Onward to the ESCAPADE...

  

Green River at Flaming Gorge

 Having checked off another bucket-list item with our visit to Vernal, Utah and the Dinosaur National Monument and Museum (BONUS on previous post) We turned the Phantom Northwards on Rt 191 thru the Uinta Mountains and the 8,424 ft summit before Dutch John and Flaming Gorge. A brief photo stop at the Flaming Gorge Reservoir and Dam on the Green River. 

  The Green River is a major tributary of the Colorado River and feeds into the Flaming Gorge Dam Reservoir. Crossing the 'thin arch' concrete causeway over the dam was a few moments of white knuckles as the dam stands some 502 ft. high and 1285 ft long.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir Dam - Courtesy of Bing Search

 Constructed in the late 50's by the Bureau of Reclamation, the reservoir stretches over 90 miles into Southern Wyoming and holds 3.7 million acre-feet of fresh water. 

Flaming Gorge - Green River

  The scenery in this area of the Green River is breathtaking and a welcome break after ascending the Uinta Mountains for what seemed an eternity.

  We continued up Rt 191 into the bustling city of Rock Springs, WY to the local Wally World, meeting up with our summer travel companions and several hundred other Escapade early arrivals. This was our very first overnight stay in a Walmart parking lot, and we looked forward to the experience. 

  After doing our weekly grocery shopping and having dinner, we gathered together for an impromptu 'tail gate' meet and greet for a few hours and a few adult beverages before retiring for the evening.

Part of the Lonestar Contingent

 Early the next morning we snaked our way over to the Sweetwater Events Complex where hundreds of volunteers were already busy checking in and escorting guests to their assigned spots for the 63rd Escapade. I ended up being far too busy maneuvering the Phantom thru the maze of already parked RV of every size and type to take pictures, my apologies.  In fact, I didn't take many pictures at all during our 8-day stay.

Awww - Ain't That Cute
(J. Wilkins)

   An ESCAPADE is an individual experience for each attendee... Some people attend for access to major RV suppliers and mechanics. Some attend for the seminars on RV industry related topics and information germane to RVing in general. Still others have attended many Escapades merely for the comradery of fellow RVers. 

  I had prearranged for the installation of a much-needed Magne Shade solar shield system for the Phantom.

Breaking the News to Lanie

 I also had arraigned to have Blue Ox conduct an overdue service inspection of our current Alpha towbar.

  After a complete disassembly of our towbar, it was discovered that the system I was provided with was undersized for towing the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The Alpha towbar was tearing itself apart and bound for a catastrophic failure down the road. YIKES - I ended up replacing the Alpha with the recommended Avail model (10,000 lbs capacity). Peace of mind trumps expense.

Guess Who or Why ??

  There are some very colorful individuals that attend the Escapades... Just as with RVing in general you will meet a huge cross-section of people. 

  Other than almost all of the evening events taking place in these massive tents where the acoustics were atrocious (turning up the volume doesn't improve the sound) the event was very enjoyable. We met lots of new and fun people. I volunteered several days to drive the activity carts (golf carts providing transportation) with obligatory Bowler firmly atop my follically challenged pate...always a great way to meet new folks and exchange shared experiences. 

  Being Wyoming, the winds never stop blowing... several warnings about retracting your awnings were repeated throughout the week by the Escapade Organizers.

  Several couples from The Lonestar Corral Co-Op volunteered to attend to the LSC CO-OP table on "The Row"

Sharing information about the Co-Op (and treats) with interested passers-by perusing the various clubs and Co-Ops represented. A very effective outreach indeed! We had 14 members from Lonestar Corral attending the Escapade.

We attended several seminars on various topics that sounded interesting to us, attending different seminars to better utilize our time during the day. 

Entertainment in the evenings followed a raffle period where items and gift certificates were awarded in a random drawing of all attendees... BUT, you had to be present to win !!

FinalEyes - 80s Rock Band

Some of the entertainment was good, some not so good... Either way, the acoustics sucked!! What was good - was a few of the entertainers on Talent Night... Lonestar's own 'Mike Smith' knocked a performance of his own song, "October Skies", out of the park. Mike also performed a wonderful duet cover of Willy Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain". 

"STINK FLOYD"

  The talent group that brought down the house was "Stink Floyd" with an entertaining rendition of Pink Floyds, "Comfortably Numb" to wrap up the talent show that evening.

  I don't normally include a passel of pictures, but I am going to post a few from the Escapade to provide a flavor of the event in Rock Springs, WY

"6-pack" Activity Carts

   

Massive 'Event Tents'...

      

  

"Abe Lincoln" arrives on his steed to deliver a stirring
recitation of his famous Gettysburg Address

   I will close this addition of the Phantom Phaeton, hoping you will FOLLOW  along on our sojourn.

   As aways, Safe Travels and God's Speed...

"In Matters of Style, Swim with the Current...

In Matters of Principle, Stand Like a Rock"

                       - T. Jefferson

Why Is It Called "Dead Horse Point" ?

   As a follow up to Arches National Park, we ventured the few miles up Route 191, past Arches, to Dead Horse Point State Park ... an oft times overlooked destination.

Dead Horse Point State Park - UTAH

  BUT FIRST - A shameless plug for the new merchandise store for The Phantom Phaeton Blogpost  Link Located in the upper RIGHT corner. Lots of Phantom SWAG to chose from.

All proceeds, if any, will go to charity.  Also, if you would be so kind, click on the FOLLOW button at the top of the page (Upper Left) If you are reading this blog post on a cell phone you might have to go the WEB VERSION (View Web Version) near the bottom of the page. You will be notified of any subsequent posts and not miss a single riveting installation of The Phantom Phaeton Blog. 

Dead Horse Canyon from Visitor Center

   Dead Horse Point, located in San Juan County, Utah opened in 1959 and covers an area of 5,400 acres of high desert situated at an elevation of almost 6,000 ft above mean sea level. The park features an adequate visitors center and several outstanding overlooks of the Colorado River and The Canyonlands National Park.

 I don't know why more travelers don't visit here but the scenery rivals the vistas of the Grand Canyon. 

   Dead Horse has an 8-mile hiking trail (East and West rim trails) and The Intrepid Bike Trail System covering 17 miles of single-track trails of varying difficulty.

Horseshoe Bend in the Colorado River

 So, why was it called 'Dead Horse Point' ?

 The name Dead Horse Point, according to legend, was known as the place at the end of the canyon where cowboys would round up and corral wild horses. The horse wranglers would 'cut out' the horses they wanted and abandoned the rest to starve to death or succumbed to the harsh waterless environment. Hence the unpleasant moniker.

 

Canyonlands from Dead Horse Point

 

   Dead Horse is 30 miles from anywhere... no gas, no food and lack of medical care might be a concern. Come prepared as this is a high desert area and extremely dry.

  The park is supported by two campgrounds (Kayenta and Wingate) with electric service. A hike-in, tent only area and an area with 'Yurts'... 

 This is one of the few canyon destinations that doesn't fence the cliff edges... so fair warning...

  Area flora has developed some amazing resiliency over the millennia... Plants grow very slowly and have a waxy coating on their small leaves to prevent accelerated evaporation. The plants and animals have adapted to the scarcity of water and the high temperatures in the canyon and surrounding cliffs.

Obligatory Park Entrance Sign

   Although by-passed or overlook by many area visitors, this Park is definitely worth your time to pay a visit. 

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If you are still with me - BONUS material covering Dinosaurs !!

  Departing MOAB, we got back on Rt 191/6 past Price and Roosevelt UT for a three day stop at Steinaker State Park for a visit to another bucket-list destination. The Dinosaur National Monument & Museum outside of Vernal, UT. 

  This place was amazing !! If you are either into Dinosaurs, Paleontology or natural history this park is a must ! The Quary Wall display is worth the trip alone.

Green River

   You access the park entrance off of Rt40 on Utah 149 along the beautiful Green River. To get to the Quarry Exhibit Hall, you park at the very informative Visitors Center and board a free tram that takes you up a steep access road dropping you off right at the Quarry Hall.

  The park straddles the border of Utah and Colorado - a remote area on the edge of the Uinta Basin. Over 90% of the park is managed as wilderness. All of the fossils are located on the Utah side of the border.

  Besides the fossils, the area features numerous hiking trails, some serious rafting thru the canyons carved by the Green and Yampa rivers, ancient petroglyphs in the Cub Creek and Slit Mountain and a few nice campgrounds. 

Wall of Bones - Quarry Hall Exhibit

  Dinosaur National Monument boasts one of the Earth's richest fossil beds. These remains from the Jurassic period date to 150 million years ago. During an extended drought period, many of the dinosaurs perished near the banks of the dry riverbed... when the rains returned, floodwaters carried the remains of over 500  

dinosaurs, representing ten different species, in a jumbled mass, to this their final resting place.

  Ancient river sediments entombed the remains (Morrison Sandstone). Over the millennia, erosion exposed the fossilized bones. In 1909 Earl Douglas discovered the massive cache of bones and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Part of the Massive Morrison Formation

  We are off to Rock Springs, WY and the much anticipated 63rd Annual ESCAPADE being held at the Stillwater Events Complex. We are anxious to meet up with the Kelsoes in Rock Springs to complete plans for our post Escapade travels.

  "May The Odds Be Forever In Your Favor"...

    

MOAB, UTAH

  Venturing Northward to MOAB Utah and our opportunity to knock off a couple of Bucket-list items by visiting Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point National Monument. We dropped anchor at the 'new' Red Desert RV Park... Large pull thru spaces with water, electric and sewer ("they got sewer") and absolutely nothing else... Just a huge flat expanse of crushed stone. It worked for what we needed...

  MOAB is a tourist town in the truest sense of the words, and EXPENSIVE... expect to pay two to three times more for anything you need and if you want to rent a Jeep, rock crawler or some other exotic form of conveyance, there is a rental place on every street corner. But I digress as we are here to tour Arches National Park.

  Arches NP:  The powers that be have added this National Park to the "Timed Entry Program" which means you need an 'appointment' to get in. Entry Permits are released 3 months in advance with a certain number available on Recreation.Gov for the following day. Since we would be accessing the park for free with our America the Beautiful Senior Pass the $2.00 service charge was a trifle.

 

  The visitor's center is just after you pass the entrance and has displays with a fair amount of useful information. There is a video presentation that takes place every half hour. 

   We had an entry permit valid from 8-9:00 AM. I would suggest getting there as early as possible as the place gets crowded very quickly... Several of the more popular arch viewing parking areas were already full. 

  Our trusty Grand Cherokee made the climb up the steep, twisty access road to Park Ave viewpoint,    

Park Ave (top) Courthouse Towers (bottom)

Tower of Bable

  Onward to the Three Gossips and The Tower of Bable. 

Three Gossips

Sand Dune Arch

 

  Water and ice, extreme temperatures and underground salt movement are responsible for the sculptured rock scenery in Arches National Park. Over 100 million years of erosion, violent seasonal forces have created these wonders. There are more than 2,000 catalogued arches from 3' (min) to the 306' Landscape Arch. 

Balanced Rock

  There is an overwhelming number of things to see and photograph... pictures don't seem to do the scenery justice. Trying to capture a scene without having people in the shot requires some patience. Many of the featured arches can only be observed from vantage points accessible via hiking trails, some as long as 4.1 miles. Some of the sites are only accessible by four wheel drive vehicles.

  This was an amazing sightseeing location and we will forever recall this adventure.

The Amazing La Sal Mountain Range in the Distance

  I will wrap-up this entry here... Up Next - 

The often-overlooked Dead Horse Point State Park !

Bridges to Utah - Onward !

   Leaving Mesa Verde, after a pleasant three days at The Ute Mountain Casino and The Sleeping Ute RV Park, headed North on Colorado State Route 160, Picking up Rt 41 just before Fours Corner Monument. Rt 41 morphs into N-162 once you cross into Utah. We traveled thru Bluff Utah and continued on into Blanding for a couple of nights at The Blue Mountain RV Park. A beautiful RV park that has had meticulous upkeep and modernization.

  While in Blanding we drove the 40 miles to Natural Bridges National Monument and toured the three bridges on the scenic loop,

  This is outstanding, nine-mile, scenic loop providing access to a viewing area for each of the featured "bridges" in the National Monument. 

  It must be distinctly understood that a 'Bridge' is very different from an 'Arch'. An arch is shaped by freeze/thaw cycles and wind erosion whereas a natural bridge develops over millennia being scoured out by the action of water, chiefly by repeated floodings of the gorge where they are located

Gamble Oaks Beneath Sipapu

  All three bridges are accessible via hiking trails over some steep and challenging terrain. The hike down to Sipapu Bridge (Right) is the steepest in the park. A staircase and several wooden ladders aid in the decent. The Sipapu trail is 1.5 miles round trip and over 500+ feet of elevation change. Hard pass, thanks. 

  Sipapu is the second largest natural bridge in the United States. In Hopi mythology a 'sipapu' was a gateway thru which a soul could pass to the spirit world.

 Kachina is the next up, a massive bridge and considered the youngest of the three. The view from the overlook is difficult to see because of your angle-of-view, but the hike down to under the bridge is another 1.5 miles so we passed on the venue. The bridge is named for the Kachina dancers that play a central role in Hopi religious tradition.

Owachomo

  This brings us to the last natural bridge in the loop... Owachomo (Left)  Owachomo means "rock mound" in the Hopi dialect and is named after the rock formation on top of the southeast end of the bridge. The Tuwa Creek no longer flows under the Owachomo as it did thousands of years ago. This bridge has a very delicate appearance suggesting that it has experienced more erosion than the others.

  This bridge featured an "easy" trail of only 1/4 mile each way... with an elevation change of only 180 feet. Right... it might be only .25 miles 'as the crow flies' but it had the impact of a miles long hike. When you mix the steep terrain, the temperatures and the elevation... ugh... but soldier on we did. 

Owachomo Bridge

I am including the obligatory picture from directly below the span as a testament to the fool hardy decision I made. It would have been a shame to come all this way and not hike at least one of the trails. Standing beneath the span of the bridge, looking up to where my adoring bride awaited either my subsequent return or an impending myocardial infarction. 50/50... the outcome, debatable.

  The Monument does provide the option of hiking down to one of the bridges and then completing the nearly 10-mile loop trail to all three bridges. Not for the unprepared, inexperienced or physically wanting. The route along the canyon bottom is primitive, unmaintained and can be difficult to follow.

  The trails from the overlooks are fairly well marked. Staying on the path is essential as there is an odd looking, life sustaining 'biological soil crust' that is little understood, but it holds the fragile soil together, retains what little moisture there is and if damaged, takes 10-15 years to regenerate. 

Biological Crust

  We departed Blue Mountain in Blanding and set our sights on a few bucket-list destinations... 

"In Matters of Style, Swim with the Current,

In Matters of Principle, Stand Like a Rock"

- T. Jefferson                

NORMANDY - 80 YEARS LATER

  As we travel this unbelievably huge country which, we are truly blessed to live in, I am drawn back to the sacrifice that thousands of American 'teenagers' made 80 years ago on the beaches of Normandy France.

  What level of apprehension must have washed over them as they climbed down the cargo nets hanging from the sides of the troop transport ships into those tiny Higgins boats not knowing what fate awaits them... Sitting here today I cannot comprehend the absolute horror as the ramps on their transports opened into a barrage of German machinegun and rifle fire trained on the very spots they suddenly occupied on that shoreline.

  The only option they had was to advance into the teeth of that fusillade as their comrades were cut down, left and right, ahead and behind... Why did the individuals that perished fall? What roll of the dice cast the fate of those that perished in the full of their youth on that immortal day?

  These young gallant heroes, some as young as 16, knew their odds of survival were 50/50 at best yet they knew their duty and carried it out unflinchingly.

  Today, 80 years later, on this anniversary of the D-Day Invasion we pay tribute to those that conducted themselves honorably without regard for their own lives to keep the world free from the global domination of a maniacal madman.

  The dwindling freedoms we still enjoy 80 years on are a direct result of the enormous sacrifice of the "greatest generation"...

"A Hero Never Truly Dies Until 

The Last Time Their Name Is Spoken.

Continue To Honor Them, And They Will Live

FOREVER"

                                K. Shaffer - The Valhalla Project