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.