We pulled up stakes in Grand Junction this morning and continued our aimless quest northward. We started by going a bit west on I-70 to a place named Loma where we turned north on UT-139. On the map, 139 appears to be a nice, straight road but hidden under the map’s thick red line lies a myriad of crude switchbacks, pavement omissions and very steep grades for a pickup pulling a 12,000 pound trailer. Charlotte the Truck performed admirably despite the rotten highway conditions. As soon as we made it to the top of Douglas Pass (el. 8268′), the road immediately started a 10% decline so we switched from running the motor hard to downshifting and braking. It is a pretty nasty road.
Eventually the road flattened out at about 6000 foot elevation and ran a bit straighter to a dinky town called Rangely. There we turned west on UT-64 to Dinosaur, CO. At Dinosaur we picked up US-40 to Vernal where we happily pulled into the Fossil Valley RV Park. It is situated in a grove of big hardwood trees that offer ample shade. We got a spot with full hookups, cable TV, and wi-fi. There are nice patches of grass between the sites. The guy operating the place seems to really hustle to make sure everyone is happy.
As a matter of fact, he made me happy by providing us with the name and phone number of a guy named Cameron Boren who does mobile RV service in the Vernal area. We have already replaced our power cord and converter which crapped out in Monument Valley. We replaced the house battery in Grand Junction but the house 12 volt system and battery charging function were still gunnybag. Cameron initially had his phone’s voice mail system answer, perfectly reasonable on a Saturday afternoon. However, he soon answered our call, indicating he was about 10 minutes away and could pop right over.
As it turns out, the guy who replaced our converter in Dolores a week ago made an error when hooking it up to our trailer’s 12 volt system. Cameron poked around a bit, ran some continuity and voltage tests and soon found the fuggup. He fixed the problem, ran tests on the 110 and 12 volt systems to prove they were functioning properly and charged us for an hour although I think it took a bit longer and he was probably just being nice. I think all systems are now nominal except the microwave oven which apparently breathed it’s last gasp during the Great Monument Valley Electrical Catastrophe back on June 5. We will replace it when we get to an area where there is more than one RV supply house in the interest of competition. It might be a while considering we are going to Wyoming, then Montana.
You can see some pix we took on the road by clicking here