Tripometer – 10,787 mi
Gas Gauge – 836.564 gal
Location –Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ
Lodging – $30
Cans of OFF – 4
We all heard the rain start during the night/sometime in the very early morning. It was hard enough that we all, at one point in the night, mentally evaluated our distance from the little river we were camped near. Our fears were easily quelled by looking out the window to still see the lights of the trailer that was CLOSER to the river. We woke early this morning with the intent of getting a good start on Bryce Canyon. Coffee was had underneath the awning out of the rain in a 2 inch puddle of mud that seemed to have no intention of draining anytime soon. David and Stratis both made an attempt at an impromptu drainage system, but just ended up getting muddier in the process. After seeing that the same weather system we were in was sitting on top of Bryce Canyon producing a rain / snow slush at roughly 32 degrees, we decided to reevaluate our situation over a hot breakfast in town.
The weather cleared as we drove into Kanab. It was still largely overcast but this glimpse of clear weather and the 5 degree temperature increase we experienced driving down in elevation instantly brought spirits up. There was only one well rated café in town that was serving a lite breakfast. The quiche Florentine and Bavarian mocha lattes were the stars of the show. We ate breakfast outside the café underneath a gas space heater and were happy to do it. Across the street from the café was an old Hollywood set. Some quick Googling told us that Kanab and nearby Johnson Canyon were the primary filming locations for the television series Gunsmoke.
After getting a taste of warm and dry we all decided to bail on Bryce Canyon and proceed immediately to Lake Powell where the sun is shining and the temperatures are in the mid 70s. There was only one piece of business remaining, we have to go pack up camp and drag it out of the mid pit. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we got back to camp but By the time we got the trailers packed up and hitched up, Paul and Stratis were caked in pasty mud to their knees and elbows.
Towing the trailer out of the mid pit was not a straightforward task. The first attempt was a slow careful pull towards the road while avoiding the largest puddles. The rig made it about 10 feet before we realized this was likely not going to work in its current form. We managed to move the truck onto a grassy patch to get some traction but sunk one of the 4 Runner tires into a prairie dog hole in the process. We disconnected the trailer from the truck, got the truck out of the prairie dog hole, and reattached the truck pointing straight at the hard packed road surface at the edge of the campsite. We all knew we had to get this rig out this time or we were stuck here for the day at a minimum. Stratis had the good sense to film the escape from the mud pit. When watching, be sure to not miss the trailer fishtail a little bit right before it finally gets up onto the road. We all felt a sense of victory when Kelly finally got the rig on hard ground!
The trip to Lake Powell was entirely uneventful, thankfully. We didn’t pick Lake Powell as a particularly attractive destination, but when we arrived we were blown away by our campsite. Situated on a hill overlooking Lake Powell, we had a commanding view of the hills, mesas and caves on the far shore. One of the top things to do in Lake Powell is to rent a huge houseboat for the week and take the whole family to a remote section of the lake to swim and play on the lake in relative seclusion. These houseboats dotted the lake and far shoreline and could be heard occasionally blowing their horns at one another throughout the day. After we got camp set up Kelly, Dave and Stratis took Ranger swimming for the first time since Oregon. Boy was that overdue!
Not feeling like cooking tonight after moving, we went into Page, AZ for dinner at a local BBQ joint. There was a live country band and tourists everywhere so the wait for dinner was quite long. While we waited for dinner we enjoyed the antics of a surprisingly large concentration of German tourists as they posed for pictures with the American flag, the cowboy statue, the BBQ grills, the band, the peanut buckets, the beer cooler, etc… As we ate our meal of ribs and pulled pork the two German tourists seated next to us made very little effort to resist the urge to stare at us out of the corner of their eyes during the entire meal. We think they were especially fascinated by us eating the BBQ ribs with our hands, but either way we were definitely part of the tourist attraction for them.