangling Rope to head uplake to possibly intercept the idiot. We continued on. I was HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, no, I don’t know if they caught him or not. I’ll let you know if I find out. I just want to “talk” to him…alone, and in some dark alley!

We got to Bullfrog without further incident and were directed to the “Ghetto Dock” to park the boat. It was a ghetto all right. They store all the derelict boats there. I pulled into an open “slip” and tied the boat to a winch and another boat that sort of seemed secure. That would do until we get things sorted out. We went to Boat Rentals. “Trash Tracker”…what’s that? No one knew we were coming or what to do with us. To be fair, the person in charge wasn’t there but the second-in-charge knew nothing. After a while, we worked it out and got the boat parked at the guest dock for our volunteers to board tomorrow morning.

Then we went for ice. Our “Component number” is a number that identifies the TT as a Lake Powell Overhead expense. I ordered 16 blocks of ice to be charged to our Component number. The gal entered the number into the computer, did it again and then told me there is no such number. After 45 minutes and two 9-1-1 calls to Cody, they just gave us the ice and said they would figure it out later. Work’s for me! The end result is that the boat got fueled and loaded with ice. We also got a bunch of questions answered about the Bullfrog operations, called for a shuttle and retired to the motorhome for dinner, a shower, this blog and eventually, email. We leave tomorrow on Trip #8.

Trip #7

2010-06-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

We are winding down on our last four-day stretch here “on the beach”. On the first day, we went down to the boat for some repairs. Claudia FINALLY fixed the fresh water gravity-fed system in the bathrooms (heads) and the kitchen (galley). It turned out to be an air-lock in the rear bathroom (head). Anyway, it’s fixed so, hopefully, we no longer will have to siphon water down to the water jugs in the kitchen (galley). I replaced the broken (by the wind) radio antenna on the Eliminator and added a horn. I also made arrangements to repair the shifter on the runabout, which was stuck in “forward”, therefore preventing the motor from being started, therefore rendering the boat “dead”.

We went down again today in the late afternoon to load 15 blocks of ice and to check the boat for tomorrow’s departure. Guess what? The shifter wasn’t fixed. I won’t bore you with what transpired, but, after reminders to three people by me personally, face-to-face, and several calls and/or emails by Cody, they “forgot” and it didn’t get done. They are going to put an outboard mechanic on it at 8:00 o’clock tomorrow morning. We, however, are leaving at 7:15. We are going to leave the runabout at the dock for them to fix and are “borrowing” a rental boat to take with us. When, and if, they fix the runabout, they are going to deliver it to us uplake and come back in the “borrowed” rental boat. Works for me!

We have to leave a little early tomorrow morning to gas and pump the TT before we pick up the next four volunteers at 8:15. This, out last trip out of Wahweap, will be to Rock Creek. When we return on Monday, Claudia and I have to totally R&R the boat to get ready for the trip to Bullfrog. On Tuesday, we have to catch up on email, bills, laundry and shopping. We take the motorhome to Bullfrog on Wednesday and catch the mail plane back to Page Thursday morning. As soon as we get off the plane, about 8:00 am or so, we run for the boat and leave on a two-day trip back to Bullfrog. That gets us there Friday afternoon, just in time to leave on the next trip on Saturday. WHEW!

Trip #7 was interesting and fun. We anchored at Dry Rock Creek

in the afternoon and got in a few hours of collecting local trash. The next day, we started out early and got in about 6-7 hours of picking before the wind chased us back to the boat. The wind was directly behind the TT but we set out two anchors on each side in case it veered any. We rode it out fine. It was just a little bouncy and uncomfortable.

Day #3 started out early and with high hopes for a good full day of trash collecting. We put in a full day and collected lots of light stuff, like bottles, cups, plastic bags, towels and clothing, two knives (that strangely didn’t find their way to the dumpster), a stringer of fish,

(released…4 alive, 3 deceased), one pissed-off rattlesnake

(very carefully released) , one dead fish (released to the wild),

a partial bundle of firewood (see below), a fireworks launching pad, etc.

Nothing really heavy or bulky came into the boat, but we sure left the place looking good!

Sunday was their “Free Day” and we headed to Rainbow Bridge.

Today was the exact day of the 100th anniversary of the bridge and there were heaps and gobs of big boats, small boats and jet skis (“lake lice”). We beat the rush and found a parking spot at the head of the dock. The volunteers grabbed their sticks and trash bags and headed off. Even though the area had been cleaned by N.P.S. for the Centenial, our sharp-eyed volunteers managed to come away with a goodly amount of discarded debris.

After Rainbow Bridge, we hit several other canyons to sightsee and clean and then zipped down to Dangling Rope for ice cream. They had a special going on…orange and vanilla swirl soft-serve ice cream. It was delicious…and refreshing! It gave us renewed energy so we cleaned all of the Dangling Rope Marina and scored big time! After dinner, we removed the partial bundle of firewood from the Eliminator, broke out the chairs and had a very nice bonfire. I again set the boat up for an early departure, as we wanted to be back at a reasonable hour due to all the work that had to be completed on Monday.

Monday started early, as in 0600! After everyone had coffee and was semi-cleaned up, we pulled the anchors and took off at 7:00 on the dot. We pulled the pre-set-up release lines and the two little boats fell into line. We headed for Wahweap, arriving 15 minutes before noon. The launch ramp was a zoo, but Claudia squeezed in and held us a place, assisted by two N.P.S. Rangers. I deftly docked the boat and we unloaded the barge. The volunteers then loaded their cars, said their goodbye’s and headed off into the sunset. Although we didn’t fill the boat, all due to a lack of large bulky items (tires, docks and the like), they did a great job and really cleaned some major camping areas of the lake.

Claudia and I then finished cleaning, pumping and gassing all the boats and brought them back to Stateline for the last time. We finished at 3:30 and headed for the motorhome. Frank and Vivian called and asked us down to their boat again for a farewell dinner of tri-tip which we gladly accepted. Tonight we will relax. Tomorrow will be a full day!

Trip #6

2010-05-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

I have been throwing out names and locations that you may or may not be familiar with. So, in an effort to be more transparent, I have made a map of the lower portion of Lake Powell showing most, if not all, of the spots I have mentioned in previous blogs. (Click on the map to enlarge it)

On Thursday, we went with Vivian on a four-wheel-drive tour to Alstrom Point which has a magnificent view of the lake. We met the other 15 or so people at the Glen Canyon dam at 8:15, laden down with lots of water, binoculars, hiking boots, camera, lunch and layered clothing. We loaded the cars and headed west towards Big Water. We then turned north on State Route 12, a rough gravel road. After a while, we started stopping frequently to look at flowers and other “things”.

(ant carrying a flower petal)

Vivian and the other N.P.S. volunteers pointed out the various flowers and sights. We soon shifted into four-wheel drive and creepy-crawled over some rough, rocky terrain to Alstrom Overlook, a high point that overlooked Gunsight Bay.

The view was spectacular and beautiful. We then returned home, arriving to a very relieved and happy puppy who was more than ready to go for a walk.

Friday morning arrived with our predicted 10% chance of rain pitter-patting on our roof. Claudia managed to sneak out of bed without waking me. Gizmo then managed to sneak into bed, also without waking me. I woke up when I felt a warm, wet tongue licking the small of my back. That really got my attention until I realized it was Gizmo. After coffee and breakfast, we headed out to make an Internet connection and WalMart for food and other supplies.

After the aforementioned duties, we headed for the boat to do a few chores. When we got there, a mechanic was there, replacing our Rube Goldberg window arrangement. Cody, our boss, must have worked his magic. One of the windows in the Tracker had a broken window that was replaced with a piece of plexiglass. The plexiglass was so thin, it didn’t fit in the window track and we had two pieces of string running horizontally across the window with two plastic cups stuck between the string and the plexiglass to hold it in place. I swung the barge in place below the window so we had a place to stand on and helped him install it. We now have a new window. Thanks Cody! I also spliced up a new tow line and a side-tow line that snapped last week. This time I used some ¾” gold braid. The barge isn’t going anywhere now! We also got a new vacuum cleaner and replaced all the supplies for the boat. The only thing remaining is for the mechanics to repair the bilge pumps on the barge. I believe (and hope) that will happen tomorrow. I have all fingers and toes crossed and have recited an ancient Navajo chant for good luck.

The Navajo chant must have done it. When we got down to the boat, no one was there but it was on the schedule to be done. I told the mechanic that I would help him and that we would be on the boat doing other things. He soon showed up and pulled the raised box for the helm chair. The bilge was totally full and the pump plugged with twigs, leaves and other micro-mini stuff. Once the screen was cleared, the pump worked fine. We had to keep cleaning the screen as the water pumped down. I scooped out three buckets of mud with my hands and we finally proclaimed the job finished and replaced the helm chair. I taped a piece of PVC to the rear rail to hold a fishing rod and then replaced the radio on the Tracker. The transmit function was pretty garbled and we had a spare radio on board. I took a few pieces of wire, stripped the ends and jury-rigged some power to the new radio. A radio check produced a clean, clear signal so I pulled all the loose wires and hard-wired the new radio in place. Another job masterfully done! We have to load 20 blocks of ice tonight and we will be ready to go.

Sunday morning arrived and we headed for the boat, arriving at 7:45. The first thing on the agenda was to plug in the coffee pot. Gizmo made a quick check of the boat to make sure all was in order. It passed his inspection! Our four volunteers (Bob, Bev, Jim and Cathy) and Cody soon arrived. Two were new to the program but the other two were eight-trip veterans. We ultimately drew on their familiarity with the San Juan Arm, which helped tremendously. After loading the boat with their supplies, we headed off into uncharted (for us) areas of the lake.

On the way up, we stopped at Dangling Rope Marina to refuel. It turned out to be a waste of time as each engine had sipped only nine gallons of fuel so far. Well, I guess it wasn’t a total waste. At least we know how far we can go on a tank of fuel. Now, if I just knew how big the tanks were, I could figure it out. I guess I could figure it out by measuring the size of the tanks, convert that into volume and plug that figure into a table of known components…or maybe just see if it’s embossed on the tanks. Anyway, we putted on for a few miles and turned into Oak Canyon for the night.

The next day, we continued on and subsequently turned into the San Juan Arm of the lake. Just as an FYI, there are no services up the Arm and we were totally on our own. Cell phone service…yeah, RIGHT! VHF radio service…maybe. Luckily, I had an N.P.S. radio on board, and that, unlike most other government entities, usually works.

As we entered the Arm, Claudia, Bev, Bob and Cathy, jumped into the Eliminator (the barge) and proceeded to sweep the sides for trash as Jim and I continued on to find a place to stash the TT for a few days. Finding little trash, the barge soon caught up to us. I sent them on ahead to find a parking spot but an engine malfunction alarm on the Eliminator soon started beeping and we had to shut it down and side-tie it to the TT. We then continued on and found a suitable place to park. After getting settled near Piute Canyon, we headed off to do some local trash picking.

The next day, we headed up the Arm for the day. Because the barge had “alarmed” twice, I decided to side-tie the runabout to the barge as a matter of safety. This slowed us down considerably, but I wasn’t going up there without having a way back. We got a ton of trash, a bushel of bottles, a closet of clothes, a sample of styrofoam, a few tossed tires and a plethora of propane, which ultimately translated into 65 very full bags of trash plus the loose articles. We all agreed we could have gotten much more trash if it were not for the malfunctioning equipment, but we did put a pretty good dent in junk supply in any case.

The next day, we motored back to the confluence of the San Juan and the Colorado and found a beautiful, calm spot near Jack’s Arch.

There was no wind and the water reflected the bluffs beautifully. We were pumped! We threw out five anchors and settled in for the duration. The “duration” was short-lived as the volunteers and I jumped into the runabout. I dropped them off at Rainbow Bridge for a hike while I went to Dangling Rope to refuel the runabout and purchase ice. We then returned to the TT where we were met with a warm, lavish welcome by Gizmo.

The next day was their free day. As was usual, the day started with a hike and a return with more trash. They never stopped! We all jumped into the runabout and headed for Reflection Canyon,

Hole-in-the-Rock (where the Mormon’s brought an entire wagon train down a mile-long cut that descended 1,064 feet to the Colorado River),

up the Escalante Arm to Clear Creek and Davis Gulch where we were awed by LaGorce Arch

and areas of a slot canyon waterway.

We lunched in a massive alcove with a beautiful red sandy beach,

which Gizmo promptly terrorized with “burn-outs” and digs. The group “trash-tracked” all along the way. One notable find was a slide anchor by Jim, who was promptly besieged by photographers for the unusual find.

He was so flustered by the notoriety that he forgot to pick up his picking tool and we left without it. We did return for it the next morning, but it was gone. Some new picker now has a new picker!

Friday morning started out with good intentions of an early start to Cookie Jar Butte for some hiking and to get closer to home for Saturday’s ending. The run to find Jim’s picker slowed us a little but, as we arrived back at the TT, the N.P.S. dispatcher came on the VHF radio with a dire warning of very strong winds to 60 mph later in the day. OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!! Forget going to Cookie Jar! Since it was about 7:30, we had to wait a while until Dangling Rope was awake enough to answer the phone. I called and left a message but later called on the N.P.S. radio to the D.R. Ranger to have Zelda, the marina manager, call me. About 8:30 or so, I got the call and received permission to spend the night tied up to their dock. Time was of the essence, as our ETA at Dangling Rope now coincided with the estimated arrival of the nasty winds. We pulled all anchors and literally threw them into the TT and pulled out of our anchorage. As we turned into the main channel of the Colorado, the wind hit…not the 60 mph predicted wind, but the 35 mph precursor to the big blow. I pushed the throttles up to 3800 to compensate for the wind and we arrived at Dangling Rope JUST prior to some severe winds. As we were now in a semi-protected anchorage, we were somewhat saved from a major derm abrasion by flying sand. We ate dinner inside that night!

We pumped the tanks on the TT and unloaded the barge and prepared for the night. I prepared the barge and runabout for a quick morning departure if the winds cooperated. Predictions were for more wind in the early afternoon, but lighter than today. With an EARLY departure, something around 5:00 am, I figured we could get home prior to the predicted big winds.

The winds only stopped blowing around 4:00 am but the predictions were the same…high winds in the afternoon. Gizmo protested the early wake-up, but did produce two samples during his very early romp. We started the engines and, with the help of the Eliminator’s engine, backed and spun the TT out of its parking spot and against the wind. Once we were straightened out and heading out of the D.R. Marina, Claudia took the helm and I pulled the two pre-set lines that released the two boats. They floated perfectly into position behind the TT. SUCCESS!!!!!! I love it when a plan comes together!

We hit the main channel and headed downlake. We also hit winds of about 25-35 mph. RATS! OK, back to 3800 on the throttles. We slugged it out for several hours and finally made it to “The Cut”, just across Wahweap Bay from Stateline, our destination. Just as a “Ha-Ha”, the winds suddenly increased and we hit some nasty water with wind waves of 2-3 feet. We chugged across the bay and pulled into our usual spot at the dock. Cody was waiting (on his day off!) for us and helped secure the TT and tie up both side-ties. We had arrived!

The volunteers packed up, said their “Goodbye’s” and left. After a short meeting with Cody, Claudia, Gizmo and I finished cleaning the boat and came home to long hot showers. After cleaning up, we headed for Frank and Vivian’s boat for some drinks and dinner. We left early and went straight to bed. Sleep came very, very easy!

Four Days Off!

2010-05-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Four days off! Sounds good doesn’t it?

On our first “day off”, we went down to the boat, tore it all apart, inventoried everything, cleaned the storage boxes/areas and put everything back where we wanted it. Claudia stayed inside and did her things (with Gizmo’s help) and I measured, cut and re-installed all towing, docking and anchor lines. The two anchor lines that run from the rear cleats to the wide shore anchors were only 95 feet long. Last week, we had to join two lines together to get anchored. When I went down to where they had the spools of line, I asked “Junior”, the manager of the boat supply department, if I could get some new docking and mooring lines. He pointed with his head and said, “Help yourself”, so that’s exactly what I did…seven new mooring lines and six side-tow lines for the barge and runabout and two 150’ stern anchor lines for the Tracker…no questions asked! I then spent a couple of hours removing the old lines and installing the new ones. The ground tackle will now pass inspection. We left at 5:00 pm.

On our second “day off”, we delivered the pictures of Trip #4 to Cody and picked up some supplies. We then went to Stix, True Value and WalMart for more supplies, both for us and for the boat. Frank, Vivian and Sonora came for dinner. We warned Gizmo to be on his best behavior and to NOT mark his territory on the rug like he did last time. He didn’t!

On our third “day off”, we went down to the boat and checked the work charts to ascertain our work location for the next trip. For Trip #5, we are going to clean part of Wahweap Bay near Lone Rock and portions of Antelope Island, if we have time. Both locations are right across the bay from the marina so it will be a short run in the Tracker. We took the runabout out to scope out the best spots to park the Tracker. While we were out, we met Frank, Vivian and Sonora at the mouth of Ice Cream Canyon. They were tied up to the bank, having a Cinco de Mayo cervesa. We visited for about an hour or so while the dogs went crazy on the beach. Gizmo was totally out of his mind, running and digging holes everywhere. We wanted to test out his life vest so he went swimming several times at our request. He did fine and seemed to really enjoy the cool water. We then came back and installed a wire shelf over the foot of the bed in our cabin, a mirror and “stuff” boxes in the bathroom for the volunteers to put their junk in. We came home at 4:30 pm.

Oh yeah, sleeping arrangements. As you enter the boat from the bow (front), there is a working deck area with anchor storage and a dry box for ground tackle (anchors, line, shovels, etc.). There is a sliding glass door to enter the boat. On the right side is the helm area where you drive the boat. On the left side is an “L”-shaped settee that makes into two beds with storage underneath. A folding dinner table sits in front of it. Behind the helm area and across from the settee is the galley with a double sink, storage, 3-burner propane stove top and countertop. There is also a microwave and small propane oven. I have asked for a small espresso machine to be installed for our next trip. Behind the galley are two small refrigerator/freezers. To the rear of the refrigerator combos are two bathrooms, each with sink, toilet and shower. Behind the settee area are two “Master” staterooms with doors. Both staterooms have a queen-size bed with a 4” foam mattress, not really comfortable, but adequate, and a small closet. The two upper “Master” staterooms are separated by a short stairway leading to two “downstairs” bedrooms with curtain doors, queen beds and closets. There is also a stern working deck and a ladder leading to a huge sun deck. Many guests love to sleep on the top deck during the warmer summer months. That’s about it. Now you know what the boat looks like. The next blog will contain a short quiz.

On our fourth “day off”, we headed for WalMart to return some items and pick up a few more things we need for the boat. We then picked up mail, cleaned up a few computer things, picked up 16 blocks of ice and headed for the boat. All four volunteers are going to “pre-board” tonight. This basically means that they want to come and stay on the boat rather than pay for a motel room. This also basically means that we have to be on the boat as well. So much for a night alone. How’s that saying go? The best laid devious plans…

Anyway, we take off Friday for another five-day stint of work and will return Tuesday afternoon. After another four “days off”, we head uplake about 57 miles to the San Juan River Arm for a seven-day cleanup. That should be an interesting and fun trip.

We are now back from Trip #5, a cleanup of the Lone Rock area and Antelope Island. We went down to the boat on Thursday as all volunteers wanted to pre-board. We had a father-son team (75 and 45 years old and tough as nails) and a psychologist-friend team (50 and 70). On Friday morning, Betsy, the N.P.S. Coordinator, came to the boat and welcomed the volunteers. We then headed across the bay to the Lone Rock area, just west of Wahweap. We snuck into the spot that Claudia and I had scoped out a few days ago and settled in for the duration.

After setting the anchors and setting up camp, we took off and headed down the bay, picking up trash as we went. We found and old aluminum tent frame,

which I cut up with our brand new DeWalt reciprocating saw. It was a godsend! We also found a fish…a BIG stuffed fish pillow.

We got most of the bay done that night and finished the remainder the next morning.

After finishing Wahweap Bay, we moved the boat to Castle Rock, which was a lot closer to Antelope Island, our next destination.

After the move, we hit it hard. Antelope was a plethora of waste…a trash collectors nirvana! The island was covered with all kinds of crap, primarily because it was directly downwind from Wahweap Marina. We found huge amounts of Styrofoam, plastic bottles, cups, aluminum cans, plastic bags, water toys, a buoy, a tire, an extra-large double-huge battery and a portion of a dock.

After two days of collection, the barge was absolutely full and almost overloaded.

We called the N.P.S. to see if we could get it unloaded two days early. Even though it was Sunday, they found a ranger to man a forklift and bring a dumpster down to the boat. He also used the forklift to help us offload the battery, the dock and the buoy. Those were back-poppers!

After the unloading, we returned to the TT for a well-deserved rest. During dinner, the N.P.S. came on the radio with a boater who had run aground. There was a language barrier, as the boater was German, and he didn’t know where he was. The N.P.S. dispatcher determined he came from Wahweap and turned left, down Wahweap Bay. Since no one was available, I volunteered to look for him.

One of the volunteers came with me and we checked Ice Cream Canyon and Lone Rock Canyon with no luck. However, as we headed west toward the bottom of the bay, his radio signal became much stronger. I advised dispatch I thought he was at the far west end of the bay. As I came out of Lone Rock, I met the N.P.S. ranger boat with its blue lights flashing. I told the rangers my thoughts about the boat being at the west end of the bay. As we were talking, the boater spotted the blue lights. We found him at the very bottom of the bay, hard aground on the mud. The rangers took over and we returned to the TT.

Our next day was their “Free Day” and we took the runabout uplake to Rock Creek Canyon and then to Navajo Canyon, where we found a FABULOUS anchorage for our future free trip,

and on to Antelope Canyon and the dam. It was a great day and everyone was really happy with the day. We couldn’t have had better weather. When we got back, we were visited by Mr. & Mrs. Mallard Duck and an unusual (for this area) friend, a male Wood Duck, an exceptionally beautiful bird (and probably tasty too).

Gizmo was whining and running around and wanted to play with his new friends but they wouldn’t have any of it.

Sorry Giz!

The great weather didn’t last. We got a blast of wind and it was a bitch bringing the TT back to pump it, gas it and return it to the dock. Waves were pretty big and, during the return to the marina, the tow line broke and I had to tie a quick bowline in a mooring line and lasso a cleat, on the first try, BTW. It was a little dicey! That summer I spent at a working dude ranch must have helped. Anyway, we got to the dock without further incidents and secured the boat. We offloaded the volunteers, cleaned the boat and headed home for a well-deserved shower and a strawberry margarita. Even Gizmo got a bath. He REALLY needed it! He was beginning to smell like a human!

After a romp, Claudia and I took off for a party. Greg and JoAnn were warming up their free houseboat in preparation for leaving tomorrow. It was a sort of birthday party for two employees, Pondscum and Mary. The booze was flowing. I had some just to be sociable. Then, a Navajo family came on board with Navajo tacos for dinner. I had some just to be sociable. Then came the Chocolate Fudge cake and Butter Pecan ice cream. I had some just to be sociable. I think I will pay for it tonight, even as tired as I am.

On our next “day off”, we need to go back to the boat so I can splice up a new tow line and a mooring line for the barge, put in a new window and clear the fresh water lines that apparently have an air lock and have stopped flowing. Claudia has to do our laundry and the boat laundry and replace the used linens on the boat. After that, we should have a day or two to ourselves. We have scheduled Thursday for a four-wheel-drive trip to some beautiful place whose name escapes me at the moment. We leave again on Sunday for a week-long trip to the San Juan Arm of the lake. You are now all up to date on the travels of Jerry, Claudia and Gizmo.

Trip #4…our first trip!

2010-05-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

Just as an overview, Lake Powell has a full-pool shoreline of just over 1900 miles, more than the entire length of the West Coast of the United States. The Trash Tracker runs 24 trips from April to November. Most trips are five-day trips, but two are seven-day jaunts. I don’t know how much trash each trip generates, but our first trip volunteers gathered about 3,000 pounds of lost and discarded junk. To be fair to boaters, most of the stuff collected would have been blown overboard by the notorious winds, but there are WAY too many obviously discarded beer cans, cigarette butts and the like. The big stuff…towels, clothes, mattresses, umbrellas, etc. are due to the winds. Most of these items are totally unnecessary trash because people just don’t tie things down. If something on a boat is not tied down, it’s going to wind up in the water and have to be collected by Trash Tracker volunteers. We obviously can’t walk the entire length of the lake, but I bet we cover about 60-75% of the lake. The sheer rock walls can be covered by boat (we cruise slowly along the walls and impassable shoreline), but the beaches have to be walked by us and the volunteers. It’s a hard, but mentally rewarding job that is very much appreciated by Aramark and the N.P.S.

As D-Day (Departure Day) drew near, the weather turned snotty and the weather reports were more than foreboding. The forecast for Wednesday was for 15-25 knot winds in the morning starting around 10:00 am, increasing to 35-45 knots in the evening with gusts of 55-60 knots. Our plan was to get our volunteers loaded as rapidly as possible and take off before the big winds hit us. To say I was apprehensive was an understatement of the greatest magnitude. Sleep did not come easy on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning had us up early. We took most of our stuff down to the boat on Tuesday so all we had to load were the last-minute items. We pulled in the slides, buttoned up the rig, very reluctantly said “Goodbye” to Gizmo and headed for the docks. We grabbed two dock carts and headed for the TT. We were there before Greg and JoAnn, so we put our stuff away and got the boat ready to go. They showed up about 8:00 and we were soon headed for the Wahweap Marina where we were to pick up our volunteers.

I nosed the boat into the dock and we waited for the volunteers to arrive. After a few minutes, Cody, our boss, showed up and then Betsy, our N.P.S. Ranger arrived. Cody brought down our first paycheck…$40.17 each. Hot damn and hallelujah! Tonight is party night! When our volunteers arrived, we had the obligatory “Good Morning’s”, “Welcome’s” and “Thank you’s” They were from some very small towns in Colorado at about 10-11,000 feet. Their ages ran 50, 61, 64 and 81. The one woman, age 50 and the lone male, age 61, appeared to be in pretty good shape, but we had great reservations about the two older ladies being able to do the necessary work. Half their luggage was in bottles or cans. The boat was soon stocked better than our local BevMo liquor store back home. This was not looking good!

After the welcoming speeches by Betsy and Cody, we untied the lines and headed off to who knows what. We motored toward Castle Rock, went through “The Cut”, a dredged shortcut through Antelope Island, and headed uplake toward Gunsight Bay, our ultimate destination.

The entrance buoy at Gunsight Bay

The wind picked up as we motored along but it didn’t affect us too much as it was a following wind. (That’s nautical talk for “The wind was behind us”)

After a couple of hours, we pulled into Gunsight Bay and started looking for a sheltered “Honey Hole”. After a couple of false landings, we came upon a good-looking spot and I nudged the boat against the mud bank.

The "Trash Tracker"...our home for the summer!

The surrounding shoreline area was primarily covered with big rocks so we set out five mooring lines, all attached securely around huge and semi-huge boulders. Let the wind blow now. We weren’t going anywhere! Since it was still early, we all got ready and headed out for a few hours of picking trash.

"The Eliminator", aka "The Barge"

The trash picking lasted only about two hours, as the wind picked up and we were soon sandblasted with red dirt and sand. We quit and returned to the boat. Cocktail hour came early. Our guests were soon quite loaded, laughing mightily and raising all kinds of hell. Luckily, they were happy drinkers. Dinner was not uneventful and the party continued far into the beautiful night.

Finally, everyone fell into bed and the cove became quiet again, except for the pulsating howl of the wind. For the next trip, we will double the amount of eye drops we carry.

The rest of the trip went pretty well except for Thursday afternoon when we called Cathy, the lady who was dog-sitting Gizmo. The 60 knot winds must have scared him pretty badly. He was hiding under the driver’s seat and wouldn’t come out and snapped at her. Claudia and I made a semi-emergency run back home in the runabout and brought him back to the TT, much to the delight of the volunteers. As far as the rest of the trip went, we found the usual stuff…fireworks (illegal here on the lake), 154 golf balls, aluminum and tin cans, many shirts, towels and assorted clothing, four anchors, the cylinder head from a V-6 engine, two umbrellas, a pop-up tent and a burned-out boat.

Claudia, Greg and JoAnn digging out a fiepit

All was picked up or wrestled back to the barge.

On Sunday, we got up early and, since it was pretty breezy, side-tied both the barge

Captain Claudia at the helm of the Eliminator

and runabout and headed back down the lake. When we got to the junction near Navajo Canyon, we cut the barge loose and headed into the canyon looking for a mattress that Greg found earlier and tied to a rock. We couldn’t find it and returned to the TT under increasing winds and then headed for the Wahweap dock to unload trash and clean and refuel the boats.

We filled two dumpsters with just over 3,000 pounds trash, an excellent trip!
The volunteers loaded their car and we said our goodbyes. The four of us then cleaned, fueled and pumped the holding tanks all the boats and squeezed the TT into the dock at the end of a line of rental houseboats. After a last-minute, post-trip pow wow, we all left the boat and returned to our respective RV’s to R E L A X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today, Monday, Claudia, Gizmo and I are headed back to the boat to fully inventory, replenish and rig it to our liking. Claudia will handle the interior, I will handle the outside engineering, line replacement, towing and rigging. Gizmo will direct the proper placement of his food and water dish. After that, we have a whole three days off! Look out Page, here we come!

Going, going...

2010-04-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we were invited down to Frank and Vivian’s houseboat, the “Warrior Maiden”. Claudia and Vivian went kayaking and picked up a few of Vivian’s friends along the way. The final tally was seven kayaks and three dogs. I stayed with Frank and stupidvised the food preparation in the galley area. After one root beer, one corona and a glass of lemonade, the girls returned. The boat soon teemed with other friends. The Firlein’s regularly (most every Sunday) open the boat and party hearty. There were four guys and about eight gals on the boat. There was more food than could be consumed by two dozen pirates. One of the guys was a gun nut and major league hunter and the other flew radio controlled airplanes. As these activities were my #2 and #3 favorite things to do, I was in pig heaven talking with them. We finally called it a day about 4:00 and returned to our humble abode atop the hill overlooking Wahweap Marina. Gizmo greeted us lavishly, as we so rightly deserved.

Monday was an “off” day and we spent it checking emails and shopping. There is no email here at the RV park. We have to pack everything up and drive to the Human Resources building to get Internet service. It’s a PITA, but the only way. Again, I thank you all for holding off on the political stuff, jokes and all other non-essential stuff that clogs the inbox. I REALLY appreciate it. Once we get rolling with the job, access to the Internet will probably be about once a week.

After checking into the electronic airways, we returned to the rig for a romp and lunch. Next was a trip into Page for various and sundry jobs, chores, investigations and inquiries. We hit Walmart, the Page Library, Safeway, Family Dollar, Twix Market, the Trading Post and the Ace Hardware for supplies and came home with about 93% of what we set out to do. Not a bad day.

The evening started with a gizmo romp and putting supplies away. After that, we (Claudia) started dinner. I’m sure I did something important but I can’t remember what. Anyway, we soon sat down to dinner. You can’t expect too much out here in the middle of Arizona. The supplies and stores here are somewhat akin to the Isthmus at Catalina. One must do with what one has or can improvise from, so tonight we each had half a beautiful New York Angus steak, smothered in sautéed mushrooms and cooked to perfection, half a large baked potato smothered in “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” and sour cream and topped with fresh cracked pepper and a healthy serving of Claudia’s infamous cole slaw. A glass of vintage (October, 2009) box wine was the ultimate finishing touch!

I shall now retire to the sofa to watch “The Shadow Riders”, a Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott and Katherine Ross movie that we picked up from the library today. It’s a tough life we lead!

Today is Tuesday, April 20th and it’s Orientation Day. We get our pictures taken for our work badges so we had to get up a little early for showers and a little extra primping. I even put on some good-smelling foo-foo stuff! Even Gizmo is running around this morning doing “burn-outs” and “donuts”. As an aside, we scammed a weather/lake report from the dam website today and it showed the lake level at 81.21 feet from full which is 55.7% of capacity. The water level has been rising daily and they expect the lake to rise about 50’ this year. That would be about three ticks above “outstanding” if it did. Things are lookin’ good!

We are now oriented! We even have our new employee badges to prove it. Gizmo got an extra doggie treat today for not peeing in the motorhome. We left this morning at 8:45 and got back at about 4:15 and there were no accidents. Good dog! After walking Giz, we headed down to the bosses office to make arrangements for a skiff tomorrow to give Claudia some maneuvering and docking lessons. The weatherman may throw a wrench into the plans though. The forecast is for 15-20 knot winds with gusts to 35 and a 60%chance of rain. Sounds perfect…NOT! If we start early, we should be able to get in an hour or two, which should be all she needs. If it’s too nasty, we’ll wait until another day. Tonight’s movie was Gizmo’s request, “The Fighting Leathernecks” starring John Wayne. He picked it out himself. My kind of movie! My kind of dog!

Well, we got the wind, but no rain…yet! The boat rental dock shut down all rentals for today. Maybe tomorrow! I think we’ll head into town for a few items, a little more exploring and maybe an ice cream cone. My big job for today is to replace a defective cable to the VCR. Yesterday, I replaced a light bulb. We are at 4,000 feet here at Page so I must limit any strenuous activity.

We headed for town, stopping at Walmart, a computer store and a sporting goods. It started to hail and then turned to light rain but with HUGE drops. We returned home with our treasures where I repaired the VCR player and tested a small tub of Dryer’s Drumstick ice cream for freshness. It passed! It is now time for a cocktail and a movie!

Thursday broke with high clouds and no wind. Today is a “maybe this, maybe that” type of day. We might go out to the Trash Tracker and visit them out “on the job”…maybe, but we didn’t get a call so we just took one of the company boats out for Claudia to get some docking practice and driving the boat. We took the Giz along to get him acclimated to boats. He loved the docks but wasn’t too sure about the thing that vibrated, made noise and was tippy. Claudia did fine. The boat and the dock are still floating and are undamaged. That’s a good start.

Friday morning found us back in training. This time it was all about ecology and conservation, plans that Aramark, our employer, is pretty serious about. After the training, we had lunch in the employee cafeteria, picked up mail and went home to wait, and wait, and wait for a call that the Trash Tracker was inbound and ready for us to meet. We are to see the boat, meet the people who are running it now and get some ideas on what to bring on Wednesday, our first trip. The current captains, Greg & JoAnn Dramer, will be going out with us on the first trip so we can see how it’s done. We are both happy about that, even though there will be eight on the boat. It sure is better than being thrown to the lions without any idea on what to do.

On Saturday, we donned old clothes, grabbed our newly-purchased work gloves and joined a couple dozen volunteers to clean up the area around the Human Resources office, cafeteria and housing. We spent about two hours reclaiming the stuff that the uncaring, uneducated and unwashed employees throw on the ground rather than dispose of it properly. I think a few hours of MANDATORY trash pickup each month would solve the problem, but who am I?

After the trash cleanup, we headed for the dock to meet the Dramers on the Trash Tracker. They very graciously took us through the boat and showed it to us in great detail. Greg and I took the little boat over to the fuel dock and then to service for an alternator repair. Claudia and JoAnn went to the supply area and scammed some extra blankets and sheets. We will return tomorrow to take the barge out to Antelope Island for some practice landings and work. After that, we’ll fuel the barge and the TT and we’ll be ready for our first trip on Wednesday. The weather is going to be rather “iffy”, as a storm front is moving in and is expected to hit Tuesday night. We are taking four female volunteers, all friends, about 20 miles uplake to an area known as “Gunsight”, named after a rock formation that looks like the rear sight on a rifle. After tomorrow, we’ll have a better handle on everything and can start packing and getting ready for Wednesday.

Sunday…a day of rest…RIGHT! We headed down to the TT at 10:00 and met Greg and JoAnn. They wanted to give us a lesson on picking trash so we jumped into the barge and headed for Antelope Island. Two hours later, we had nine bags of trash, one tire and a mattress. Mattresses are a PITA as they are full of sand and weigh enough to overload a half-ton pickup truck…if you could lift them. I dulled my newly-sharpened knife cutting the sand-impregnated foam into 12” square chunks so we could carry them back to the barge. We were beat! This is WORK! I haven’t done this much work in years.

After our fun and games on Antelope Island, we headed for the fuel dock and fueled up the barge. We returned shortly with the TT and got it all fueled and ready to go. We are almost ready for our first trip. A few more last-minute items and we’re done. The weather is threatening. The last report has a weather front hitting us Tuesday night into Wednesday with winds to 25 knots and possible rain. What a start! And I was worried about sun! Oh well, ready or not, here we go!

Since the boat will be REALLY full this trip, we have decided not to take Gizmo with us. Greg and JoAnn have a friend here in the RV park who is going to dog-sit while we are gone. We don’t like leaving Giz for five days, but this seems like the best thing to do. We will be back on Sunday.

Lake Powell and Beyond!

2010-04-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

The summer job started on Friday when we brought the motorhome home from the storage yard in Santee. The first order of business was to get the Engineering Department ready for the trip. That entailed removing the front shield bolts and opening up the generator for an oil and filter change. I couldn’t find a suitable container to catch the oil and wound up using my fishing bucket (which ruined it). Oh well, I’ll get another when we return in September or the next time I go surf fishing, whichever comes later. Anyway, I got the oil drained and filter changed and only spilled three drops of oil on the asphalt (which I wiped up later). One must be ecologically sound! After putting the used oil in the old containers to be disposed of later in an ecologically correct manner, I was done with Job #1. Job #2 was to air up the tires. That took a while as the pump is a high pressure-low volume machine, with major emphasis on “low volume”. Anyway, Job #2 was done and “Godzilla” was ready for the trip. We get to load “stuff” tomorrow…LOTS and LOTS of “stuff”. After all, we won’t be back until late September.

Sunday morning found us doing the final load, putting the bikes on the car and hooking the car to the motorhome. At 9:45, we were on the road. Next stop, the Oasis RV Resort in Las Vegas. After a six hour or so drive, we checked in and got set up. We had six other members of our RV club with us at the Oasis and had a quick mini-reunion. Claudia and I were starved so we headed across the bridge to the other side of the freeway to the Bass Pro Shops store and the Silverton Casino. I got into the BPS store for a quick 30 minutes shopping spree before they closed. We then went next door to the casino for dinner. Claudia had prime rib and I had the surf & turf special…steak and shrimp…both with loaded baked potatoes and vegetables. Claudia was now primed and rejuvenated enough to pull on a few slot machines. Twenty dollars went VERY quickly so she had to get into her “secret stash” and suddenly started to recoup her losses. The night ended with her down about $10…not a tragedy, just an acceptable loss. Back to the rig, a quick romp with Gizmo and off to bed. We will sleep well tonight.

Everyone was up about 8:00 for morning coffee and dog duty. We all started trickling out about 9:00 with rain threatening! We slid through the Las Vegas traffic and settled in at 60 mph, headed for Page, AZ and Lake Powell. About halfway there, the rain hit. Nothing serious, but the wind made driving with both hands a definite necessity. We stopped with two other of our rigs in Kanab for a “Gizmo break” and lunch. There is a great little hole-in-the-wall burger joint there and we had a couple of Outlaw Burgers, known as bacon cheeseburgers to y’all back home. We had an order of real honest-to-goodness sweet potato fries and real honest-to-goodness chocolate malts to go with them. My doctor would not be happy…but I was!

Following lunch, we chugged on down the road, encountering off and on rain as we drove. The wind picked up and I had periods of white-knuckle driving…not fun! The rigs that were following us actually ran into a snowstorm just beyond Fredonia. Amazing! Anyway, we finally got to the turnoff to the Wahweap Marina and were soon parked at our assigned site. It was a beautiful spot at the end of the row with the rig facing the lake and nothing to block our view. Booyah! We got all set up in a moderate wind so we covered just the basics, jacks and slides…no chairs or awnings to rip or blow away. We were scheduled for an evening pot-luck but the wind screwed that up big time. Every time we ventured outside, we were immediately sandblasted with sand and dirt. Grit was everywhere…eyes, nose, mouth and other body parts that haven’t seen sunshine in a long time. I retracted the big slide to prevent ripping the leaf shield on top. It started to rain, lightly at first, but the hard for just a few minutes. The sun was out to the west and we had a full double-rainbow.

What a welcome to Wahweap! We then adjourned to one of the club rigs for a pot-luck munchy party. We then returned to our rig where Frank, Vivian and “Sonora” joined us.

Sonora is their miniature female schnauzer. Gizmo met her at the door and escorted her to the middle of the room where he promptly let her know that this was HIS house by marking his territory on the rug. GREAT! Thanks Giz…jerk! After cleaning up his “mark”, we all had a great reunion. Sleep came very easy that night.

The next morning, we all met at the group meeting area for coffee and conversation. Vivian had scammed a bunch of great door prizes and held a raffle after breakfast.

Al & Phyl Runzel won the big prize, a dinner cruise on the Canyon Princess, worth a cool $200.

Other club winners were Byron & Sandy Miller

(Byron drew his own ticket) who took home a $20 gift certificate for gourmet pizza and a year’s membership to the Lake Powell Yacht Club. John Taylor won a chart of Lake Powell. We then retired to our rigs to get ready for a trip to Antelope Canyon, a dry wash that ends at Slot Canyon, a narrow walk-through sandstone formation that is a photographers dream.

The sandstone walls have been eroded into spectacular formations by wind and water over many years. I burned a lot of pixels!

After the walk through Slot Canyon, we all returned and, again, washed sand from teeney-tiny dark locations on and in our bodies and got ready for a cocktail cruise through “The Cut”

to Warm Creek Bay. The cruise was relaxing and fun, but the drinks were quite spendy.

We then returned to Wahweap for a pulled pork dinner at our President’s rig. He had just finished a new project and showed it off to us. It was a food prep station built into a bay slide. It had a Coleman stove, convection oven, a flat fryer (sort of like a George Foreman grill) and a sink with running hot and cold water. It was NICE!

After dinner, we adjourned to the group meeting area for a slide presentation on “The Critters of Lake Powell” and a mystery dessert, which turned out to be a copy of our “barbecued slugs” that we do for our caravans. It has been a L O N G day! Again, we will sleep well tonight.

Wednesday was a sleep-in day…NOT! We have been leaving Gizmo’s new portable home open for him to go in and out as he wishes. Monday night, he stayed in it all night. Last night, however, we had a “visitor” about 3:00 am. He looked at me, eyes drooped, ears drooped and tail hanging. How could I say “No”? I lifted the covers and he hopped in, scurried down to the foot of the bed and curled up in a tight ball with an (assumed) smile on his face. At 7:00, he started crawling slowly up toward the top of the bed. A fuzzy face appeared between our heads with a “Good Morning” look. I reluctantly got out of bed and took him for a romp. The day has started! …and it started with MORE food…omelets-in-a-bag to be exact, and delicious as always. At 10:00 o’clock, after slathering up profusely with Udder Cream to avoid the infamous Arizona “lizard skin”, we carpooled for a hike to the Horseshoe Bend overlook on the Colorado River.

After a short drive and a short hike up and over a sandstone hill, called an “erg”, we arrived at Horseshoe Bend. Not surprisingly, it looked just like a horseshoe,

except, of course, it was made of water, not iron. Near the overlook, Vivian ran into a friend of hers who just happened to be a paleontologist. He asked if we would like to see a dinosaur track. Absolutely! Well, we were standing right on it and didn’t know it. He pointed it out to us. As it was pretty difficult to see, I reached into my bag of tricks and poured water on the track. It jumped out and was now easy to see.

The depth of my knowledge is amazing! Sometimes, I even surprise myself! We then drove to the John Wesley Powell Museum in town and spent an hour or so gawking at the exhibits on display before returning to Wahweap for lunch and a shower. Our dirty clothes bin is filling up fast!

After a well-deserved and much-appreciated-by-others shower, we drove to see the employee RV parking area where we will soon reside. To be charitable, the employee RV park was “primitive” and “rustic”. We met two other workers who helped us pick out the “best” spot for Godzilla. It was covered with twigs, leaves and other debris. The water and power worked but the sewer connection was half-full of leaves. We were assured it should be fine so we went back to the Human Resources office and reserved it for Friday. We are going to leave the motorhome here at Wahweap while we go up in the car with a rake, a shovel and a half dozen large trash bags. Once the site is cleared, we’ll bring the beast up and get it parked for the duration. It isn’t the Ritz, but it’ll do.

As the time was slowly creeping toward Happy Hour, we returned to the rig and got ready for a margarita party. We slimed over to the meeting area at 5:00 where I was promptly given two delicious margaritas. I reluctantly gave one to Claudia and settled into my chair. One hour and five margaritas later (they were small glasses), we lined up for “Walking Tacos”. What, you ask, is a “Walking Taco”. OK, take a personal-size bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, open the bag at one end after slightly crushing the chips. Into the bag, you add condiments like chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, refried beans, pulled pork or beef, shredded cheese, salsa and sour cream. Take your fork, stir it a little and enjoy! They were delicious! We topped the meal off with a hot cup of coffee and wondered how y’all were suffering back at home. We sure weren’t! Sleep?…not a problem!

I was up and dressed before 7:00…a new record for me! Gizmo and I went for a romp. Actually, let me rephrase that. Gizmo romped, I sauntered. We encountered one of the ferocious denizens of the desert during our walk/saunter. A HUGE ferocious meat-eating roadrunner zipped by us looking for some sun and an easy meal. He looked at Giz, who was wagging his tail and wanted to play, and decided that maybe he would pass on the furry rabbit-sized animal and go find a lizard or two for breakfast. Good choice! Anyway, Gizmo did his “duty” and we returned to the rig to get ready for a healthy and wholesome breakfast of biscuits & gravy. YUM! It was then time to get ready for today’s hike to Toadstool Valley.

We, all fifteen of us, left the campground at 10:00 for the 20-mile drive to the trailhead. The walk in

was about a mile or so and we came to areas of beautiful rock toadstools.

We meandered around and took lots of pictures.

Claudia insisted that I get in one because I’m always behind the camera and not in front of it. So, here you are, a token photo of a well-equipped hiker, complete with sturdy hiking shoes, an SPF 50 shirt to ward off the sun, a belt pack with water, a unique hiking stick made of diamond willow from Destruction Bay, AK and a good hat to protect me from the sun.

That’s it! Don’t expect another.

After visiting Toadstool Valley, we stopped by the BLM info center on the way back to Page. This center specialized in dinosaur fossils, as many bones have been taken from the area. Several new dinosaurs were discovered in this area.

We then returned home, picked up Frank and went down to their houseboat . We then went into Page and washed the 5,143 pounds of dirt off the car. It was now time for a shower, a cocktail and a dinner of “Mystery Stew”, a concoction where every person throws a can of vegetables into a large pot. Meat is then added and the whole concoction is heated for consumption. Tasty it was! A campfire finished the night perfectly. We slept good!

Friday, the last day of the rally and the first day of our summer job. We cleaned up the rig and took the car up to Human Resources where we checked in, signed some forms and got the preliminary niceties taken care of. We were assigned to RV Space 45, the one we wanted. We then returned to the rig to finish packing up, cleaning up, and saying goodbye to our group.

After the aforementioned chores, we pulled out and headed up the hill to the Wahweap RV Park and parked next to our site. After changing into work clothes, we got the site all cleaned up and ready for Godzilla to move in. Gizmo supervised as I backed the rig into position, got leveled and set out the slides.

Finishing the set-up procedure took a little extra time, as this set-up was for a month and a half, as opposed to a weekend “quickie”.

We are now, finally, settled in and mostly set up. We are going to clean up, go see our boss down the hill and “kick it” for the rest of the day. As of right now, we have no Internet. I have to find out why. I NEED my Internet. Anyway, that’s it for now. See y’all down the road.

Quartzsite, 2010

2010-01-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

We picked up the motorhome on January 6th and brought it home to get ready for the great jaunt to Quartzsite, AZ on the 8th. Larry and Linda are already there and have staked out our usual spot at the first “road” east of Scaddan Wash and the third wash south of I-10 by the powerline. Directions out here are a little vague. You just have to sort of know where you are going or make a call on the cell phone for someone to come out and lead you in. It’s all part of the adventure. Anyway, we arrived late in the afternoon of the 8th, parked our rig in front of Larry and Linda’s and got settled in for the duration, however long that eventually turned out to be.

Slycord's and Barber's

The first night turned out to be rather cold. I didn’t check the thermometer when I got up in the middle of the night to turn the heater on, but when you have two blankets on and still get woke up by the cold…it’s COLD! I felt sorry for Gizmo so I let him out of his cage and brought him to bed with us. We finally got up about 8:30 for Gizmo’s morning romp. The first order of the day?...shopping, of course! We all headed in to town via the newly-found R/C (radio controlled) Quartzsite Model Airfield. This was new to me. I didn’t know there was an R/C field here in the “Q”. The field was beautiful laid out with a wide, level asphalt runway with centerline and short landing marks. It even had a helicopter pad. There were spectator benches and tables for setting up and working on the planes. This was the best field I’ve ever seen. Who’dathunkit?

Anyway, several planes were cutting donuts in the sky and there was one glider soaring way up high. I followed the eyeballs of all those who were flying and finally found Bob, the pilot of the glider. We chatted as he flew and I told him I was a novice pilot and did have my plane with me. He invited me back tomorrow morning to go flying. I readily accepted and we made a date for 9:00 to 9:30 or so the next morning. Everything, especially times around here are sort of vague and non-specific. He called out “Landing” to all the other pilots and brought his plane down at right angles to the runway. “This is interesting” thought I as I watched his plane cross the runway and pull up into a stall. He reached up nonchalantly and plucked it from the air with his free hand. Nice! We then headed for town.

The girls were interested in jewelry and clothes and there were plenty of vendors of both. Larry and I amused ourselves with all the tools and guy stuff set out under the awnings. I found a “T” handle to replace a broken dump handle and a couple of other minor things in the less-than-$3-each range. We then returned home and I prepped the plane for tomorrow’s flight(s). Since the day was still early, I decided to help Claudia by cooking dinner. I fired off some charcoal and got the Dutch oven ready. The first thing in the oven was a batch of biscuits followed by oven-roasted red potatoes, my signature dish. As the potatoes cooked, the chicken went on the barbie. After 45 minutes or so, we sat down to a great dinner.

The next morning, I headed for the field, met Bob and got the plane all set up for flight. We powered it up, yelled ”Glider launching” (because you launch a glider across the runway, not “with” the runway like the power planes), and chucked her into the air. I was slightly apprehensive of this flight as the last landing a few months ago was a bit hard. The plane had hit a slight hill and kind of “stuffed” the motor into the ground and broke the rod that goes through the motor to hold the prop on. It took a bit of work, and several trips to several hobby shops to find a new rod to get the motor back in working condition. This was the maiden flight after the repair. It flew fine and was soon soaring well above the power plane area. After 20 minutes or so, I brought it in for a landing…not the best one I’ve ever made, but acceptable…or so I thought. I stuck around for a while and was awed by the prowess of a helicopter pilot who was wringing out his gas-powered eggbeater. He was GOOD! I then returned home and recharged the plane’s battery so I could return the next day for more flying.

After recharging the battery, we again headed into town for more shopping. Claudia was in hog heaven! Her favorite clothing vendor was here and was selling clothes for $10 an item. Luckily, payday was a few days ago and there were still funds available for just such “necessities”. We then returned for dinner and a campfire.

The following morning, I again headed for the field for some “stick time”. I again met Bob and brought out the glider, setting it on the empty table next to him. I set the plane up, installed the battery, grabbed the controller and started checking out the controls prior to the launch. OK, up-down…check. Left-right…oops! No left-right! I looked at the rudder and found the plastic clamp attaching the rudder to the control rod was broken. Crap! No flying today. One of the locals, Pete, offered to take me to his house to see if he had a replacement part. We took off and we did find one that would work in his spare parts bin. (A “spare parts bin” is a collection of parts salvaged from old crashed planes) We returned to the airfield. As I was installing the old new part, I noticed the vertical stabilizer was loose. A quick inspection found more damage. One of the (tiny, thin, very small) bolts that secure the tail to the body of the plane had snapped off. There was definitely no flying today. Again, crap! I returned home and set up shop in Larry’s trailer and took the tail apart. I inventoried my meager supplies and made a list of parts I will need to repair the plane. There is a meeting at Jim’s house (another pilot with a VERY extensive supply of spare parts, both new and used) on Wednesday at 9:00. I should be able to get all I need then. For now, my plane is grounded. Claudia and I went in to the store for food supplies and to fill the water jugs. The biggest surprise at the store was finding “slug skins” (crescent rolls) for $2.85 a package, cheaper than at home. We bought three tubes.

The next day, Tuesday, the girls went into town for more shopping while Gizmo and I stayed home to watch his favorite show on TV, Predator Quest. (He loves to watch the coyotes) After the show, Giz and I put 36 gallons of water into the main tank of the rig. That was our chore for the day. After all, one must stretch out the jobs. You can’t ever be all done or there would be nothing to do…right? Let’s see…what’s happening right now? Claudia is napping. Gizmo is napping. I think I’ll put this to bed and take up a good book…or take a nap…or ?????????????

I actually took a rare nap. It felt great! After the nap, I went outside and chilled with Linda and Larry. Although it was late in the day, Larry was soon hard at work removing two tires from his trailer. His laboring shamed me into going back to work. I went back to the rig, mixed up a solution of soda and water and poured it over the battery terminals of the Explorer. After all the corrosion foamed and fizzled off, I rinsed the battery with fresh water and my work was done. WHEW! I sat down with a cold lemonade and relaxed. That was almost too much work that late in the day. Dinner and a campfire finished the perfect day.

Today is Wednesday and I went to the morning meeting of the Quartzsite, AZ Desert Fliers at Jim’s house. After the meeting, he made up the part I needed to repair the glider. It is now almost ready to fly again. One more trip back to repair the plastic skin that covers the tail assembly and I’ll be good to go. This afternoon is Happy Hour at the Escapees campground. We all headed out there about 1:00 pm, each with our adult beverage of choice.

We met two friends and past Wagonmasters with Adventure Caravans at the Escapees Happy Hour, Verle and Curtis Lambert who were the leaders on our first Alaska caravan and are snowbirding in the Yuma area. When we leave here, we are going to head over their way and dry camp for one night at their new Indian casino before heading home. After the Escapees gig, I went back to Jim’s and finished the repair to the glider. Thirty more minutes of puttering and it will be ready to fly. The weather doesn’t look good though. The wind is picking up. I already brought in our window awnings and retrieved the outside trash bin from being blown out into the desert. I used the car to bock the wind and barbecued a nice looking steak for dinner. When one is dry camping in the desert, you have to make do with what you have to try to overcome sudden adversities. Luckily, I drink my margaritas on the rocks so it is not necessary to fire up the generator every evening at 5:00 pm to use the blender.

The weather has changed. Yesterday we got wind. Last night we got rain. Today we got cold AND wind! We have had several rigs trickle in and are now seven in a very loose circle, actually more of an oval. I parked our Explorer and Richard parked his van so as to block the wind while we attempted a potluck.

The ladies done good! We had ham, lasagna, a couple of salads, several dips, my world famous Taku baked beans, meatballs, banana cream pie, carrot cake and cupcakes.

As I said earlier, when one is dry camping in the desert, you have to make do with what you have to try to overcome sudden adversities. We overcame and then some! I was still moaning when I went to bed. It rained again. The weather-guessers are predicting a short respite tomorrow before the sewer breaks and all hell breaks loose. Claudia and I decided that we shall make the dash for home tomorrow.

Tuesday broke with an almost clear sunny sky. We finished off the rest of the biscuits and gravy and started packing up. At 10:00 am, we said our goodbyes and headed west on the old interstate. I took the SR 60 bypass and was just about at the 215 when the sky started getting really dark. The rain soon started and was soon falling in earnest. It was a 40 mph with windshield wipers on high type of drive. We were getting knocked around by the wind pretty good. It was NOT a kick back, one hand on the steering wheel day. Other drivers were driving exceptionally well today…relatively slow and no bad lane changes. We did see one car that went off the freeway backwards but that was it. Home was a lovely sight!

The rain had stopped but the wind was still howling. We unloaded the rig, parked it on the street, took showers and went out to dinner.

Tomorrow is “Clean the Rig” morning followed by “Take the rig to Storage” afternoon followed by “Washing all the clothes, blankets, pads, towels and stuff” evening. Right now, I’m tired and it’s “Go to bed early” night! I think I’ll wait a week or so before planning next year’s jaunt to the “Q”.