August 12, DAY 93
We are in Moab, Utah and visited Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyon Land NP today. We visited Arches National Park yesterday. It was 101 in the NP yesterday but by the time we got back to our campground it was only 96. We are parked on the edge of Arches NP so we can see some of the arches from the front window of the motorhome. Today the heat wasn’t so bad because we were 2000 feet higher so it only got into the 90s. The NPs and the State Park were quite something to see and near the end of our trip yesterday my camera battery died again. I had just changed batteries so I think I have one bad battery since it had been recently charged. Did get the last picture with the cell phone, however, it would have been nice to zoom in more since it was a bit in the distance. If you haven’t seen these parks they are highly recommended and the views were spectacular.
It has been a few days since the last update and what you missed was our visit to the redwoods, Avenue of the Giants and Virginia City. The redwoods can’t be captured in simple words or pictures but I did take quite a few. We stayed in a campground one mile north of Redcrest, CA which is on the avenue and we had trees in the campground. It was a very nice Good Sam Park, Ancient Redwood RV Park. This is only the third year for this new park and it is set up for big rigs. They have a wonderful gift shop and the gift shop has been open for 27 years. If you haven’t seen the big trees you need to put it on your list.
We then moved to Carson City NV. and originally planed to stay a couple days to visit Virginia City. Well, that plan changed. We had noticed a scrapping noise with the brakes and thought maybe some loose gravel from Alaska had shook loose by the really rough road surface on RT 80 and the way to Reno. Concerned about many more mountains to deal with we decided to have the rig checked and just happened to be a Workhorse service facility in town. They were very nice to work us in to check the breaks and then decide what to do? The short story is that we rolled out 2 days later with a complete brake job and a big dent in the budget and one night stay in a motel while our camping spot remained empty. Seems the break recall got me based upon their inspection.
Virginia City was really neat but a bit of a tourist trap. We drove the road with the 15% grade to get there and all kind of signs to say no trucks or RVs should take this road. We came back on the alt route which was a lot better just a little longer. They do have a campground up there but we decided to stay in Carson City to do some shopping. With the extra time we were able to visit Lake Tahoe
To get to Moab we drove RT 50 in Nevada to Ely and then here. They refer to it as the “Loneliest Highway” and we got gas at the loneliest Chevron station at the NV Utah border. They really named that highway well. The road condition was excellent because no trucks use it. But apparently not many others either. It was easy driving only made difficult by the several high passes that had to be crossed. It was worth the experience but make sure you have a vehicle in good condition and a full tank of fuel since there are only a couple gas stations for 390 miles. I think the section in Utah out did the section in Nevada as being lonely with us being the only thing moving and nothing in sight other than desert and mountains. Tomorrow we move to Monument Valley NP for a couple days.
