Salt Lake City, Utah

Whew! Finally a campground with a solid wifi connection!

I'm uploading pictures to Smug Mug and will get the previous posts updated soon.

Saturday was another mountain drive from Moab to SLC. It was a beautiful drive, up to 7,500ft. We were surprised by the amount of snow still on the ground at that level.

We met up with our friends Karen and Rich, who moved here from Michigan four years ago. We had Sushi at a great little place right downtown. We made a stop at a wine shop and then took them over to see the coach, have a glass of wine and catch up a bit.

Sunday is a errand day, grocery shopping, laundry, clean the coach (TONS of dust from Moab!) and wash the car. Karen is hosting a BBQ at her place later in the afternoon. We'll be joined by Tammy and Ian, fellow bikers who also moved here from Michigan (I see a trend devoloping here!). Hopefully, some our friends that we rode with in Moab will also be making an appearance. A Michigan biking reunion, should be fun!

-Rich-

Mountain Biking Mecca

BIG Group Ride!



When your ride starts out with this warning, you know you're in for a great day!

About 12 of us, all from Michigan or previously from Michigan (now in CO or UT) teamed up to do the ride. By the way, we really haven't been missing Michigan much, but we sure have been missing friends and riding buddies. It was so great to ride with friends again, and make some new ones during the adventure, thanks guys and gals, I'm glad we could meet up with all of you!

Porcupine rim is one of the most famous trails in Moab. It is also on of the most technical (some would argue there are more difficult trails, mostly the full-face helmet, full body armor guys) but we were a bunch of Michigan flatlander racer types. It think this trail will do just fine, thanks.



Here is a partial trail description taken from utahmountainbiking.com; "...At 15.6 miles, requiring expert technical skills, this ride is for advanced bikers who are in good shape. It's one-way with a shuttle car, or a 34-mile loop for the truly insane (10 uphill miles from Moab to the trailhead, 8 flat miles from Jackass Canyon back to the middle of Moab)...The real ride begins at the Rim. This is primo downhill advanced technical stuff, dropping off a gazillion small rocky ledges, with the last 3 miles a hairy single-track on the edge of deadly cliffs. From the Rim, you'll drop 2,700 vertical feet to the Colorado River over 11 unforgettable miles..."

The Trail head was at 5,200 ft. None of us were quite prepared for the 15 degree difference in temps from downtown Moab, or the gusty winds that threatened to blow us off the side of the cliff.


The first 3 miles of the trail are uphill. It takes you from the trail head to 7,200 ft. It was difficult terrain all the way up, but we were rewarded with some spectacular views at the summit.






Here are a couple of group shots, from the summit. I think we got everyone between these two shots, some appear twice(posers ;))














Ok, we refueled, posed for pics, tightened loose parts, threatened to throw each other over the ledge and prepared for the 11 mile decent!








The trail description was pretty accurate; Small rocky drop-off's, scary speed(hit 27 mph on one open road decent!), exposed cliffs, loose sand and rock, spectacular views...yep, all there!















Some sections were just too crazy too ride. Hell, they were even difficult to walk!


I got back to the campground about 3 hours later. Total miles, 18. Scared myself a little, crashed once (small, no big deal), scraped up the bike but avoided breaking anything and had an awesome adventure with a great bunch of friends. I had a perma-grin on my face for the remainder of the day!

You might notice, Laura is missing from the group pics above. She wisely passed on this particular adventure. Smart move, as it was a little above her skill level. It would not have been a good experience for her! I promised a ride with her, after some much needed lunch.

We headed over to the most famous trail in Moab, Slick Rock. We did around 6 miles and had a blast. Here is Laura posing with the Rockies(I think) in the background. Spectacular views are in abundance around here!

We finished off the day with a big group dinner at one of the local pasta places. We sat outside, drank beer, ate pasta, (carb reloading is very important ) told tall tales of the ride, watched the classic cars go by (BIG car show, same weekend) and just enjoyed great company. We also were saying goodbye to Yvonne(sp?), originally from Germany, has been in Michigan 4 years. She was returning home after this adventure. What a great send-off, good luck.

Great times with great friends.........Priceless!

-Rich-

Moab, Utah

The drive from Kanab to Utah was about 320 miles. It was a LONG but very scenic drive. Most of the trip was on US-89, two lane highway. I had another big test of my mountain driving skills as we went from 2,500 ft to 7,200 ft; Finally settling in Moab at around 4,500 ft.

We are at the Slick Rock RV Campground. They advertise 'free wireless internet'. Yeah, when it works!

We won't be able to do many updates and definitely will not be able to upload any pictures until we get to Salt Lake. Ah, we are looking forward to civilization. We have been in really small towns for the past 3 weeks.

-Rich-

Bryce Canyon

Wednesday, we headed over to Bryce Canyon. We've mentioned the US Parks pass before. But, I'll mention it again. The parks we've visited in the past week ($20/per) have more then paid for the pass, I'd highly recommend it, if you're going to be visiting 3 or more NPs in a year!

The only issue we ran into; Bryce is at 8,000ft. We were unprepared for the difference in temperature from Kanab. Luckily, the slot canyon hike shielded us from the open wind.

Words just can't describe the natural beauty of this park. So, I won't even try, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. As a reminder, you can click on the pics to make them larger, enjoy!

Today, we head up to Moab to meet up with some biking friends who are visiting there from Michigan. It's about a 320 mile drive, will probably take a little longer then usual, most of the road is 2 lane. We are going to get an early start to, hopefully, still be able to get a ride in this afternoon!

-Rich-

Kanab, Utah

Volunteering with Birds

Today we spent the morning volunteering at Feathered Friends at Best Friends animal sanctuary. Most of our morning was spent cleaning cages, which was hard work, but we felt satisfied afterword. From 11am-12pm. we got to clean cages at the isolation house (intake office) for birds in downtown Kanb. They had a sweetheart of an umbrella cockatoo named Lollypop. She liked to say, "Hi Lollypop" and sing "La la la". She willingly stepped onto my arm and let me scratch her....as most cockatoos LOVE to have done. Rich thought he could horseplay with her, like he does with Snuggles. Unfortunately Lollypop didn't know, or like that game and gave Rich a big chomp on the thumb. Fortunately he gave her beak a squeeze to open it up and prevent a bigger chunk being taken out of his thumb.

After lunch we took Snuggles on a field trip up to Feathered Friends, but kept her outside for everyone to "oohh" and "ahh" over. She always has a large fan club, wherever she goes. After that Snuggles and I took about an hour nap while Rich cleaned the car. It was a chilling afternoon for the rest of the day.

-Laura

Kanab, Utah

A Change of Plans

We initially planned to go to Bryce Canyon National Park today, but we both had a lot of phone calls to make and errends to run. By the time all calls and errends were complete, it was almost noon. Since Bryce is 80 miles away, we chose to go another day when we can get an earlier start. So, we instead chose to go mountain biking again. Since we were going to ride the same trail that we did on Sunday, we chose not to take the camera. And since we didn't take the camera, we came upon the best view we've ever seen on a mounatain bike. The picture to the left is the closest I could find to what we saw. Of course, we didn't go to the edge of a point like this one. We did a little of the south rim trail at Gooseberry Mesa, some of the north rim, and all of the white trail, a jeep trail that goes up the middle of the mesa. Altogether we rode about 8 miles. The nice thing about the jeep trail is that it's a gradual climb all the way out, which makes for a fun, fast, downhill on the way back. I had another great day of riding, as did Rich. It's just so beautiful out here.

Dog Town

We spent the first half of the day at the Dog Town complex of Best Friends. We walked dogs. You can walk a lot of dogs from 8am till noon!

I'd say it was very therapeutic. In the past few weeks we've been dealing with leaks in the coach, selling the house, packing and moving, family disagreements and where we are going to live. Walking and loving up a dog, just helps you put it all behind you, at least for the moment.


Here's Laura walking Dusty, our first dog of the morning. It was pretty chilly to start out, around 45 degrees. Here is Pearl, who I started the morning out with. She turned out to be my favorite dogs of everyone we walked today. She was high energy and very friendly and affectionate.









There was a few benches out on the dog trails. They encouraged you to stop and spend some time lovin' up the dogs, yah, not a problem here! Laura tries to control Kia and Drake as I snap the picture.












Here I am trying to keep up. The trails for the dogs were awesome. Red sand and great views of Grand Escalante NP in the background. I could get used to this.






The had a really great set-up around Dog Town. Each octagon building has 4 to 7 indoor pens. Each pen has access to an outdoor run area. The dogs have indoor/outdoor access 24/7. There are up to 4 dogs in each pen. They are not lacking space, toys or attention. They probably have it better here then the homes many of them came from! Best Friends never seems to have a shortage of volunteers willing to help out. All of the animals get plenty of attention, until they are adopted out. I think I mentioned in an earlier post, their adoption rate is around 85%.

We spent the remainder of the day doing laundry, cleaning inside and outside the coach. Basic maintenance stuff that doesn't make for compelling reading. We spent the evening paying bills, surfing, preparing pricing and orders for accounts and of course, blogging.

Tomorrow, after my tough 2 hour workday, we plan on hitting Bryce Canyon. So, hopefully, we'll have some spectacular pictures to share with you. That's all for now, I'm bushed!

-Rich-

Slick Rock and New Product Testing

Today, we headed over to St George and Hurricane for some world famous Utah Slick Rock riding. For those of you not familiar with slick rock, its not really slick. It is sandstone rock, more like riding on sandpaper. Not really a trail, but riding from one rock to the next, they kind of roll over on top of each other. People have painted dots on the rock to follow along the loop. It is a unique, fun and challenging type of terrain.


Here's Laura, you can see how she is making a transition from one very large boulder to the next. You can see the white dot directly in front of her that marks the 'trail' on the rocks.






Here I am dropping into an empty pool on top of big rock plateau. The drop was around 4 feet. It was fun diving in and out of these empty pools.

















We belong to REI, as a member, you get a % of your purchases back in the form of a dividend check you can spend in store. This year, we put our dividend towards Ergon grips for each of us. We saw these at Sea Otter and they looked intriguing. They come in different sizes for men and women. We both really liked them, they took pressure off of your wrist by giving extra support in the palm area. They are pricey for grips ($25, normal grips are $10-$12), we only paid shipping, so it was really worth it. I really hope they are durable, as we won't be spending $25 on grips very often!

The scenery of the area never ceases to amaze me. Here I am playing around on this formation with Zion NP in the background.



The way out of the trail was a 5 mile long 2 track and dirt road . On our way out, the winds kicked up pretty good. These huge tumble weeds (some of which were up to the hood of the Suzuki, were rolling down the road as made it feel like we were in a video game, dodging asteroids as we made our way down the road.

Stay tuned for our dog update from Best Friends, tomorrow!

-Rich-

Pursuing Opportunity

Salt Lake City, Utah

Now that we are free from the burden of the house in Michigan, we are giving serious consideration on where to live. One of our friends, Karen, moved from Michigan to SLC around 3 years ago. She's been selling us on SLC ever since. I've been to SLC, on business, it's a nice city. It's clean, just the right size for us, has nice weather, mountains, mountain biking and a low cost of living. I don't think we would live directly in the city, but one of the surrounding suburbs. The intriguing part, for us, comes in when you look at the map:



We are RV'ers, whether full-timing, or living in a house with full-time jobs. We will always have some type of recreational vehicle. We like loading up and heading out in our free time. Exploring, mountain biking and just hanging out in the woods, it's what we like to do. When we look at the different places we can get too from SLC, it becomes even more interesting.

Within a day's drive, you can get to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Zion, Moab, Lake Tahoe, just to name a few. For an extended weekend or a week vacation, you can easily get to Wine country (Sonoma or Oregon), Sedona, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas or even San Francisco!

We have started looking at job possibilities in the SLC area. Laura may even have a job interview lined up when we are there the first week of May. I have a couple of resumes in, waiting for responses. The cost of housing there is very reasonable, especially since looking around California, when we were there last month.

We've questioned our friend Karen on the whole Mormon situation (she is not, nor are we.) and conservative nature of the area. It appears as long as you are not involved in religion or politics(we are not), it would not present any issues. Looking at housing on-line, we have noticed the large amount of bedrooms and bathrooms the homes have :)

We have a few weeks before we get there, we are looking forward to spending some time there and checking things out. Karen has promised to show us around town, and were going to hold her to it!

-Rich-

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

Laura found this site on the internet. We planned a stop here in the early planning stages of the tour. Best Friends is a no-kill animal sanctuary. They have a tremendous adoption rate (88% of dogs are placed in homes). They have a cat house, dog house, bird house, horses, wild life rehabilitation center and full vet services on site. They are on 3,000 acres of private land and lease another 30,000 acres in BLM land. The place is HUGE. You can click the link above for more information.

We planned on volunteering for 3 of the 8 days we are in town. Friday was our orientation and tour of facilities, followed by some time in the cat house. Sunday we are devoting the day to dogs. Tuesday, our final day, will be devoted to helping out in the bird house. We both love animals and this is a great way to give something back, considering our good fortune of being able to pursue our travels.

Here is the view from the cafeteria patio. Could you imagine having this view everyday at work? We had a wonderful vegetarian lunch for $4. I guess you can't expect a no-kill animal sanctuary to serve hamburgers, can you? ;)






This is not your typical animal sanctuary. It is high-tech and very plush! All of the buildings are state of the art, have heat and air. The animals have 24 hour access to be inside or out and ton's of stuff to keep them occupied. Here is one of nine outdoor cat areas; And, Snuggles, our 'too, would be jealous of the toys these guys have!







Here is the "Angels' Rest area". The cemetery where the life long residents "cross the bridge". Members can also put their beloved pets here. The area was very peaceful, snuggled in a cove in the Red Rocks. There were wind chimes all around, mostly dedicated to members pets that surrounded the area in peaceful sound.

















believe it or not, this horse is 45 years old!




Here is Bob, the cat I took for a walk. Now, I'm not a big cat guy (probably why they wanted me to walk him, very dog like) but Bob was cool. We went out into the desert and hunted down lizards and smacked mud wasps around.



Of course, Laura found a cockatoo to love. Seppi, really loved Laura, he wouldn't even step up for me! The bird house is not a normal part of the visitors' tour. Something about people being afraid of birds (huh??). We requested a special tour, and, since we are volunteering here, we got the tour and got to interact with the birds too.

Overall, a long fun day helping out and interacting with the animals. I can't wait for dog day. We will spend the morning cleaning pens and feeding. The afternoon will be spent socializing and walking the dogs. We might even do a 'road trip' with a dog and take them into town. They do have overnight dog visits available. I'm not sure what Snuggles would have to say about that!

-Rich-

Zion National Park

I thought the drive from Flag up and over to Kanab was awesome; Zion was even more amazing. (I here Bryce Canyon is even more scenic, that's for next week)

The self-timer feature on Cameras' is a great invention. We saw people all over the park using this feature.









The spring run-off had the water flowing all over the park. The Emerald pool hiking trail wound it's way under this waterfall.









The camera just can't do all the different colors' justice, this pic comes close. The contrast of the blue sky, green trees and red and white rock is even more rich and brillant in person!






Here's Laura hiking on the Emerals Pool's trail.

The beauty of this area is unmatched. The towns' around here are just too small to consider as places to live. We need 'stuff' like Whole Food's, good restaurants and most of all, job opportunities. We are going to try to make it to St George next week to see how that town shakes out. In the meantime, we'll be enjoying the scenery.

-Rich-