Monday August 10,
2015 Day 13 Lodgepole N.F.C.G. 2nd Day
It seems that recently my posts haven’t been that
exciting. Compared to last year’s bear,
elk, antelope, and sheep pictures, the best I can do recently is bunny
rabbits. But I missed a good chance
during the Hog Canyon hike on Saturday.
We found a small lizard laying on a rock in the middle of the
trail. He must have been about 3” long. I’ve never seen one that small. A giant grasshopper jumped within about 6” of
it and the two were facing off. I
expected a wrestling match and we were waiting to see what would happen. There was no way the lizard could eat the
grasshopper and as far as I know, grasshoppers don’t attack lizards. Then out of nowhere, a black lab came running
up the path and scared the lizard and the grasshopper. Wish I had a
picture. It was funny to watch. When we get to Tetons, Yellowstone, and
Glacier I expect it will be more exciting than lizards and grasshoppers. We do see a lot of mule deer around here and
the campground has bear warnings to practice bear camping like don’t leave
food out, etc. But they have conventional
trash facilities, not bear proof and there are no food lockers for tenters, so
I don’t know how serious the bear threat is. There are no grizzly bears in CO or UT, but they have black bears.
Our trailer got down to 45o last night and the
outside temperature was 39o.
Used all the blankets we had to keep warm. Fired up the furnace to warm us up. It doesn’t work so well at the high
elevation. It kept going out and we
thought we may be out of gas. We’ve been
having problems lighting the stove at times and my grill goes out now and
then. But that’s normal at higher
elevation because orifice sizes are based on elevation to get the right air fuel
mixture. The gas appliance work, but not
as well.
I called Showalter Ford this morning about my oil
change/purge valve appointment and they said they would take me in at 3:00.
So in the mean time, we took a ride up to Dutch John in the Flaming Gorge
National Recreational Area and then a county road that takes us 9 miles
downstream of the dam spillway. There is
trailhead to a path that follows the river bank for 7 miles. All along this path the river can be fly
fished by wading all the way back to the dam.
We saw a few fly anglers there.
There is a boat launch there for drift boats and raft expeditions. May return there to fly fish, depending on
how the next few days turn out.
Marsha on the trail next to the Green River
Green River looking downstream from access.
Here is some cattail looking plants on the side of the river.
After checking out the Green River access, we drove north on
US-191 towards the Wyoming border. A
spur called Antelope Flat had an overlook of the gorge and a campground
there. There was road construction
through that section and we were unable to access it. We turned around before we got to the Wyoming
border and headed back. We backtracked
to the junction with UT-44 towards Manilla.
Another designated scenic highway.
We turned down another spur that leads to the canyon and stopped at Red
Canyon Lodge to have some lunch at the restaurant. It was nice, but pricey, as expected. We continued down the road a ways and drove
around the Rim campground and looked out over the gorge. Took some pictures.
By now it was time to get back. We had an hour drive to Vernal for the truck
appointment. Made it there on time. Discussed my issue with the service manager
and he had heard of this problem before and warned me that it may not be
present right now and all the diagnosis and codes may not show anything. That turned out to be the case, but I told
him I’d like to replace it anyway and he agreed with me that it was the right
thing to do. But he didn’t have one in
stock and could get one from Salt Lake City by tomorrow. I told him OK. I will need to check with him in the morning.
Then on to do laundry.
Found a nice place to do it. They
had a section of washers and driers for “Greasy Only” for the local oil
workers. They were banished from the
other washer and driers. The larger
washers had signs for “No Horse Blankets”.
We were OK because we didn’t have any horse blankets.
Then did some grocery shopping at the supermarket which
happened to be across the street.
Got back about 07:00.
Made some steaks and baked potatoes on the grill. By then it was 08:30 and getting dark. I made a fire and we sat out until about
10:00 and admired the stars in the moonless sky. Looked at the sky with the Nikons and the sky
explodes with stars. If you’ve never
looked at the night sky with binoculars, try it. It will amaze you how many stars you can’t
see. In the eighties I made a 6”
reflector telescope and for a few years was really into amateur astronomy.
Don't forget Wednsday night is the start of the Persoids meteorite shower.. 3am here!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder.
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