Canyonlands and Grand Junction

Well we finished Canyonlands, but not without some stress. It was about a 1.5 hour drive to the Southern section of the park this morning... everything was going well until we turned off the main road. Snow. Snow on the road. Can't really see all of the pavement when there's snow on the road and that means waiting... waiting for snow to melt... similar to watching grass grow. We kept driving though... I was thinking well shout, not gonna be home Sunday, Monday? Tuesday? Is it gonna get sunny to melt this?

Plus while this was happening the problem we had yesterday with the grade sensors was still not fixed. Things did not look good... The happiness of getting so many parks done so fast and ending cycle 4 on a high note... well it was falling away from me quickly.

Here's a map of the drive and a picture of the roads as we saw them...


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Well don't mean to keep you in suspense... but as we descended in elevation so did the amount of snow. By the time we got to our route, it was tough to find the fluffy stuff except on the surrounding mesas. I honestly couldn't believe it...

We pulled over to try a new strategy on the grade sensors. The snow fixed itself; we had to fix the grade sensors though... decided to take out a grade timer card in our main computer. Well our magic worked... not another grade sensor error the rest of the day.

The scenery around the Southern section wasn't quite as spectacular as the Northern, but we didn't get much of a chance to check things out. With this park being with a days drive of Denver, it's one I'd like to come back to at some time. Here's a pic of what they call "Wooden Shoe Arch." Pretty fitting I think...


So we finished the rest of Canyonlands by 1pm or so and got to Grand Junction around 430. Onto Colorado Monument tomorrow... and with that the end of Cycle 4! Denver Sunday... Hopefully in time for Vikings/Packers...

Arches and Canyonlands

Yesterday we drove from Flagstaff to Moab and today we collected all of Arches and half of Canyonlands.

Here's a map of our drive yesterday....


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The drive yesterday was nice, snow/rain/sleet mix most of the time, slow drivers, and a lot of reading for me. We got to Arches about 230pm and were thinking about collecting but then it started to rain; so we bagged it. Drove around the park a good amount though; real neat place. I guess the park has about 2,000 arches, including the one on most of the Utah license plates (it's actually called Delicate Arch). We saw a lot of the Arches, but definitely not 2,000.

We were a little worried that the roads would still be wet or have snow on them today; but our luck has stuck with us and the roads were perfect. We not only finished Arches but we also got all of the Northern section of Canyonlands done. I estimated it would take us day to do each of these sections; so much for that. I gladly accept my error on that one.

Here's a map of our drive today....


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So tomorrow onto the Southern section of Canyonlands and then drive to Grand Junction, CO to finish up our last park of this cycle! Colorado National Monument. Should be done by Saturday afternoon...

Here's some pics from yesterday and today...

Balenced Rock... Really pretty crazy looking.... That boulder is huge, 55 feet high.
Delicate Arch - didn't have time and it was freezing out to make the 1.5 mile hike to the base of the arch; maybe next time.
Skyline arch
Double Arch

Canyonlands, the Colorado River is down there somewhere.

Wupatki, Sunset Crater, and Walnut Canyon

Next day we had 3 more smaller parks to do in Northern AZ. These had a little more mileage, but not many more routes. We finished all 3 of them by about 2pm. Felt pretty good to get 5 parks done in 2 days.

Wapatki and Walnut Canyon are similar to Montezuma and Tuzigoot as they were ancient ruins of peoples who used to live in the area around 1200 to 1300 A.D. We were able to tour one of the ruins a little bit, but for the most part we were focused on the finish line for this trip.

Sunset Crater is the youngest volcano of the Colorado Plateau. It erupted sometime between 1040 and 1100 and still has the lava flows to prove it.

Here's a map of our drive...


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I think I took some pics, but I was driving; so I don't think I got that many.

This is a pueblo at Wupatki...
These are some workers putting some silicon on the edge of the ledge. I guess it helps keep water out of the dwellings and further deteriorating them.

Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot

So after a couple of weeks in the office and a trip back to MN for a wedding; I was back in the field on Monday October 26th, 2009. I had landed in Denver on Sunday night at about 10pm and I had a flight the next day at 8:19am. It sucked. I had to do laundry too. Got about 5 hours of sleep.

So I landed, we did a quick DMI calibration (measuring off 2640 ft with a wheel on a straight road then running the truck over and over it). Then we were up to Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot (pronounced Too-zee-hoot; weird I know). They are basically both ancient pueblos of the Sinagua people, whom were native to the region around 1000 A.D.

These were both really small parks, got them both done in about 3 hours. Oh and this is our last trip in this cycle (yay!). 8 parks to go, but all of them can be done in a day or less pretty much.

Here's a map of our drive...


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And here's some pics of the ruins...

Montezuma's Castle (not revenge)...

Tuzigoot

Grand Canyon - South Rim

Ok so I've slacked again; uploading pictures is just so time-consuming. Or more likely I'm just lazy when I get back to my hotel room. But since we're now within 2 days of ending this cycle's collection (pretty sure I explained what a cycle was in a previous post); I figure I should at least catch up the last couple of weeks.

So I left you at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We finished that up the next day and drove down to the South Rim. Although the road we needed to finish was closed until about 1pm due to downed trees from the day before. So we had to bum around the lodge for a bit and get lunch in there. Which wasn't so bad either, just made for a long day. Here's a map of our drive...


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As a result of us finishing later on the North Rim, the four hour drive to the South Rim didn't start until 4pm. Which also meant I was gonna be late for the Vikings Packers game. I was fine with it since we got the North Rim done and I figured we'd get to our rooms and I'd catch the 2nd half. Little did I know that the Holiday Inn Express there does not carry ESPN! What kind of hotel doesn't have ESPN, I mean seriously.

Well we made it to a bar and I got in the 2nd half to see Favre finish off those Packers... just like he'll do again in Lambeau this weekend.

The next couple of days were busy busy busy.... We did get a break though since it rained the second day... just our luck; rain in the desert. We still managed to bust out about 120 routes in 2 days though. Our usual above average day was around 30 to 35 routes; we blew that out of the water. Helped that the routes were short and really close together, one trailer park had 26 loops in it!

Grand Canyon is a pretty neat place, the commercialization of it kinda sucks, but understandable since it's such an awesome sight. Tough to sum it up in words or pictures; however I do remember a quote I read while I was there, this guy didn't do so well at his attempt to describe it...

"The region is of course altogether valueless, ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality."
- U.S. Army surveyor, Lieutenant Joseph Ives 1858

I mean he was there in 1857, before all the buildings, trails, and trains. It was probably a tough trip to get there, hot, sweaty, buffalo for dinner every night; but seriously that thing is an amazing wonder. I'm guessing he didn't go into the tourism industry. At least he's getting a call out in my blog 150 years later!

So we finished up the GRCA on a Friday and drove down to Phoenix; just in time for me to catch Game 2 of the Twins Yankees ALDS. That's all I'm gonna say about that game; I'm still bitter. Flew home to Denver the next morning... Here's a map of our drive.


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Here's some pics from the South Rim... Caught a rainbow on our second day there...

These pictures, per usual in National Parks, don't really do the scenery justice.

Grand Canyon - North Rim

Kanab, UT

Made it to the North Rim today... barely. Wind was blowing like crazy, they closed one of the long routes because of wind and downed trees. Even one of our magnets blew off the side of the truck. Made the drive a little more difficult as I was always correcting with the gusts.

But we collected everything that wasn't closed, so we should finish up the North Rim tomorrow.

Here's a map of where we drove today.


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We took a short hike out to Bright Angel Point, right by the North Rim Lodge. With the winding gusting and steep cliffs on either side; made it a fun little trip.

Here's some pics from today...
Here's two pics from Bright Angel Point...
Here's a quail (I think)... that decided to jump up on our truck while we weren't paying attention. Kinda freaked us out, but I think it was the other way around and it was pissed at us... or it just wanted some food.

Zion

St. George, UT

Well it's been another couple of hectic days. Yesterday we drove from Byrce down to Zion. On the way we heard one of our computers beep. Which isn't totally out of the question... when it's hot out. The computers yell at us when they're too hot. But when it's 65 and was probably in the 30's the night before, it should not be over-heating in the back of the truck.

After a little investigation we figured out that there was no air coming out of the back air conditioning. So we decided to take a trip to the Ford dealer. We were pretty lucky that one was close to Zion actually. Got there and we lucked out again because they were able to look at it immediately. It was a "door" that controls the air flow in the back of the van, basically when you have the AC on and the back vents blowing, the door will be "open", otherwise it's "closed". Well it was stuck closed, so the AC was blowing right into the "door".

Guy said it'd take until at least Monday to get a new one, we didn't like hearing that. So he suggested that he could just tape it in the "open" position. We were all for it. Cheap/quick fixes are our specialty.

So while he was fixing it, we went and got lunch (nice little break). Got the van back, headed back up to Zion and collected until about 530. That's when we figured out that our power supply that we had switched out of our Laser computer the day before, really was bad. Because now in the computer we had moved it to, that too was now just shutting off randomly. So we needed a new power supply.

These computers are old, real old; like they're still running Windows NT old (that's before Windows 98). So we were slightly worried that we wouldn't be able to find a power supply that would work. Luckily power supply technology, unlike every other technology related to computers, doesn't change that much. We went into Best Buy and showed them the broken power supply and asked if the one we had picked out would work, and they assured us it would.

So lo and behold.... two pretty major problems (no AC/no power to one of the computers) in one day and 2 major problems fixed. Well the mechanic did say the tape could come off, but we figured... eh we'll risk it.

Then today... you think more problems? Negative. Finished up Zion with some time to spare. It was busy, but we got it done. Another park I'd like to spend a couple of days in, but it was nice to drive around that's for sure. They have a tunnel that kinda just cuts through the side of the mountain for 1.1 miles. It was completed in 1930... think about that... a 1.1 mile long tunnel in 1930, in the middle of nowhere.... Not too shabby.

We got a little delayed trying to get through it though... They were only letting one way of traffic through at a a time; we figured it was for the larger campers to get by. But as we got into the tunnel, we noticed a camper pulling a car, just stopped. We later learned that something happened to the transmission and it was basically stuck... in the middle of a tunnel. I guess someone has worse luck than us.

Plus... Plus... The Badgers held onto the ax (sorry to ruin the Big Ten opener in the new place Gophs; "maybe next year"), the Twins are within reach of the playoffs, and Brett Favre is about to beat the Packers in the Metrodome... Things are looking up. Twins win tomorrow and Tigers lose and nothing the van does tomorrow can keep me down.

Here's some pics from Zion... these don't really do it justice. It's pretty magnificent...

This is the Kolob Canyon in the NW corner of the park. Only about 5 minutes off of I-15 and you really don't see any of it from the interstate. Worth the price of admission for sure.

Just a pic within the Zion Canyon.... pretty average view from within the park.
View from just outside the tunnel, looking towards the canyon.

Just a pretty sunset on the way back from Zion to the hotel.

Onto the North Rim of the Grand Canyon tomorrow. Hopefully the day's not too long. Already at 69 hours this week.

Bryce Canyon

Ok, so pretty much present... last 2 days we've been collecting Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah. Smaller park than I imagined, but pretty nonetheless. Yesterday our first problem was a truck that wouldn't start (luckily we keep spare batteries in our truck). Next issue came later in the day with our Laser computer just shutting off randomly.

We decided to trade out the laser computer power supply with another computer's supply and make sure all of the connections were good. We did that and today we collected the rest of the park with little to no errors.

Ate dinner at the park lodge tonight... eh. $35 bucks for a so-so meal and a beer, ok I guess. Salad bar and the beer were the best part.

Got some nice goodies at the gift shop today, nice long-sleeve shirt, new puzzle, another magnet (I collect magnets from every park I go to, up to about 50 now I think). Fridge is pretty full.

Also got to take a little hike since we finished the park around 2pm this afternoon. A welcome break from the constant work. I think I'm at 47 hours through 4 days, so a little hike was nice. Here's some pics from that today...

GRBA

Ok, getting close to the present... We left for our current trip this last Monday, September 28th. Before we could leave though we had to get our truck working. Last week we had to test out some new rutbar controller boards (we wanted to have a spare around, but we wanted a spare that worked). Unfortunately when we tested the boards we made a boo boo and connected some wires backwards... not good. After much testing (~8 hours)... we figured out we needed 4 new boards in our rutbar (not the one we were testing in the first place). Those boards were located in Canada though and we were leaving that afternoon for middle of nowhere Nevada. Trust Baker, NV is not a thriving metropolis...

We had to get to Great Basin National Park (Eastern Nevada) by the next day since it was gonna snow on Tuesday night. So we had our friends at Roadware in Canada (current supporter of our truck) overnight our boards to the park. We left Denver about 4pm (after we had troubleshot since 730am). We drove to Grand Junction, CO (13 hour day).

So the next day we got up at 730am, drove from Grand Junction to Baker, NV; got the boards installed around 2pm, collected all of the park by 730pm, ate a quick dinner along the loneliest road in America (US 50). And then drove 2 more hours on an even lonelier road since we didn't see another car for about an hour and 45 minutes on it. We made it to Beaver UT around 1030pm. Then I checked my work, sent my daily emails and was off to bed by 1130pm. A nice 16 hour day for me... But we got the park done.

Here's a map of our drive on Monday and Tuesday...


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Wish I could've spent more than a couple hours at GRBA... but grabbed a couple of pics.
Great Basin NP is dominated by the 13,000 ft Mt Wheeler. Rises above the desert to the East quite magnificently.

Here is a look Eastward onto the Great Basin and the Sevier Desert from about 8500 ft.

Forgot to mention... Beaver, UT high school mascot? You guessed it... Beavers... Yes it's the Beaver Beavers.... classic.

Tulsa and Pathway

As I mentioned before, after GRSM we had to get to Tulsa to discuss the fabrication of our new truck. We decided to drive there since we were heading West with the truck anyway. Not an easy task in a truck with two bad batteries that when slightly over-charged smell badly. I had to change out the batteries a couple of times, switch out the regulator underneath the hood, and basically just deal with a sulfur smell after a while. It wasn't fun, but the truck got to Tulsa and eventually Denver.

Our meeting with the company, Pathway Services, went well. They showed us new trucks and even our truck (stripped out with no computers, makes it look big). It was fun to see the new technology and slightly worrisome as to all the new work flows we're going to have to figure out. But I enjoyed it and look forward to a truck with less problems (nothing could be as bad as this thing).

GRSM summary

So another reason that I've been neglecting my is that football season has begun. College, NFL, and fantasy. I'm in 4 fantasy football leagues, so most of my evenings have been spent reading up on my matchups for the next week. Sad I know... I've also tried to watch my Badgers whenever I can... Tolzien looks good, no?

Again after Blue Ridge, we had Great Smoky Mountains NP. We stayed in Cherokee, NC which is on the Cherokee Reservation, which means Casino! That's the last time I'll use an exclamation point when I describe the Cherokee Casino... it wasn't that great. First of all, no alcohol in the casino. I mean I understand that alcohol and alcoholism are large issues on reservations... at the same time, it's a casino. I figure if you wanted to attract gamblers, you'd want to get them sauced... well I digress.

Another thing about the casino there... no actual cards. Everything was digital on the blackjack tables and the poker tables. It wasn't fun, I mean you can't even touch the cards at most places, but shout... it was lame.

Alright I guess I'd feel differently if I hadn't lost money, but still... I don't recommend the place.

So Great Smokies... Nice park, lots to do, different areas. The only thing that really held us back on the first couple of days was rain and wet roads. The park is almost totally tree covered, so not a lot sun gets down to evaporate the roads.

We had a little more than a week to finish since we were planning on heading to Tulsa on Monday to check out our new truck (pretty exciting); I'll get to it in my next post. Towards the end of the week we were rushing. Then comes Friday morning... systems won't turn on. We figure out that it's one of our power inverters. An inverter basically takes the DC power that the alternators create and convert it to AC power that our computers can use. It's important needless to say. And important stuff isn't usually cheap or easy to find.

We called a place in MN that made the first inverter, explained the situation and told them we needed the inverter yesterday. After a lot of stress over credit cards, connections, remote power buttons, we got the thing Saturday morning in Gatlinburg, TN. Installed it with little problems, and started collecting. We had to drive the truck to Tulsa and be there by Tuesday morning, so we basically had to be done by Sunday afternoon.

After much stress we did it, not the greatest data as some of the roads were still wet. But we could still be there now and not be getting much better data. I think I still have some pics from the park. We saw lots of black bears (probably one a day) and even some elk (I didn't know they lived that far East). I didn't take that many pics though...
Hiked up to this waterfall when we were waiting for our inverter. Relaxed us slightly on a stressful day.
Here's a view from Newfound Gap... basically the NC/TN border. Busy up there, lots of motorcyclists... there was a rally every weekend. (Got old... fast)

So that was GRSM... onto Tulsa then back to Denver (finally out of the South and the East coast). Nice, but getting called a "Yankee" at the casino was the final straw.

BLRI Summary

Ok so it's been a while... I've been working... a lot. Last trip I think I did around 140 hours in 2 weeks. I wasn't collecting the whole time either.... lots of trouble-shooting. I'm gonna try to do a summary of where I've been, what I've seen, and hopefully not hate on my truck too much.

So I'll start with what was the end of Blue Ridge Parkway. Just a reminder Blue Ridge is a 472.820 mile long parkway (trust me on the mileage), that goes from the Southern end of Shenandoah NP to Great Smoky Mountains NP. It's really a pretty drive, but it rains and it rains a lot. We fought the rain almost every day and the days we didn't, we fought the truck.

We had started BLRI on July 24th and we ended on September 5th. It's a big park, but it definitely shouldn't have taken 6.5 weeks. The last 5 days were tough, but we got something done everyday. We flew in on August 31st, picked up the truck from an alternator shop the next day (had to fix the 275amp alternator) and off to work. I think we collected a couple of routes until we started getting an error with our ultra-sonic sensors (give a profile of the road surface - rutting basically). Thought we got it fixed, but didn't get a chance to find out since it started raining.

Next day it came back, fixed it for the day, but we didn't get a lot done since the roads were still wet. Next day we figured out the problem with the rutbar for good (good is relative since we just spent 10 hours troubleshooting it on Friday and Monday). So the next couple of days were trying, but we got BLRI done by Saturday September 5th. Here are a couple of pics that I took from the last days with BLRI.
We had just driven up from Asheville in this pic. We were pretty worried that the roads were gonna be wet, as Asheville was shrouded in clouds. Turned out to be a perfect day for collection above the clouds.
Can't remember the name of this rock, but it's towards the end of BLRI. Kinda reminded me of the Rockier mountains of the West.

So after Blue Ridge came Great Smoky Mountains. 2 things about GRSM... it's the most visited National Park in the system (9 million a year) = lots of dumb drivers and we started collection on a Saturday (of Labor Day weekend). It was tough... and it rained, rained everyday.

BLRI day 11

Boone, NC

Well another eventful couple of days here along the Parkway... the smoke that we saw on Thursday turned out to not be the air conditioner, sorry Winston-Salem Ford Dealer!... we were wrong, you were right. Did get to tour Wake Forest University while they were checking things out though.... nice campus.

The voltages were still dropping... so we still had to figure something out. We trouble-shot all afternoon in Winston-Salem. Eventually we figured out that one of our isolators had gone bad. An isolator basically takes current from an alternator and disperses it evenly to multiple batteries. All the while not allowing current back to the alternator.

Enough technical stuff... it's important basically. When it's not working, we're not working. This of course is happening on a Friday afternoon. And you can't just walk into a local Napa and ask for a 250amp isolator.

We started calling places that we found online to get it shipped overnight. However we couldn't call anywhere on the East coast since it was now about 430pm EDT (too late for FedEx or UPS to go out). Tried the Central time zone... thought we had one, but she called back... too late. Started calling California... found one after a couple of tries. Got it shipped overnight, Saturday arrival (not cheap). But we got it 9am EDT Saturday morning, after ordering it at 530pm EDT on Friday. Amazing what those shipping companies can do these days. And thank you Jared at Buchanan Auto electric in Oakland, CA.

Installed the isolator by 10am and started working. Got a lot done yesterday, most we could've hoped for.

Today was another pretty good collection day. We have all the routes through about MP 289 on the Parkway (goes to 461). So we're making our way. Doesn't look like I'll get to finish it off though, kinda sad about that. I'm heading back to Denver on Tuesday for a little vacation and to celebrate Megan's 30th birthday... Feel free to send her a Happy Birthday message on Thursday

♫

(mmcgrew19@gmail.com).

Had to go through a couple of construction areas today. Got to one with a huge rock slide... see below.

You can see the van in the back for scale... crazy. Don't think that section is gonna be open for a while.

We're staying in Boone, NC... nice town. I mostly like it because it's a small college town, home of the Appalachian State Mountaineers. Well ok, the only reason I'm fond of them is because they pulled off the biggest upset in college football history... beating Michigan in the Big House a couple of years back. Still brings a smile to my face... Town really is nice though, would definitely recommend it for anyone thinking of visiting the area.

Ok, good enough for now. Last day of collection for me tomorrow. Don't think I'll have time to post, but maybe is something cool happens.

BLRI day 8

Hillsville, VA

Well it didn't start out too bad... but it ended with another delay. We were having an average day of collection, good amount of errors, couple of computer restarts... then we started smelling smoke. Then we saw smoke... voltages started dropping.

Pulled over, shut everything off. Van was running fine, belts were ok, smell kinda went away. We decided to drive to a Ford dealer to have them check things out.

Got there and per usual, were a little intimidated by the van. So after talking on the phone with our support and describing the situation, they suggested checking the air conditioning or more specifically the auxiliary air conditioning. We did and that was definitely the culprit. Our condenser has likely gone bad and now we need to find a new one.

So not really sure what we breathed in when the condenser conked out, but it wasn't good.

And I'm still sick... have to pack and get up early tomorrow to drive to Winston-Salem and hopefully get this thing fixed ASAP.

BLRI Day ?

Hillsville, VA

Well I haven't put a post up in a while... been too discouraged. Went back to Denver on 7/31, then back out on the road on 8/10. Long day on Monday too... Had to get up at 3:45 to make my 6:15am flight. I cut it way too close at check-in too. Probably had 1 or 2 minutes before they did the 45 min cutoff. Walked to the gate and walked right onto the plane pretty much.

Flew to Dulles and then caught a flight to Richmond an hour later. Got to Richmond about 2pm local time and then drove 4 hours to Hillsville, VA... Here's map.


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Needless to say it was a long day. And it was like a 100 degrees in Richmond again...

Yesterday we started collecting, but then we got an error with our roughness laser system. The same error for which we had driven to Richmond at the end of our last trip. The same error that we were supposed to have gotten fixed. Frustration is pretty much part of the job description for me.

Turned out to be an issue with one of our timing cards in the roughness computer. We had spares but they didn't work with the cable we had. So we had to get a cable overnighted from Canada to Hillsville. Got this afternoon at about 230pm and started working immediately.

Got a good amount done for only working about 4 hours. Low sun glare only stopped us at about 645pm.

Bad news from today is that I've gotten sick. Head cold, sore throat, achy... Speaking of achy... Saw a sweet poster of Mr. Achy Breaky himself at the restaurant we went to. Wasn't this one, but this one is sweet.

Went and bought some meds today for my sickness. Didn't realize I bought Ibuprofen PM until after I had popped 2 of them at noon. It was a sleepy afternoon, hopefully I'll be able to sleep, but that's not usually an issue for me.

Last thing from today... After I got out of the shower this morning, I noticed I have a message on my mirror which only shows up when it's fogged up. "I'm watching you!" I mean I guess it's kinda freaky, but not really... funny more than anything. Tried to take a photo with of it, but the bathroom fogginess didn't work out so well.

BLRI day 3

Roanoke, VA

Another day of collection... although we didn't quite fill it up... rain stopped us at about 1:30. Collected to MP 169 of the parkway though. We still have a lot of the OPP lane to collect and a lot of smaller routes but we're making progress.

Also got a nice sulfur smell in the van today. One of our batteries is over-heating and it's not making for the greatest ride. It's over-heating because it's over-charging; it's not leaking anything, but it's not good. We think it could be an isolator that's bad, but we're not totally sure.

Good thing is that it only overheats when the systems are OFF; so we can work without the smell or the worry of a battery exploding (don't think that's possible).

Forgot my camera today; but the parkway is pretty unassuming around Roanoke. Maybe some more tomorrow.

BLRI Day 2

Roanoke, VA

Collected more of the Parkway today.... pretty busy day. Here's a map of what we drove...


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Had to drive to the top of Sharp Top Mountain in the Otter Peaks area. It was hairy to say the least. It's closed to the public, but we had some keys to get us in. They have a short bus that shuttles people to the top. So we had to time our run with the driver so we didn't get pushed off the side of the mountain. I'm not really sure I'd want to ride in a bus on this road though... pretty much straight down with no guard rail.

We made it as far as the pavement went. The rest of the way would have to be by foot. We were a little worried that we'd run into the bus on the way down if we took to long... so we ran. It wasn't too far, but it got me breathin' pretty hard. Actually nice to get some exercise in the middle of the day. Probably helped me make it until 6.

Another long week, put in 69 hours last week and I'm on my way to 75 this week. Nice paycheck, but I'm missing home.

I'll post some pics tomorrow...

forgot to post this last night...

SHEN & BLRI

Waynesboro, VA

Well I'm back to civilization... it's nice to have my cell phone work again, but I do miss my view. We started in SHEN on Monday (I think, days are running together). Collected a lot that first day, saw a bear cub too... just hangin out on the side of the road. Could've reached out the window and picked him up, did not seem to care about anyone but the ants he was eating, looks like he needs them.
SHEN is a beautiful park, it's major asset is the Skyline Drive. Here is a map of it... The road basically goes along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mtns for about 105.730 miles (actually that's exact, we drove it). It was created in 1931 as part of the Works Progress Administration (largest New Deal organization).

I was expecting it to be pretty, but the pictures I'm posting really don't do it nearly enough justice. Vistas were at every corner and it was hard to keep my eyes glued to the road or the computer screen.

That last one is a view from our lodge deck at around 830 at night. That's the Shenandoah Valley, and it was one of the only looks I got from the lodge. Clouds and mist plagued us a lot of the week, luckily not keeping us from working though (46 hours in 4 days).

First time we got to stay at a park lodge, Big Meadows Lodge was the place. They usually won't offer a Government rate, but we worked out something with the park. Although getting the bill right was somewhat of a haggle, it was worth it though.

My room didn't have a phone or internet, and my cell didn't get coverage. So I was disconnected, pretty uncommon for me. I even sent a postcard, pretty old-school.

The lodge offered nightly entertainment at their "tap room" (bar). I went a couple of nights and it was.... interesting... They advertised it as family friendly, and that it was. Here is the list of entertainment, I think I saw Charlie Maddux on Monday. It was a dad and his 16 year old who seemed oddly happy to be there (when I was 16 I was not hanging out with my parents... ever). The dad played the hammer dulcimer amongst other instruments and the son played the obo... need I go on?

I had a bad feeling about it when I heard the waitress say to another couple "um yeah, I kinda dread these nights when he plays." I wish I had a video camera... oh god, I love you, you tube... I couldn't take more than 2 beers worth...

Here's some more pics from SHEN....

The fog got a little crazy sometimes. And yes I took this while I was driving... it's straight for a while I was going about 25mph... ok?

I saw this bear right outside of the lodge, just cruising towards the campground...
This guy was right next to the road... a couple of miles down the road.
The rest of SHEN was slightly a blur... finished up yesterday. 4 days to collect about 160 miles worth of routes. It took a toll, and that's only a 1/4 of what Blue Ridge Parkway brings us.


We started BLRI today. 466 miles from the end of SHEN down to Great Smoky Mountains NP. And it's not a straight shot... winding road up and down ridges and valleys. Plus we have to drive everything twice since we collect both directions. So you can go ahead and double that mileage, and we can't go much faster than 30mph. Long days are in my future that's for sure.

BLRI is pretty though, just like SHEN, but the terrain varies a little more. No bears today but a couple of pics... I like that last one... sums up a lot of the views pretty good (hazy, rolling mountains)

Collected 75 miles of the parkway only 391 miles left... ugh... Here's a map of what we collected today...


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Hopefully I'll have internet the next couple of days, I know so many of you missed my updates...

OZAR to SHEN

Front Royal, VA

Drove the rest of the way to SHEN ; 2nd half of the drive was nice. Shenandoah Valley is beautiful, I think I'll enjoy collecting SHEN as the views will be nice.

This is what our drive looked like today....


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So I've been trying to keep track of all the states I've been to in my life... and I'm proud to say I'm up to 48. Just missing Vermont and Alaska. I've been to a couple for only a short amount of time... Washington, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, New Hampshire to name a few that I've spent around a day or less in. But I've been around that's for sure.

Favorite state? That's tough... I mean California has so much to offer... Minnesota, well Minnesota... Wisconsin? not shabby... well I better have moved to Colorado for a reason so I'll stick with my home.

Hopefully collect some of SHEN tomorrow. Gotta do some trouble-shooting first. Sulfur smells from batteries are bad, right?

OZAR day 3, 4

Elizabethtown, KY

Finished up OZAR today... yesterday was tough. Almost lost it on the van; glad there wasn't a bat around otherwise I would've gone all "PC load letter" on that thing....

Long day today; had to finish up collection (14 routes) first then drive a ways. Drove up to the way northern section of the park and worked our way back down. Then droped off the radio in Van Buren (no cell service so park lent us a radio in case we got kidnapped by yocals or if the van broke down). After that we drove to Elizabethtown, KY. On our way to Shenandoah National Park in Northern VA. Here's a map of our drive today...


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Got to drive across the very Southern tip of Illinois around Cairo (Kai-ro); where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers come together. Two pretty big bridges in a couple of minutes.

That's it for now... Eastern time now so didn't get in until 930; now it's 1115.

OZAR day 2

Van Buren, MO

Well we collected, but not until about 4pm. Had to take the truck all the way to Poplar Bluff, MO (45 min away). Turned out the alternator was all screwy because the threading was stripped that held the pulley on. Luckily we keep spare alternators in the truck. Still took Carl 5 hours to take the old one out and put the new one in.

So since that's our only way of getting around, we had to sit at a trucker repair shop from 9am until 230pm. The air conditioned driver lounge consisted of a tv that didn't work, 5 issues of "Bowhunter", 5 chairs, and a leather couch that just not look appealing on a hot day. And it smelled like cleaning solution, trucker sweat, and grease... So we ended up taking a bunch of walks; even though it was sticky out.

They even gave us a truck to go get lunch in, which was nice. But it wasn't a semi... which would have been more fun. Thanks Duckett Truck Repair. If the alternator is still in tact in 4 months I'll thank you again.

So we finally got back to collecting around 330/4pm. Roads were a little wet, but we were able to finish 6 routes. We worked around the Big Springs area in OZAR. And you guessed it, it got it's name from a huge spring. Huge is an understatement.... 286 million gallons of fresh water a day guzzel up from this spring. It's the largest spring in the US and one of the largest in the world.

The water comes out at 55 to 58 degrees. So when it's 90 and humid out it gets all hazy...

This is close to where it just kinda starts...
That's where it just starts flowing... pretty crazy looking.

Rained a little in the evening, but it looks good for the rest of the night. Hopefully we can collect a full day tomorrow.

OZAR day 1

Van Buren, MO

I feel so unaccomplished.... We attempted to calibrate the truck fully today and then go collect some routes; it almost worked out. We have to calibrate our truck on a periodic basis and it was way overdue. We usually do most of the calibrations by hooking the truck up to "shore power" or power from a stationary source (outlet basically).

Shore power didn't turn out to be working since we re-wired some things a couple of months ago. So long story short... today sucked.

Got to use the NPS maintenance shop though... and they were a lot of help. Ended up having to change one of our belts today too, and Vinnie was a great help. Changing the belt sucked as well, but we did get it done.

It was another sticky, two-shower day. Humidity I've found just makes you tired and hard to think straight.

We also have a squeaking noise on our truck (figured it was the belt that we changed, but nope) that is worrying me a bit. Pretty sure we figured it out that it's a loose nut on one of our alternators. Hopefully get that fixed right away in the morning, do a pavement camera calibration, and pray it doesn't rain (60% chance) so we can collect. Not holding out much hope for the 3rd, but I'll take 2 out of 3.

So see, my job is not always "cake" or it's not just all sight-seeing. I mean it's a great job, love the travel, but days like this are tough. Tomorrow will be better though, it's gotta be.

Ate dinner at a place called "The Landing." Pretty nice, filet was a little well done; but eh. Wish we coulda been staying there, but they wouldn't give us the government rate. So we're staying at the Big Springs Motel .

It's ok... rooms were recently re-done; but shower heads apparently don't stay on here and the mattresses did not get updated. They have a bar across the way, but I'm a little scared to have a drink there, mostly scared to say I work for the Federal Government.

Ah well... maybe tomorrow I'll get a beer and meet some yocals.

OZAR

Van Buren, MO

Flew into Memphis this afternoon (Memphis airport is a brick monstrosity, the baggage claim reminded me of a hospital waiting area).

Drove the 3.5 hours to Van Buren, MO. Fell asleep and read since NE Arkansas is only a tad better than Eastern Colorado.


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So Ozark National Scenic Riverway is the official name... it's the only national scenic riverway I can think of, but I'm sure there's others. Don't know much about it yet, but I'll be here for 3 days; so I'll give you what I can. I know the Current River is the focus and that it attracts fishing and boating, but mostly tubing/rafting down the river. Sounds like a good time to me.

I guess there are many fresh water springs around here. Hopefully we get a chance to check them out.

This is gonna be a long trip (> 2 weeks likely), so lots of posts. So check it out daily and get on me if you don't see one daily.

VICK and SHIL

Corinth, MS

Haven't posted at all this trip yet... apologies... it's just too damn hot to get motivated. I guess they broke a record in Vicksburg yesterday at 100. The van doesn't have the best air conditioning to begin with, so when you turn on 7 computers and fire up some strobe lights, it's pretty much like an oven with air blowing on you. I think our thermostat said anywhere between 91 and 96 inside the van.

Started in New Orleans on Monday. Hot. Had to do some work on the truck, stayed on the outskirts.

Drove up to Vicksburg on Tuesday.


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Collected all of the park, like I mentioned hot. Sticky hot... reminded me of why I like Colorado heat so much. It's hot, but it doesn't make your clothes a continuation of your skin for the rest of the day.

Vicksburg National Military Park was pretty neat. They have an ironclad on display there... inspiration for the ever-typical McConaughey movie (Sahara)...

The museum next to it didn't open until 930 this morning though, so we didn't get a chance to look at it. Pretty neat looking thing though, I think they fished it out of the Yazoo River after it sank.... I don't think McConaughey helped.

The battle of Vicksburg, like Chattanooga, is associated with the rise of Grant through the ranks of the US Army. He was part of the command that laid siege to Vicksburg for over a month. The siege ended on July 4th, 1863... a day after Gettysburg. Also since it ended on the 4th of July, the city of Vicksburg didn't celebrate it again until 1931, a little salty I guess.

Lincoln famously said that "Vicksburg is the key...." meaning that since Vicksburg is an important port/passage on the Mississippi it must be held in Union control to ensure victory.

Ate dinner at a nice place in town last night. Rusty's Riverfront Grill... I think it was burned down and rebuilt since that picture. I ate some alligator though and as you might expect... pretty much like a fishy tasting chicken. Also had some soft-shell crab stuff with Maryland crab... not too shabby.


Today we drove up to Corinth (I guess it's pronounced "Caar-inth", imagine it with a southern twang). Also the site of another important Civil War battle.

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The drive up consisted of driving on Natchez Trace Parkway, NPS owned. It traces the path that many Native Americans took when moving between the Southern Mississippi valley and Tennessee. It was nice, had a lot of trees coming over the road, very picturesque. Although I once had this question on trivial pursuit...

"What NPS Parkway has sometimes been called the boringest road in America?"

You guessed the answer... Natchez Trace... I guess I would have to disagree... I've been on much more boring... maybe I-80 through Wyoming? Nebraska? Iowa? Any of those would work.

More about Corinth... this town was put under siege after the bloody battle of Shiloh. The town is an important railroad crossing, so whomever had control would have crucial supply sources.

We're collecting the Shiloh battlefield tomorrow, it's about 30 miles NE of here. Then onto Memphis, then home to Denver on Friday. Nice short trip. Good thing, this heat is making me sick I think.

Gulf Islands and home...

Biloxi, MS

Finished up GUIS today; quite a spread out park. Had to drive to the Mississippi section of the park, about 2.5 hours from the Florida section. Here's a map of where the van went today...


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Nice long bridge on the way into Mobile, pretty neat. Flying out of New Orleans tomorrow at 3... never been there and wish I could spend a little more time; but I'm looking forward to getting back. We're gonna bum around New Orleans a bit before the flight, should be interesting.

Ate at a place called "The Shed" tonight.... really good BBQ. And it really is just a shed. Well worth the stop along I-10 though....thanks for the suggestion Mr. D.

Back home tomorrow, so probably no post... maybe I'll throw a post up sometime in the next couple of weeks with pics from New Orleans. Very productive this trip... 5 parks completed and about 17 parks to go until we're done with this collection cycle.

We're planning on heading back to the field on June 22nd. Couple of more Civil War Battlefields... Vicksburg and Shiloh.

Gulf Islands

Navarre, FL

Had to include this pic... I scrambled to get this in time... just made it.

Well I thought it was gonna rain today... but we caught a break. Rained at like 6am, but with all the wind and the little tree cover it dried quickly. Nice change from all the foliage we've been dealing with.

Pretty interesting park here... actually caught another break because they just opened up one of their main roads to traffic again. They had to move the road north on the outer bank that it lies. The water table is so low out there that when it rains just a bit, the base of the road can get infiltrated. So they designed a better foundation and moved the road further from the gulf. I guess they just had the grand re-opening on the road on Tuesday and it was closed for 5 years... not too shabby.

Here's a map of the area that was just re-opened...


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As a result of all the new construction we also had do a little manual GPS collection (usually I just hit a button on the truck and magic... sub-meter GPS). We have other colleagues that prepare the parks for us before we arrive, assuring that all of the information the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) has on file is accurate and up to date. However they couldn't get some of the parking areas since they weren't paved yet. We had to take out our GPS and take the information down.

This isn't your recreational GPS... costs a bit more as we demand a little higher accuracy and better transition into the data format we use. So I have a Trimble Ranger handheld along with a backpack that actually contains the GPS receiver and the antenna attached to the top of the backpack (2 ft above my head).

There's a lot of the beach in GUIS closed off because of the nesting of shorebirds. While I was collecting one of these new parking areas though... one of these shorebirds mistook my antenna for another bird because more than once I had to duck out of the way of their attack dives. There's a punchline here but I just can't think of a good one... anyone?

A buddy 0f mine asked for more pics of the van... I'll see what I can do... it's highly classified stuff in there... right...

Got to walk on the beach a bit too... here's a couple of pics... and one from my typical view.

The screen has important stuff on it... trust me...

Beach walk I took today...