Golden Spike RV Park

While in Brigham City, we stayed at the Golden Spike RV Park.  I took zero pictures of it, too cold!

It's an ok park.  Sites are narrow and very close to each other.  Some are concrete, most are gravel, with grass strips between sites.  Utilities are in the middle of the site.  We had to level some.  Power was good, water pressure was adequate.  I have no data on restrooms, showers or laundry.  There were four bars of Verizon 4G, but it was frequently slow.  The gravel sites really need more gravel, when it rains there is mud.

From our site we could see the railroad tracks and the freeway.  There was a moderate level of noise from each.  We'd go back there if we return to Brigham City, but we would not want to stay long.

Update June 27, 2019:  They've added some more of that terrible 1 - 2 inch rock that's hard to walk on.  The local road behind the park is a lot busier due to a bunch of retail that's been built up.  I think there are more trains, especially at two in the morning.  Other than that, nothing much has changed.

Here is one paltry picture.

Brigham City on Day 118

We left Jensen a day early because there were things in Brigham City we wanted to see.  This is what we saw.  It snowed last night!  Snow!  I haven’t seen snow falling since the late 1980s.



It has snowed off and on all day. It’s also cold, and windy.



We drove into the historic downtown area to try to walk around a little, but it was really cold.  As the storms rolled through, the temperature dropped into the low 30’s.  That is so far outside of my comfort zone.  Look at the mountains and how obscured they are.



So, we did not get to the Bird Refuge.



Nor did we walk around the Mormon Tabernacle,



or the Mormon Temple.  The Mormon buildings are always so impressive in their scale.



We’re really hoping this weather pattern does persist.

After a week which saw Trump providing Russia top secret information, today was an active day for the administration.  Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein appointed former FBI Chief Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 elections and Trump and associates’ involvement.  The Washington Post also reported that in 2016, the House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, opined that Putin was paying money to Trump.  Apparently there was a recording of the conversation, which was obtained by WAPO.  In other news, Trump is considering rolling back normalization of relations with Cuba.  Russia and China are taking advantage of this and moving in on the small island nation, 90 miles off our shores.  Last, but not least, Trump’s golf courses and resorts have really crappy internet security which would allow even a mediocre hacker to penetrate their defenses.

The sun is now out, against a really dark sky.  Wonder what’s next, locusts perhaps.

Jensen to Brigham City, UT

Today we drove from Jensen to Brigham City.  It’s a pretty drive.  There’s a surprising amount of water out there.  The reservoirs are full. This is one of them, I’m not sure which one it is.



Aren’t the mountains pretty?  Utah is such a lovely state.



There is a climb starting around Independence that goes up and over Daniel’s Summit, which is about 8,000 feet.  Going north, the climb is gradual.  Once you start down, it’s steeper but not bad, unless you are behind a double tanker truck who is controlling his speed.  Jim had to work at it not to overtake the trucks.

North of Heber there is a six mile climb with 6%, 4% and 5% sections.  Again the double tanker trucks were a pain in the rear.  They try to pass each other on the grade, and they can’t.   Once you reach the top, the descent is one mile at 5%.  There are other  grades that aren’t severe. 



The GPS wanted us to take 80W over to I15, and then drive through Salt Lake City. Do not do this!  It’s the same distance to take 80E to 84W and then on to I15 right around Ogden. When we drove through Salt Lake in June 2015, there was massive construction that looked like it would take years.  The stretch on 80E and 84W is just lovely.  Very bucolic.  You see a lot of this.  It was so much better than driving I15 through Salt Lake.

The Last of Jensen

Another hike we did while in Jensen was Moonshine Arch.  It’s just north of Steinaker State Park.  Getting there involves a gravel road, and then a dirt road that has the sand that’s like talcum powder.  I will once again be vacuuming out the bed of the truck.  It’s a nice hike, there is some slogging through the talcum powder sand so don’t wear a nice pair of socks.  Mine are now pink.

It’s a pretty arch.  There is a cavern underneath it.



The scenery on the way back is just lovely.  Look at the colors.



Today we drove to Grand Junction, via the highway of death, CO139.  It’s actually a really pretty drive.  The road surface was not bad until we were about 38 miles north of I70.



There are cows on the road.  Notice that she is on our side of the jersey barrier.



As you approach Douglass Pass the road gets really steep.



The south side of the pass has significant switch backs.  They are signed 15 mph and they mean it. 
Here is more live stock we saw.  It was a critter rich day.  We had cows and deer.  Going into Loma, prairie dogs were running across the road in both directions.  None were harmed by us.  There were also sheep on the highway.  Someone had put up home made signs warning of sheep on the road for several miles.



A large part of the road maintenance appears to be scraping mud off the road.  See the scrape marks in the dirt?



The Deere 333G was pushing dirt over the edge of the road.  The power tool behind the Deere was pulling up bushes and throwing them over the side, as well.  There was a lot of evidence of mud removal along the way.




This is the top of Douglass Pass.  The road was rough in places, but it wasn’t crumbling.  There are roads in the Tucson city limits that are worse. Large falling rocks have taken their toll on the pavement.  In a car or a truck, it’s not a bad drive.  We would NEVER EVER EVER take the RV in either direction on that road.  There are some really steep bits that are long enough to allow the weight of the bus to put serious strain on the engine brake.



It’s a pretty drive.

Oh yes, the ear.  Fungus is still in residence.  This time the ENT squirted the gentian violet into the ear instead of painting with a q-tip.  His thinking was that more would be more effective.  Thought I was going to pass out/vomit from the pain.  Eight hours later it still hurts, along with referred pain into the jaw.  So, I have an appointment with an office in Boise on the last day that we are there to see what’s happening on the ear drum.  Hopefully today will have exterminated the life forms in my ear.

Take care of your ears.  When they turn on you, life is bad.

Revenge of the Electronics

Not everything is happiness and joy in dino-ville.  The electronics are massing for attack.  Beginning feints at warfare have begun.

Aladdin is an electronic data reporting system in the RV.  It shows engine data like temperatures and fluid pressures as well as status of the coach electrical systems.  When we drove to Jensen from Moab, Jim saw the Aladdin system reporting oil pressure of 15 psi at idle.  This is a bad number.  It should be in the 30s.  We went to the Caterpillar dealer in Vernal, who plugged their laptop into the Engine Control  Module.  The ECM says that at no time was the oil pressure that low.  In fact, if the pressure went below 18, the engine would shut itself down.  What it did show was that the engine was over-sped coming down the grade on Indian Canyon.  In retrospect, we should not have towed the pick up truck down that hill.  Note to self!

We went back a couple of days later so that they could check the sensors.  Of course the bedroom closet had to be emptied.

The tower of stuff.

The Cat dealer did not find anything wrong with the sensors.  Their theory is there is some fault in the Aladdin system.  Hopefully it’s a faulty plug or wire that can be located and fixed.  However, it’s going to have to wait until the end of June when we are in Harrisburg, which is the epicenter of RV knowledge.

Recently, the DVR has been freezing when playing back recorded television.  After being frozen for awhile, it then reboots all by itself.  No hands!  So I called Dish.  It took 45 minutes on the phone to convince “tech support” that it really was freezing.  Each attempted playback required the time for reboot and re-acquiring the signal.  Eventually tech support agreed that since multiple programs were freezing, that yes there was a problem and they would send me a new receiver.  Then I had to provide the address.  Apparently tech support is not familiar with the concept of “in care of” or “RV Park.”  It was painful.  Now all we have to do is find someone in Boise to install it for us. 

While sitting on the phone, I was looking at Jim’s laptop, noticing that hitting the enter key was producing exactly zero response.  So I did a restart, and got this.  The dreaded blue screen of death. 

Then a miracle occured.  It’s an HP laptop, and it has a really robust set of recovery tools.  The HP Support Center box just popped up and gave us a menu of things we could do, one of which was file back up using a command prompt.  I used to be a PC programmer, in 1985.  It’s good to know DOS.  Jim could remember which files he had updated, but not backed up, and I was able to copy them to a thumb drive.  It was good.

We asked the HP software to do a system restore and it did.  I am really impressed with this package.  Windows just went toes up and said it couldn’t restore anything, but the HP software brought it back from the dead.  Currently the lap top is installing one of the 167 updates that were required to return to current s/w levels on top of the restore point.

The clock gadget is gone, and the free Excel and Word is gone, but at least he’s still on Windows 7 and not that heinous Windows 10.

Here is a lovely flower picture for your enjoyment.

Tomorrow we are up and out really early for the drive to Grand Junction to see the ear guy.  Hopefully my ear will be cleared up and I can quit thinking about it. 

Dinosaur Tracks and Flat Rock Trails

We drove out to Redfleet State Park to look for the hike to the dinosaur tracks.  We ended up at the boat ramp which is not where we wanted to be.  But it was ok, we could see the battleships (on the left) and the area where the tracks are (on the bottom right next to the water).  So we left and drove north to Donkey Flat road which takes you to the trail head.  Just before the trail head the Vernal Simplot phosphate mine is on the other side of the road.

This sign alerts you to the fact that you could be in mortal danger.  I do wonder how one is supposed to be aware of potential blasting activities.

These are the battleships, aka the Redfleet.

It’s really pretty out there.

After about a mile and a half, we reached the site of the tracks. I think this is a footprint, but I would not swear to it.

Another view of the reservoir.  We were talking to a French guy at the boat ramp and he said that part of the water is really nice for kayaking.

On the way back from the tracks we took the turn–off for the Flat Rock loop.  It’s marked with red dinosaur feet painted on the rocks.  There are also mountain bike trails in the area, which are marked with red tags in the trees.  Sometimes the loop is marked with red tags, when there are no rocks to spray paint.  There were a couple of instances of not being sure if we were going the right way.

Who knows what the story is here?  This is a big rock formation.  It’s been painted to look like the rock, but there is a hole in it.

Cinder blocks and rebar were installed.

There is an arch, and brickwork in the back.  What?  What is this?

More scenic beauty.

This is from Google Earth.  It’s the phospate mine.

I’m glad we did the hike, but I would not rate it as one of our favorites.  My feet are tender from surgeries, and they hated much of the trail.  You spend a fair amount of time of rock that’s not flat, but that is ridged.  But the time we got back, my feet were yelping.  I like the flatrock much better.