Utah – Stark Adventures

April 25,26,27, 2023: North to the cold and snow!

April 27, 2023karenstark

Tuesday we were up and getting ready to go around 8:00. It was cold and windy outside!!🥶. BRRRR as we were hitchin up the gettyup to go. We weren’t happy that there was wind, but we need to go, and thankfully it wasn’t gale force. Our route was to go up through Salt Lake City to a campground north of Ogden. There’s mountains with snow in between here and there. Salt Lake City is in an extraordinarily beautiful setting at the very foot of some very tall (over 11,000’) mountains. Thankfully the pass doesn’t go that high, but it might get interesting.

April 23&24, 2023: Pickles, mashed potatoes, a tunnel, and dinos

April 24, 2023April 25, 2023karenstark

Sunday was really chilly in the morning, so we didn’t hit the trail until about 11:00. At least the wind wasn’t blowing, and the sun was out, so it was MUCH better than yesterday.

April 22, 2023: Day one of riding near Moab

April 22, 2023April 24, 2023karenstark

Saturday was cloudy, cool, and a bit windy. We didn’t realize how cool it was until we were out riding, and it was pretty darn cold! Even all bundled up like this, Kenny had gloves on, and we were still chilly.

April 20 & 21,2023: A different ride, then on to Moab

April 21, 2023May 6, 2023karenstark

Thursday we really lollygagged around in the morning. Kenny was making phone calls about one of the lithium batteries that still doesn’t want to work correctly. It sometimes decides that it doesn’t want to charge, or sometimes it doesn’t want to feed power to anything and just sits there at 100% and does not share. And most of the time it doesn’t want to report for duty on the blue tooth. The other original battery and the new one are working fine, but this one is still being a brat. Renogy has him doing all kinds of “tests” and sending in pictures before they’ll agree to replace it. Thankfully, we’ve had clear sunny days and the solar panels have kept the two batteries charged, so we aren’t missing the juice of the third one. We only run the generator if we want to use the microwave oven or the instant pot. I do like this solar system!

April 18 & 19, 2023: Braaping at Sand Hollow

April 19, 2023karenstark

Tuesday morning’s wind was calmer than we expected, and cool, so we took our time getting ready to ride. I fixed us eggs, bacon and taters for brunch, so I didn’t need to pack a lunch for our ride. 😉 A real cooked breakfast around this camp is unusual. It’s usually 5 minutes of generator time to nuke a Jimmy Dean breakfast samich for the Captain and some oatmeal for me. We don’t do Fancy Nancy breakfast. However, if someone offered me a mimosa, I wouldn’t turn it down. 😉🥂
The route that I selected for today started out just like every other ride lately….an up-hill rocky trail. Hey, at least my choices aren’t boring gravel roads!

April 17, 2023: Blowing Into Utah

April 17, 2023April 19, 2023karenstark

Monday we got up and were on the road by 8:00. We’re a lot faster loading Kawi and peeling out since we removed the all-season glass doors and patio railing from the back of Nitro! Especially when we can load him where he sits! The sun was up at 6:00, and I intentionally left the blinds open in our bedroom, so I was awake early. I got up and had everything ready to go, so Kenny only had a few things to do, we loaded Kawi, and away we went. Right off the bat, Hwy 17 went up a couple thousand feet in elevation, and it looked more like winter.

10/9 & 10/10/22: More magnificent Moab

October 10, 2022October 12, 2022karenstark

Sunday, our fun neighbors packed up and left for home. They didn’t play loud music last night, but they did run their generator all night again. It didn’t bother us. I mentioned to Gary that it was awfully quiet last night, and he said they’re old and only have one good night in them, then have to recover. 😊 I get it!
This is what the area looks like where the campground is. The campground is almost in the center of the picture – just to the right of the tree that is left of center. Yep – we’re just out in the desert.

10/7 & 10/8: Moab does not disappoint

October 8, 2022October 11, 2022karenstark

Friday morning we packed up and left our awesome spot in the Dixie National Forest. I sure hope we can get the kids to come here someday! Our first stop was to go over to Ruby’s to water-up and poop-out. $20! Geeze. It would be free if you stayed in their RV park, but Kenny said that even their dry camping spots were over $40/night. I guess that’s paying for the benefit of having everything close by? We got those chores done, then we were on our way east to Moab. Our route first took us west to Panguitch, then north to meet I-70, then east to the Moab cut-off. The good thing about the route I chose was that we didn’t have to go back up a big steep climb to I-15. We just followed a river north to I-70, and Henry really liked that.

10/6/22 – more Dixie Natl Forest and red cliffs

October 6, 2022October 8, 2022karenstark

Thursday we had a leisurely morning, waiting for it to warm up a bit. We didn’t want to be out toooo late this afternoon, since we wanted time to take Kawi over to Ruby’s for a washydowny to get the mud off before loading him back into Nitro. It was another beautiful day! We had a quick breakfast, I packed some snacks, and away we went!

Here is a map of the places we’ve been here at Dixie/Bryce. The red and brown tracks are from the spring. Those were the only roads open then due to snow. The pink trail is what we did yesterday, which was 70 miles, and the yellow is what we did today, 61 miles. There is still more to explore for next time! The little photo dots n the pink and yellow are some of the places that we saw red cliffs.

10/4 – 10/5/2022: Moving on to Bryce Canyon area

October 5, 2022October 8, 2022karenstark

Tuesday morning we loaded up everything except for Kawi to move on to our next destination. Kenny’s route out of the sand worked great, and I followed Henry & Nitro in Kawi. Once we were out onto the more solid entrance road, we loaded Kawi and away we went. We stopped in Cedar City to top off Henry’s fuel tank. Boy, these uppydownys are sure hard on his fuel economy!! Here was our route today – just 140 miles to Bryce. Uphill most of the way. Our new camping spot is up about 5000’ from Sand Hollow at 7700’ elevation. 😳 I hope we can breathe with out tiny sea-level lungs!