Days 10, 11 - Wendell, ID

Saturday - My day started out a bit earlier than I thought. The early morning test session didn't have enough VEs. So I jumped onto Zoom at about 6:20 AM. Kind of early. It got down into the upper 40s (°F) last night. So the furnace ended up getting used in the early morning. Nice to know that the furnace still works…

After the test sessions, we went into Twin Falls to do some shopping. We had lunch at Black Bear Diner, the first one we’ve seen in a while, then onto Fred Meyer for some groceries. Another place we haven’t seen in a while. 

When we got back to the RV, the temperature was back up to 80°F. Quite the jump from this mornings 48°F. 

Sunday - Our first stop today was Minidoka Relocation Center, one of the internment camps for those of Japanese ancestry. This is a replica of the guard tower at the entrance to the camp. 

It housed up to 8,000 people in rapidly constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers. 

They had one of the barracks brought back on to the site as well as a dining hall/kitchen. Each barracks would house six families of up to six individuals. 

The brother/sister team did a great job on the tour as their grandparent and parents were incarcerated here. They shared personal stories of what life was like. 

A very well done National Monument. 

We then headed for Shoshone Falls, a state park east of Twin Falls. It was pretty crowded and the line to pay the $5 entry fee took about twenty minutes. It was low water so the falls were smaller than they could be. It has been referred to as the western Niagara Falls. I think they are taller but the volume of water is but a fraction. 

After lunch, we headed back to the RV. Tomorrow is another travel day to a Harvest Host on the Idaho-Oregon border. 

Days 8, 9 - Helper, UT, and Wendell, ID

Thursday - A modest drive day to Helper, UT, which is just a bit north of Price. In the past, I spent a lot of time in Price over several years as it was one of our field sites. The temperature claims to be mid-70s but it feels warmer since there isn’t a cloud to be seen. 

After a couple days of dry camping in 90°+ temperatures, it’s nice to have shore power again. Yes, the A/C will run on battery power but only for a limited time. We did run the generator to recharge the batteries while we ran the A/C during the hottest part of the day. This morning, the batteries were at 28%. By the time we arrived, they had only charged to 35%. That’s with the absorption refrigerator and the portable chest freezer running on AC power. The DC-DC charger plus solar are only able to barely keep up. Which is fine.

Friday - We are on the road again heading through SLC into southern Idaho. Traffic was hectic from Provo to Ogden but it was pretty chill after that. The picture is north of Ogden. We filled up at a Maverick and we had difficulty maneuvering in the confined gas station due to the horrible turning radius of the E-450 chassis. We had to disconnect the Jeep to get out of the station. 

We made it to Wendell, ID, around 4:30pm. The RV park is actually attached to an RV dealership and repair shop. We are here through the weekend. The roads were very rough today.

Day 7 - Monument Valley

Wednesday - Since it’s Wednesday, I started the day by sending a Winlink Wednesday email using HF radio as the transport. Much better performance here than back in Hondo. After breakfast, we headed for Monument Valley. On the way was Forest Gump Point. The location from the movie. Quite a few people were stopped to take their selfies. We stopped but no selfie.

We then continued on to Monument Valley. The entrance fee for the scenic drive was $45 ($15 for the car plus $10 for each person). Kind of pricey. The view from the visitors center was pretty phenomenal.

There were numerous turnouts for the named formations. It was a pretty rough road and there was a stop from a Corolla buried to the frame. The sign did say no cars allowed but, obviously, it was not enforced. An overlander type pulled them out of the sand backwards to a viewpoint. They had the road blocked for about 30 minutes. 

After stopping a couple more times, we had lunch in Mexican Hat. I had a Navajo Taco. Not the best one but tasty enough. 

We then headed to Gooseneck State Park. There were several of these formations and the river was a bit over 1000’ below the viewpoint. 

Days 5 & 6 - Bluff, UT

Monday - We stayed an extra day in Farmington as we didn’t get some planned tasks done yesterday since we rode the train. After some Internet research, I discovered that the Onan 4000 generator has a manual altitude knob. It was set for sea level. I adjusted it for 5000’ and it started right up. I ran it under load for 15’ without any issue. 

Tomorrow, we head out for several days of dry camping and we really needed a functional generator. 

Tuesday - A short travel day to Sand Island Recreation Area near Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley, two things on Bridget’s bucket list. We are in a BLM campground, so no hookups of any kind. I filled up the water tank and dumped the tanks at the RV park before we left. 

We are only here for two nights so we should be good. It is warm with forecasted highs in the low 90s. I switched the refrigerator to propane and we are running the A/C right now. The Victron battery monitor says that we have ~5 hours of battery. I suspect that we’ll start up the generator around 3:30-4:00 and it’ll need to run for several hours to recharge the batteries. The solar is producing around 25amps so around half of the claimed capacity. 

Later - After setting up, we headed to Natural Bridges National Monument. The famous road, Moki Dugway, was on the route. It is a gravel road that switchbacks its way up a cliff. 

Natural Bridges was about another 30 miles north and has a few that could be seen with only a short walk. It was considerably cooler here than at the recreation area where we are camped. 

When we arrived back at the RV, it was 95°F so the generator was started to both recharge the batteries and run the microwave. The generator started easily, and the batteries were down to 68% after running the A/C for over 2 hours. We’ll see how long it takes to charge them back up.