Lutheran Subject (Schroeder's blog): Vacation 2018 -- Arizona & Utah, part 4

Thursday, June 14 was dedicated to Zion National Park. While I had usually cracked the whip and gotten people out of bed early to get to the national parks before the long lines arrived, this morning I let people sleep in a little bit (but not that late). It was probably about 9 AM by the time we got to Zion. We paid for street parking outside the park since parking in Zion is very limited. Then we walked into the park to wait for the bus which would take us to one of nine stops throughout the park. By the time we got there, the wait for a bus was 45 minutes already.

We went all the way to the end of the line to Temple of Sinawava where we took the Riverside Walk. Although it was going to be a rather hot day (100 degrees), our walk was rather comfortable since it was in the morning and especially since we were shaded by the tall cliffs. Although the path continued through the river, we were not equipped for it, so we returned to the bus for another stop.

We trickled back to the front of the park, making several stops along the way. However, the heat had really ramped up and we were no longer able to enjoy shady hikes. So, our hikes were pretty short. We did manage to find as many water stations as possible and regularly kept filling up our water bottles.

We returned to our campground for another brief swim and got to bed, resting up for several days of long driving toward Minnesota. Side note: Each trip into a national park (Grand Canyon and Zion) involved some major shuffling and re-shuffling of Faith's stuff. We had loaded a good portion of her belongings into the back of our Traverse. But we did not want to pay double entering the national park with two cars. So, we would empty out the Traverse into the camper before we left, and then had to repackage the Traverse after we got back so that we could go to bed. We also had to do this when we drove through Custer State park on Saturday, June 16. Thankfully, we never broke anything.

On Friday, we experienced blow out #3 in Utah. Since we only had the one spare, a tire change meant no spares, so getting a replacement became a priority. We found a Wal-Mart which not only would mount a new camper tire for us, but they also had mounted wheels for sale. So we got a replacement tire mounted and a new wheel purchased. For the first time on this trip, we finally had two spares (which is standard for us on our trips). While waiting for the tire to be mounted, we enjoyed our picnic lunch in the Payson, Utah Wal-Mart parking lot.

We later found out that most of our blowouts were our own fault. We talked to a sales rep at General RV in Wixom after our trip. When he heard that we had four blow outs on our trip, he had asked how fast we were driving. Apparently, we were supposed to be driving about 60-65 miles per hour with our pop-up. Any faster creates too much heat for the tires and they eventually give out faster than they are designed for. But when the speed limit on the interstate in Utah is 80 miles per hour, how you do not drive 80? Well, you do -- and then you change a flat.

Another glitch was when Faith got separated from us at Salt Lake City. I had passed a car heading up to the exit for I-80, and Faith dutifully followed me. Unfortunately, while I was able to move over in time for the exit, she wasn't. Cell phones to the rescue! She got turned around and caught up to us by the time we hit the border for Wyoming. I had ended up driving slower so that Faith could catch up to us and, by accident, I ended up driving for that stretch at a speed we were supposed to be going all along.

We had our most memorable gas fill-up at Rock Springs, Wyoming. Pulling in, I saw that someone had put a garbage can by the pump. Annoying, but it can be moved easily enough. After pre-paying, I began to pump. I paid about $1 for what seemed to be only air. Then the gas was finally getting to the tank. But Laura noticed that gas was spraying out of the hose. THAT's why the garbage can was put there. Perhaps the yellow baggie over the pump hanlde would have been a better warning system. We alerted the attendant (who said they were never told about the leak by garbage-can-man), moved to a different pump, and did not explode. The last one was the most important.

By Friday night, we had crossed about half of Wyoming. We travelled until it was pretty much dark, set up camp at the Rawlins KOA, and had no ambition to get supper going. So, to Denny's we went. Caleb had his eye on an all-you-can-eat pancake special. He was interested in the challenge, but it was only for breakfast. We toyed with the idea of coming back to see what Caleb could do with that, but decided that putting on the miles was more important.

Saturday was more and more driving--east to Laramie and Cheyenne, and then north to get to the Black Hills. We found a KOA near Custer, and after setting up, went to Custer State Park to see the bison herd. We found them--hundreds of them--and drove into the herd to see them up close. We also got to see a few antelope while we were driving through. We determined that we need to come back to the Black Hills and make that its own specific vacation. There are too many things to see (Sylvan Lake, I will get to you yet!), and not enough time to see them.

Our evening ended at the Crazy Horse Monument. We had hoped to see the light show which is projected onto the monument, but the clouds and the rain rolled in and covered the monument entirely. So, we left and headed off to bed for a rainy night.

Photos from June 14-16 are below.