Goose Island at night.

Cody welding the motorhome at the campground.

Finally! Goose Island. No, there are no geese here. No, this is not an island. Who cares!

April 12 - Mon.

9 PM. Just returned from a most delightful walk. Am camped a few miles out of Moab in a "primitive" campground, Goose Island. No electricity, water or any services. The sun is down and it's dark. The roadway is lit only by the light of the stars and the few campfires. The silhouette of a 1500' bluff looms before me. The smell of mesquite fills the air from the campfires. Stars - have never seem so many. Two shooting stars. The Colorado River is a stone's throw away. 60°. It's silent out, almost surreal. It doesn't get any better than this, it just plain doesn't!

But, as usual, it was the journey to get here that makes up this segment. First, 7AM, call for a welder to fix a broken strut on the motorhome. This has broken once before so I sense a problem! Cody, from Holyoak welding came by in his truck and spent the next 90 minutes welding and adding gussets to strengthen the pathetically thin walled tubing that supports a portion of the bedroom. When he was done, he only charged $80. That was a steal!

Next I get some rod to reinforce the brackets and bolt it on. Of course, I went to three stores to get what I needed. Now to find a campsite. Head out of town to Goose Island. Yes, there are some. Mark my territory (with a chair) and shoot back to get the motorhome since I need to be out of Canyonlands CG by 12 noon. But that damn squeaking on the Jeep is back again. Drive it hard and fast. Stop. Crawl underneath and give it the finger (test, that is - touch various parts to see if any are hotter than they should be.) Yup. After leaving a substantial DNA sample on my CV joint, astutely observed that it was going to hell in a handbasket. Two more U-joints.

Arg. 11:15 AM. I need parts. Moab Off-Road claims they can rebuild the CV by the end of the day. Promises, promises, but I'm out of time and last time I did a CV joint parts went flying never to be found again. Let them lose the parts this time. Pull the rear driveshaft off in their parking lot and give it to them for repair. Run back to Canyonlands (with front wheel drive), load up and move to Goose Island.

Drive back into town to find Doc. Not at the motel. Run up to Moabilia, Bob's store, sit out on the front bench and watch the traffic go by while he and I chat for 15 minutes or so as he holds an 8' fluorescent bulb he must return. This is Moab. Doc drives by but fails to hear me yell at him. Hop in the Jeep to find him. Lose him. Decided to get my T-shirts, postcards and really crappy ham sandwich (with carrots on it! That's what I get for going to one of those yuppie health food sandwich shops. I'm surprised they had ham. It's probably some soybean wannabe crap instead!) Oh, did I mention that after ordering, I found anti-Jeep material in their store? I corrected the situation. Now go get some maps. This sandwich is bad, bad, bad. I shall put the other half of it in the center console. Go back to the camper. No Doc. Go to Moab, finally we crossed paths.

Find out his radio doesn't work. Go to Radio Shack, he gets a new radio. Next to City Market where he and I got steaks, sandwich stuff and breakfast stuff for the next few weeks. Take the groceries back out of town to the camper. Go back into town and pick up Doc at the motel. Go to Moab Off-Road, get my driveshaft and install it in their parking lot. Pay the man - $80 - That was also a helluva deal considering there's $60 worth of parts in there. Go to Fat City for food and a pitcher of beer to celebrate the end of the day's repairs. Shoot up to Spanish Trail Arena for a debriefing on the Safari week. Drop Doc off at the Motel. Damn!   What a day!

Come back to Goose Island and smell the mesquite. All's well that ends well.

April 13 - Tue.

7AM. Up and at 'em. The sun was rising over Goose Island and the reflection from the cliffs was awesome. Killed a few minutes wandering around aimlessly and finally started the motorhome at 7:15 giving people at Goose Island their morning wake up call. Quickly removed my "caravan."

Headed into Moab and stopped by the Super 8 to sync up with Doc. Away we went. Monticello. Fuel up the extra tanks. Stopped by the San Juan County courthouse to see what RS-2477 road maps they might have. 30 minutes later we walked out with three outstanding maps that listed hundreds of miles of RS-2477 roads. San Juan County is very off-road friendly. So we drove another 80 miles and wound up in a great parking area only a few miles from Fry Canyon. We were on the rim of White Canyon and only a few miles from the trail to Red Canyon. That should pinpoint our exact location. We're on our own now. No "services" like water, electricity, cell phone service, etc. Just a motorhome, a couple Jeeps, 110 gallons of diesel fuel, about 75 extra gallons of gas for the Jeeps, steaks, potatoes, beer, and beer. And of course we generate our own electricity for the hot water, TV, and computer. Roughing it is great!

After setting up the camp site and a quick lunch we felt the need to wheel and headed into White Canyon only to find a frickin' BLM sign that said "Closed," along with a bunch of reasons why. I looked at Doc and said, "Hmm, if we enter the canyon a few miles down from here, perhaps there won't be a sign - then it'll be OK." We did and it was. What a kick. Three miles of gnarly canyon wheeling. I also managed to find quicksand. I suspect it made Doc's day to put a strap on the Dam Jeep and extricate me from a premature burial. We completed the three miles in about 2 hours and came out on the back side of the sign that said we could not enter. There was no marking on the rear of the sign saying we should not have been there. Poor signage.

Fuel, fuel, we don't need no steenkin' fuel.

To celebrate this first day of successful wheeling (successful because neither of us broke) we agreed we deserved several (or more) beers for this outstanding accomplishment. Along with the beer, steaks were also a requirement. A good day and a good way to start this week's adventure. Sat out until after dark watching satellites fly by and counting the shooting stars. Awesome!

Sunrise at Goose Island.

White Canyon.

Jacob's Chair (the rock, that is.)

The campsite. White Canyon is about 300 feet behind the vehicles and 200 feet down. The white rock in the background is the canyon rim.

Coming out of one of the smaller canyons from Red Canyon.

White Canyon from Piute Pass.

Lots of cacti blooming along the way.

April 14 - Wed.

8 AM, out on the trail. Up Piute Pass and over to Red Canyon. From there around a loop and back to the pass. 45 miles in 9 hours. The drive was cool - every few hundred feet of elevation the trail would change. Red, white, brown and orange canyons. A lot of clay - if it was wet we'd still be there.

It was a long drive, not tough wheeling but just a great day. This trail has not been used much at all - we suspect only a few Jeeps have been there in the last 20 years. Back to the camp. Brats and beer.

The only missed opportunity of the day was when my hat blew off on the highway as we headed to the trail and Doc was unable to run over my hat - since he was ahead of me. I'm sure had I radioed him he would have gladly obliged and returned to drive over the hat. I had the good sense not to do that.

Another good day. Not terribly tough wheelin', but the scenery was outstanding. One really needs to go out with a couple vehicles here since, at the farthest point in, the nearest services of any type were 40 - 50 miles away.

More stars, but a few clouds obscured them tonight. Still awesome.

When asked what else I should write here, Doc said, "Well, we didn't burn the brats." Thanks, Doc.

April 15 - Thu.

Here we are, 5 miles north of Fry Canyon in a little camping area and only a few hundred feet from White Canyon. Neat site but, as mentioned, "few" services. After yesterday's adventure we needed fuel, but why dip into the 75 gallon reserve? Instead we can go to Hite Marina, fuel up, see Lake Powell and meander back via White Canyon or some other equally interesting route.

Eventually we made it to Hite Marina. Holy shit! There is no Lake Powell! It's gone! The only thing left is a poor excuse for a Colorado River. The 9 year draught is taking its toll. After looking the lake bed from above, we drove into the lake bed and got a few photos. Someday we can say our Jeeps were 200' below the lake level - but perhaps not in our lifetimes!

Go to Hite Marina to get gas. 15 minutes later I had 9 gallons in the tank. The pump was a little slow - as were the two tourists there asking a bunch of inane questions of the lady that ran the very slow pumps at Hite Marina - but it's not a marina anymore since you can't even get to the river from the alleged marina because the water level is too low. Very confusing - as were the two tourists - and the pump lady to who was answering their questions in excruciating detail. I think she was lonesome.

Time to go after spending almost 45 minutes trying to fill up my tank and Doc's - and getting the pump lady to either turn on "the" pump or reset it. Shoot back and find another way to get into White Canyon. We drove through some spectacular scenery and had a great time playing around. We'd gone through a couple little water holes left over from the last rain without too much consternation and then we came upon a water hole larger than the present day Lake Powell at Hite (well, maybe not, but it might as well have been.) After a lengthy discussion as to how far we'd sink down into the quagmire and where we could winch to in order to get out (we couldn't!) we suggested the only reasonable thing - head back and have a beer.

Well, on the way back I screwed that plan up. "Hey Doc, there's this old shelf road up Fry Canyon. Want to take it?" "Hell yes!"

This one was so good I didn't even get any photos. In fact, that seems to be the case with this trip. Those roads that were the most fun got the fewest photos. I guess that makes sense. It was either too much fun or I was too puckered - not sure which. By the way, note the frequent use of the word "roads." We decided there are no "trails" in Utah, everything we drive on is a legitimate RS-2477 road (at least according to San Juan County and their awesome maps.) If we assert these roads are traveled and maintained, we should be able to keep the "left-wing-bleeding-heart-liberal-close-every-road-in-America-down" groups at bay.

So once again, we went where no man had gone before - at least for probably the last 20 years! We got on this old, and I mean old, shelf road and had a great time. There were a couple good pucker spots and at the top we were rewarded with an area just loaded with petrified wood. After poking around we headed back down for Plan A - beer and pork chops. More stars, more satellites, more fun. Another good day - what a surprise!

I didn't mention the "old guy's road building technique." We got to a gnarly off-camber spot and had to move a big rock. So both of us sat down and used our legs to move the boulder a few feet away so we could get through without landing on our lids. Had Randy or one of the other TRJC boys been with us, they probably would have picked it up with one hand and moved it out of the way.........

April 16 - Fri.

Time to move on. There's more roads in them thar hills.

We quickly packed up and moved down the road about 30 miles to a nice graveled area near Natural Bridges National Monument. (See Saturday's photos.) Our selection of campsites was based on the San Juan County ATV road map. ATV roads are in red and wherever there was a higher concentration of red, we figured there would be some good roads. That proved to be a wise plan! This area, from the bench we were on, up to the top of a large mesa, 1500' higher than the bench, had a whole slew of roads on top. We were determined to find the four access roads from the bench up to the top of the mesa, identified as the Bear's Ears since from 20-30 miles away, the twin buttes on top did indeed resemble bear's ears.

Now the San Juan ATV map is great, but there is no topographic information nor are there any GPS coordinates on the map, only an incredible amount of blue and red lines. So we either had to guess at where the roads were or mentally overlay the ATV map on other maps that had that information. Yeah, I know, thinking was involved. Well, Doc would argue probably not - as most of the time we did a reasonable amount of "exploration" before we found the actual trail head (oops, I mean beginning of the road.)

We took the eastern class "B" access road to the top (hereinafter referred to as access road #1.) Class B roads, blue on the map, are supposed to be OK for well designed cars and trucks. Not always true. This one had 10" deep ruts from people trying to navigate this very steep and 6 mile long road in wet weather - including a set of ruts that came within inches of going off a 500' drop. I suspect they tasted the seat cushion on that one!

We got to the top and took side trips here and there. Found a neat overlook. Then we headed from the east side of the mesa to the west side and, on the way, discovered another side road. We got into a maze of small roads that led nowhere. We played in there for an hour or so going hither and yon and then back again. "What's up ahead, Doc?" "More brush." "Damn!" We did find some exceptionally interesting spots on these roads but eventually decided it was beer-thirty and extricated ourselves, unable to find the old access roads (hereinafter referred to as access roads 2 & 3) that were supposed to lead us down the mesa.

Instead we went west and came down another mining road, past the old gas cooking stove graveyard and finally on to the westernmost shelf road (access road 4) leading down. Yup. That was a kick. Bumpy but not too bad. "Hey Doc, this would be a kick to drive going up!" After the descent, there was a 10 mile drive around the rims of White Canyon to get back and we got there just in time for our usual gourmet meal and a great sunset.

Surprise! Another excellent day.

April 17 - Sat.

Determined to find access roads 2 & 3, we left early and missed them both. So we went up access road 4. That was fun - I wanted to do it anyway. Went past the old gas cooking stove graveyard, took the Dave C. scenic loop, looped around the mesa and by dumb luck found one of the access roads (#3) from the top. We made the descent on the shelf road, many times off-camber and looking down a 500' or more drop. This road had not seen any activity in many, many years. We passed several old mines and had a great time heading down, trying to dodge the boulders and washouts that could swallow a motorhome!

When we got to the bottom and the main canyon rim road, we looked and could not figure out how the heck we missed the beginning of access road #3 as we drove right by it coming in earlier in the day. We even went back on the main road, as if we were traveling it, drove past the access road and said, "Yup, there it is." Two days in a row we missed it. Our only explanation is that when we drove by the previous times looking for it, it simply wasn't there. Go figure.

We forgot to pack lunch so we went back to camp, ate, puzzled over how we missed the damn road, and then headed back to find and conquer the last access road, #2. We found it and we conquered it. This was the toughest of all. It followed a canyon (with a running stream no less!) up to the mesa and had a lot of really off camber stuff. This road also had not seen traffic for a lot of years! It was slow going but at the end we were rewarded with a very intact old mining camp. After a little exploration we continued on upward and were pretty much surprised that this road joined one of the maze of roads were were stumbling around in the previous day. Once again, how did we miss this yesterday? Who knows? Who cares?

From there, it appeared as it there was a loop around a point that faced Dark Canyon. We got on the alleged loop road and found this was a massive burn area. I suspect this was part of the Elk Ridge fire last year. Pretty depressing but we went on. The road got narrower and narrower. I kept going along thinking (bad move don'tcha know!) it would get wider. It didn't. We were pushing an awful lot of brush out of the way. My newly painted hood has about a hundred racing stripes now. SNAP! A burned limb hit the windshield and broke it. Dammit! Keep moving. After a half hour of burnt brush hell, we came to an impasse, even for us. We walked around for quite some time looking for a way out but finally succumbed to the inevitable. We retraced out steps and got out of that area. Tired, hungry and thirsty, we barreled down access road 1 and called it a day, happy, knowing we had found and traversed the four known access roads.

Now technically, I haven't broken on this trip. The CV joint, mentioned earlier, didn't break. It just wore out. I've decreed that the windshield didn't really break - it just finally wore out and reached the end of its useful life span.

At the campsite there were a few puffy clouds. The sky was blue but there was a helluva wind. I decided not to put the cover on the Jeep - it was just such a nice evening. (You know where this is going........)

April 18 - Sun.

In the middle of the night I heard this noise, opened the window and got splattered in the face with freezing rain. Shit! No top on the Jeep. Too bad, I'm not going out there! Come morning there was a very light layer of snow and ice on everything. So we decided to wait until the sun came out. A little later I saw this massive 'cloud' come down off the Bear's Ears and said to Doc, "Look at the fog rolling in!" "You idiot," he said, "That's not fog, that's snow!" "Oh." Doc was right. It 'fogged' 3" in 1 hour. In between breaks to thaw out my fingers, I was finally able to get the top on the Jeep but not before it was really soaked. Oh well, it'll dry - and it did, about 3 hours later.

After the snowstorm, the sun started to come out and we figure we needed to get out of there with the motorhome before the alleged class B road turned to muck and mire. We got out with only a modest amount of tire spinning. We then moved to Comb Wash for the next few days. By the time we got there the sun was out. They had received no rain and certainly no snow. 20 miles and a 1000' drop in elevation makes a big difference out here.

We Jeeped down Comb Wash, stopped in Bluff for a meal and headed back on Butler Wash, on the gentle side of the Comb monocline (look it up in the dictionary.) We found an alleged road to the edge of the monocline, started up the slickrock but lost the road. We looked and looked and finally gave up. Instead we headed east to the top of No Man's Mesa and came down into the valley again via an old road that also had not seem any traffic in the last 20 years. Scenery wise, it was a 9.5, but it wasn't a very tough road - still very enjoyable none the less.

Now half the people from the state of Montana were camped in Comb Wash. Every few minutes someone would come up to Doc and start talking Montanan to him. Seems he was kind of like a Montana magnet. It got pretty humorous after a while. Me, I was enjoying the show, helping cook some Italian sausage, and re-hydrating myself from the day's journey.

April 19 - Mon.

Get up about 6:30, make coffee, BS a little while waking up, eat a quick breakfast and get on the trails, er, roads. That was the morning routine.

Today we went to Hotel Rock, a butte on a mesa where there are many old Indian ruins. I wanted to see this again since the greenies are trying to shut this down also. Went around a long loop on the mesa, joined Elk Ridge Road, turned and came down another shelf road that was marked closed. Right. Again, the descent was a kick!

Got back to camp, loaded up and went to Blanding. Pulled in to a great RV park, washed clothes and searched for a place to eat. The first place looked nice. We waited and after a while the people ahead of us left. We waited a little longer and then we saw some customers, previously seated, come up and get their own menu. This was not a good sign. We scurried on out of there, found another restaurant and had a very good meal of, what else, steaks and potatoes.

Back at the camp we had a nice talk with some folks from Alaska who had been there two years helping out the owners. Throughout this trip we've met a number of characters. No matter where you go, folks always like to visit and sometimes it's even nice visiting with them.

We put the Jeeps away (I put the canvas top on just for insurance) and then proceeded to stand outside looking for the Lyrid meteor shower and listening to a bunch of coyotes howl off in the distance. Once again, awesome!

Montezuma Canyon shelf road - seemingly last used in 1960 :)

"The" rock (by Doc's right rear wheel.)

A minor trail repair.

The Ajax Motor Co. Probably in service in the early 50's.

The storm clouds are forming.

April 20 - Tue.

The sky is not happy. I suspect another major storm is coming in. Today we'll head out on the mesa east of Montezuma Canyon and find a road down. We did.

This road, also, had not seem much travel since the mining booms days and as a result the rocks were sharp. About 3/4 of the way down I sliced the sidewall of my right rear tire. Now Doc thought that this was priceless since he missed the same rock. I'm on a 30 degree decline, at the edge of a shelf road, and wasn't too thrilled about changing the tire there. In fact, it was all I could to just to stand near the edge and curse the errant tire. "I think I can plug this, Doc!" Doc replied, "You can't patch that, it's a 2" long gash in the sidewall." "Hell's bells," I retorted, "I can try, can't I?" "You can do anything you want. I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the show." said Doc.

Let the show begin. Get out the tool box. Count the plugs. I've 15, that should do it. Get them lubed up with rubber cement and start mashing them in, one by one. After 10 plugs, bent in half, were mashed into the sidewall, I started to air it up and the damn thing held! Doc was surprised but not nearly as much as me. 13 lbs. Drove it off the shelf road and changed the tire below. As of this writing, three days later, it's still holding air. Discount Tire, here I come!

Only 10 plugs. No big deal.

From the canyon bottom we drove past some Indian ruins, a restored Kiva, and a neat old oil well powered by a 1950's Ajax 2 cycle motor. The "muffler" on the exhaust consisted of an 8" pipe inserted into a barrel which was dug into the ground. It had a nice ring to it when the engine fired.

From there we drove on another old shelf road loop and when done, descended into a neat canyon. We drove that for a few miles, climbed out, and started to head back to camp. Our 10 mile drive turned into a 40 mile drive when I missed two turns. We got back and went out for pizza. We were so cold from the drive we didn't even drink beer. Damn!

The next day we packed up and headed into LaSal, to visit Dave and Debbie and do some more wheelin'.

April 21 - Wed.

We got to LaSal and Dave, who lives there, graciously offered a place for us to set up on his friend Steve's land. Thanks Dave. Thanks Steve. The weather didn't look too good but it cleared later in the day. Dave took us around to the dinosaur tracks that I saw last year (here, towards the bottom). More have been stolen! Now there are four tracks missing! We then toured the Mi Vida site and then came across the hills via an old shelf road that has not been traversed by four wheelers, only ATVs. There were a couple off camber spots where we had to go around a corner at over 30 degrees and if we rolled would have gone down at least 100'. Those were attention getters.

We obviously survived (due to our superior spotting skills:), went back to Dave's and he made some great burgers for us. All's well that ends well.

Thanks Dave. Thanks Debbie!

The LaSal Hilton (two house trailers stacked on top of each other with a pickup camper atop them - with a flag for effect.) Utah.

Our LaSal campsite. The Utah "fog" (aka snow) is obscuring the LaSals.

Dave on the way down to Charlie Steen's mine, Mi Vida.

Lisbon Valley trail.

This major winter storm was playing tag with me all day. This is pretty much the beginning of the storm. 12 Noon!

Hail in Glenwood Canyon. Woke me up from a short rest. 3 PM.

The storm finally caught up with me in the mountains just outside Denver, about 5 PM.

April 22 - Thu.

10 PM at night. Settled in at the Brush, CO, city park. Satellite dish is up and got my fill of the Weather Channel so am now listening to my MP3 playlist of Country and Western duets (You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma is on now), drinking a Warsteiner (thanks Jeff and Warren!) and listening to the solidified rain fall outside. Tomorrow will be interesting.

This morning Doc, Dave and I were going to do more roads around LaSal and Lisbon Valley. However, we woke up to snow and a forecast of gloom and doom. A major winter storm was moving in and even in LaSal they were predicting 6 to 14" of snow. The prediction for the Rockies was even worse. Given the forecast and the fact that it was already raining and snowing (which would lead to some unpleasant wheeling) we wisely concluded we ought to get the hell out of there. Said goodbye to our hosts, Dave and Debbie. Doc will head north to Montana and I need to figure out how to get across the Rockies with the storm moving in.

Rained almost the entire time from LaSal, through Moab and up to Grand Junction. Got the number for the Colorado Department of Transportation at the Fruita rest area, called and got road conditions. I was originally going to turn north at Rifle and up to Rawlins to bypass the storm but, according to the DOT, the I-70 passes were open and in good shape. The standard I-70 route is 130 miles shorter than the Rawlins bypass. Filler 'er up and head on out.

After the Junction the weather was so-so. I had out-run the big storm and was feeling pretty smug. So I stopped for a short nap. Bing-Bang-Boom! "What the hell is that?" Hmm. The storm caught up with me (in 20 minutes.) There were hailstones the size of grapes pelting the motorhome. Head on out.

Out ran the storm again. Tried once more to take a short nap. This time it sounded like popcorn popping. More solidified Utah fog. Head on out.

This time I decided not to push my luck and kept going. The storm finally caught up with me at the pass right west of Denver. Eeeuuuwww! Cars in the ditch. Rescue vehicles all over the place. Snow and fog so thick I could only see a couple hundred feet in front of me at times as I crept down the mountain into Denver. Made it and got the hell out of there! Rush hour in Denver in the snow, fog and rain. Now THAT'S planning! On the other hand, another 20-30 minutes later and I might have been spending a few days somewhere in the Rockies awaiting the spring thaw of the 12 to 24" or more of snow they are predicting for tonight and all day tomorrow.

So hustle on out of Denver to Brush and set up here, hopefully far enough away from the solid form of precipitation - but now I wonder. It's sleeting and I'm sure there will be snow in the morning. Spring in Colorado!

April 23 - Fri.

Got to finish this and get it uploaded! This AM was no problem, the little snow we had last night melted. Headed out through the "Great Nothing" (I76) and eventually plopped myself here at a Flying J in Gretna, NE, where for $1.95 I can have 60 minutes of wi-fi internet access to upload this drivel and then I can get a good night's sleep - maybe. Of course there are truckers that are pissed now because I have the audacity to park in "their" area, only because the motorhome and trailer won't fit into the Flying J's RV area. Tough.

This has been a great trip - on a scale of 1 to 10 at least a 9.6. I suspect over the next few months Doc will write a rebuttal to this and I'll put it up anyway. Stay tuned for that one.

To Doc: thanks! We had a great time wheelin' and solving all the world's problems - and we didn't even run out of beer. I enjoyed your company and your wheeling. I just wish you were as entertaining on the trail as I. To Dave and Debbie: thanks for your hospitality, always very enjoyable. To the Red Rock Four Wheelers: thanks once again for a great week. To the two tourists from Hite: check your gas gauge frequently (and fill the tank when the needle approaches the "E" mark!) And finally, to you, the reader: If you made it this far, thanks for your patience! You have more than me as I'd never read all this!

Tomorrow the adventure ends as I head home and it will really end when I go to work Monday :(