The snows are slowly melting away in the high country.
Hey, this weekend the camper is back on the truck, and we are off to Writing on Stone Provincial Park, right near the Alberta/Montana border.
Hopefully the weather will be good for some photos of this area that I have never visited!


I know this is supposed to be an RV travel blog, but I just could not resist this one! It is related to my last trip as I did purchase this piece of equipment when I was in California. As you can see below, there are some stringent safety precautions that must be followed.
Your job is to figure out what the equipment is that I bought and set up.
Below are the safety instructions that came with it. Read them carefully, and only when you are not tired, or on drugs, or on poor footing!




I had a bit of difficulty coming up with the electrically nonconductive clothing. They do not have that department at Walmart! And I never forced any small products to do the work of a larger one, honest.
Children were never never allowed in the work area for this complex, dangerous operation.
And they were not allowed anywhere near the Solar Light phase, nor the Phasers phase.

I didn't have ANSI impact goggles, so I wore my oldest sun glasses.
But, I kept my products clean for safer performance. If you are guessing a Formula one race car, you are wrong. Space shuttle is also an incorrect guess. I never did any assembly when I was tired - because of the extreme danger. Nuclear reactor, perhaps? Nope, wrong again!


Okay, so I admit to having a beer within 12 hours of the installation, assembly, and testing phases, but I don't think I was under the influence?
I read all the labels on my toothpaste and deodorant to make sure they were not restricted compounds.I'm still trying to contract for a 'qualified technician' to attend to the regular service and maintenance this item requires.

I'll let you know soon what highly technical and dangerous equipment I was able to survive the installation and operation of - so far.

Since I know you like photos, here's one of a sub-adult grizzly bear I was watching today.




Stay tuned!

From the Cedar Mesa, Utah area the road led north into Moab. The weather was a mixed bag, and not as warm as I had become accustomed to further south.

I was attempting to meet up with some friends from home who were headed south with their truck camper. When trying to think of an easy to find area to meet them, I suggested an area I had previously visited along the access road to Canyonlands National Park.
Of course when I got there, I found that it had been changed completely and areas that had previously permitted camping, now did not!

My friends were having some communication issues, so it was not always easy to make contact with them. As a result I spent one night along a roadside where I hoped they would spot my rig as they traveled by. Unfortunately, they had been delayed by a snow storm in the high country of Idaho, and were not yet in the area.

I had also hoped to visit (for the first time!) Howard and Linda where they were hosting in Arches National Park. But the same weather and the requirement to get home convinced me to try to track them down at a later date.I'm not sure if Moab was hosting some sort of Jeep convention or not, but there was literally thousands of jeeps in town - of all shapes and sizes.

I think the roads must have been too good for them as almost half the ones I saw were on trailers - being towed by something else!
This one must have lost his trailer as it was on the road with the rest of us.
We were headed north, so it was not long before Idaho and soon Montana appeared on our horizon.I encountered the remains of the snowstorm that had delayed my friends the previous night.
And of course, the famous Budweiser sign.

Lots of windmills - making it a very windy area. Reminded me of Palm Springs, only colder.



Without fanfare and with no hassle and no lineups, I went through Canada Customs at Coutts, and was soon driving and fueling in kilometers and litres again. And, free of the rip-off rates that AT&T charges for their data, I turned on that function on my iPhone. With that active and Google Maps queued up, I was ready to find my way through Lethbridge without getting off course.
But first there was some big smokes in the distance - being pushed by the strong winds.

It may have just been fields burning off, but with that wind, it's lucky that Manitoba did not burn.
Lethbridge is known for it's wind, but it was so windy when I stopped to refuel that even the locals were talking about it.
In the middle of Lethbridge is this very weird structure ...
I have no idea what it is. Ideas, anyone?

Update: Thanks to reader Duane who advises that the structure is the cities' former water tower, which has been turned into a fine dining room and lounge!
After Lethbridge, it was like being on home turf again as we cruised into Calgary from the south, and immediately exited to the west towards the mountains. After a brief stop in Canmore to compare notes with my friend who had joined me for a week in California, it was on home to see the damage from the flooded basement!
And, as quietly as it had started, RoadTrip '09 (Part I?) came to an end.

We don't get very far on this post. That's because the scenery just required too many photos to get through it. If you recall, we were driving up this cliff face on highway (?)261, north west of Mexican Hat.
You can see that the road is a bit of a challenge, so I was a bit surprised in the morning to see this albeit small semi-trailer going up these switchbacks!A couple of corners above where I was camped, the tracks indicated that at least one outside dual had been rather hanging over the edge of the cliff! Yikes.

Here's another shot of the drop off.
Up, and up goes the road.


The view looking back off the mesa, to the road we had approached on the previous night.
Near the top, there was a wide spot and a viewpoint, so I stopped and put on the coffee and had some breakfast.
It was pretty much vertical looking over the fence.
After driving further, it was evident that some vehicles had not made the corner at some time in the past; intentionally or otherwise?
Zoom in on this one and you should see at least two car carcasses.
When the top of the mesa is finally reached, the road resumes it's normal look and even pavement again. But a side road to Muley Point beckoned me, and it was a worthwhile sidetrip out to the very end of the mesa. There is another goat trail like 4x4 road visible on the ledge way below the rim.
Some of the rocks at top had sheared off in completely flat chunks.

There was easy access and free camping areas all around. This is all part of the Cedar Mesa area administered by the BLM. There are innumerable options for hiking, driving, and camping both road accessible and back country.
There are also ruins and rock art left by prehistoric peoples in the area.
The photo below shows another section of the 4x4 road on the ledge below. This is not the road I had followed on the approach.
You can drive almost anywhere on the bare rock.
Or just sit and enjoy the view - and the flying demonstrations by ravens and hawks making use of the updrafts along the cliffs.
It would have been a great spot to enjoy the sunset, but unfortunately it was morning, and I had to make a few miles yet.
No one fell off a cliff during the making of this photo.
Onward toward Moab!

From Page, Ut we had to decide whether to head generally west towards Kanab, and the Grand Staircase Escalante area, or to the east and towards Moab, Utah.It was decided to head north-east, but first we had to head to the south east on Highway 98 from Page to it's intersection with 160. Then it was north from Kayenta through the Monument Valley which offers some pretty spectacular scenery, featured in many movies, book and CD covers, and even video games.
My camera was going full time, just driving through.
Every change of light and angle brings a new perspective, and begs yet another photo.

From wikipedia:

Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast and iconic sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor. It is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona (around 36°59′N 110°6′W / 36.983°N 110.1°W / 36.983; -110.1), near the Four Corners area. The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation, and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163. The Navajo name for the valley is Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii (Valley of the Rocks).

Eventually, well into southern Utah, was the small town of Mexican Hat

which was named because to the appearance of this rock formation, which appears like an inverted Mexican sombrero.By this time, it was getting late and a campsite location was required. From Mexican Hat, we turned off onto the smaller, quieter highway #261 towards Goosenecks State Park. We did not check out the park, but obviously missed some spectacular scenery there. Instead we continued on towards the Cedar Mesa area. There were grave warnings about the road ahead, and the types of vehicles that were not recommended.

The road appeared to head directly toward an inpenetrable mesa, with no way up!
But, amazingly, the road wound it's way up the sheer cliff, with switchback after switchback.
The view back to the south east and Goosenecks and Mexican Hat.
Not being sure what was ahead, and it being rather late, camp was made on a suitable switcback with a flat spot to park off the roadway.
The view was impressive.
I clambered around the nearby rocks to take more photos, as darkness fell.

The next day promised even better scenery if that was possible.