2011/07/16 – Saturday – Adopt-A-Trail and Holcomb Creek Trail

Amanda and I got up early and we headed out for the mountains.  I planned for a two hour drive.

Before getting on the way, we stopped at the store to get lunch and snacks.

On the way up, I was starting to notice that we were very low on gas and when I took hard left hand turns the Jeep would hesitate (starving for gas)

We made it to the top of the mountain and of course filled the Jeep up with the necessary go go juice.  We made it in 1 ½ hours – so not bad.  I was the first person to be at the meeting location.

In the next hour we had 22 more vehicles (22 Jeeps and one Toyota).  We had the Dirt Devils group and a Big Bear club to join us.

We left a little after 9:00 once the driver meeting was complete.

We headed towards the west end of Deep Creek Trail via Kuffel Canyon Rd, Lake Arrowhead, and Hook Creek Rd

Before heading down to the bridge over Deep Creek some sheriffs where doing some training at the parking area, also the rocks necessary for a gate keeper is staged ready to be moved into place.

We proceed to the bridge to stage and prepared the vehicles for the trail (so we all aired down our tires.)  We also talked with a Ranger that was doing some trash cleanup.

We made it to the waterfall section of the trail and we had traffic.  Five vehicles took about an hour to make it through this section. 

We started and I was the first one to try the waterfall – I tried four times without making up it.  But Quinn was able to make it up (going further to the right), so I showed him which line not to take.  Several others was able to climb it.  All of us made it through the section in about an hour.

We pulled into Crab Flats for a late lunch, we parked on the main road (not in the campground – it was close to being full)

Amanda drove to the next trail which is Holcomb Creek Trail, but some of the group had enough for the day so they did join us for the next trail.

I was no longer the second or the third in line so now I am in the middle.  I helped a few people and extracted one person from the start of the trail (he did not have the front locker working correctly)

While traveling the trail, it has changed.  The fire took a lot of my landmarks away and opened up the views.

You can see the sections they had to work on to restore the trail.  And all the trees they had to cut down.

The east end (upstream) end of the trail no longer has a good gate keeper. There is no real obstacle at the creek crossing.  The last time I did it the hill would help to insure only the equipped vehicles would be able to start the trail.  There is a rock garden gate keeper further into the trail, but nothing like the west end (downstream) of the trail.

Once we finished the trail, Amanda drove to Fawnskin.  We aired up our tires and headed home.

We got home with the sun still in the sky.

I must be getting older, because I even went to bed early for me at 9:00 – I was falling to sleep on the couch, so Cheryl told be to go to bed.

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I was very glad that I was able to enjoy both trails in one day!!!

2011/07/12 – Tuesday – Another Day

Just another day.

We let Amanda drive to Barn’s and Nobel – so did ok (nothing was harmed :) )

We stopped at In-and-Out for dinner.

2011/07/11 – Monday – Back to the Grind

Group was tonight.  Smaller group then normal but we are ok – several are on vacation.

2011/07/10 – Sunday – Yes We Are Back

Relaxed and did some remaining cleanup of the RV.

Started to work on trying to get my NAS backed up so I can fix the issue we are having with it.  Based on the time predicted it will take at least a week to do all the backup that I need.

2011/07/09 – Saturday – Getting Home

I was nervous about the heat, so we left early – 7:30


We had very heavy traffic (accident in the fast lane which caused us) on the freeway and we are not even out of town – that took about 20 minutes to get through.

The climbs up and over were not to bad,

We stopped in Barstow for the go go juice.

The drive out of the Mojave River to the top of the pass did get the RV transmission temp up high (220)

We pulled up to the house around 2

We unloaded everything and we got settled into the house without any issues.

2011/07/08 – Friday – Short Drive

We hit the road right on time at 9.


The Flying J’s in North Los Vegas is no longer there, so no gas for today, Instead the next stop was to camp at Sam’s Town RV park for the night.

Since we stopped early, now it’s time for lunch – Subway.

We went ahead and did a movie – Mr. Poppers Penguin. It was better than I expected.

Cheryl did some gambling while the rest of us went back to the RV to relax.

Dinner was at TGI

Another movie (two in one day – nice relaxing day). Zoo Keeper. It was ok.

2011/07/07 – Thursday – Up and Over

We left at our normal time. I was taking a route over to I15.  In one of the valleys we noticed the flood waters with the creek water spreading out across the fields.  We hit one pass where I was down to 25 mph going up and finally cresting at a little over 9,000 feet.  I also made sure not to go to fast down the other side.  We finally made it to I15 but our first stop according to the map software was wrong, there was no Flying J at that location.

We finally found another Flying J and got the necessary go go juices.

We stopped in Cedar City for the night

We unloaded the van and headed to the Zion National Park to the Kolob Canyon entrance.

Stopped at the visitor center and Amanda got the Jr Ranger booklet.  We headed on up the canyon, but Amanda will not be able to complete it, because we are not able to get the necessary requirements fulfilled.

At the top we took the ½ mile walk out to a point to have an awesome view.  On the way back we stopped at one of the trails that goes down to a creek.  Amanda and I went down to take some pictures and walked the creek.

Back in town we stopped for dinner and now back at the RV to relax.

2011/07/06 – Wednesday – Dinosaurs

We slept in today.

We headed for the Dinosaurs National Monument.  We stopped at the temporary visitor center and Amanda got her Jr Ranger Booklet as well as the Jr Paleontologist Booklet.  The new visitor center will not be ready until later this year – bummers.

We stopped at some of the pull outs and we drove all the way to the end of the road.

We headed for the other entrance, which is in Colorado.  We stopped at that visitor center and watch the video.  We drove to the end of the road and made the decision to not take the dirt road down to the river (about 26 miles round trip on dirt road.  The weather was not looking good and did not want to get caught on a dirt road in the mud if it rained.)

We made it back to the temporary visitor center so Amanda could get her badges for both booklets – that makes it the 42^nd Jr Ranger completed.

We went on a hunt for a place to eat and our final location was at Golden Corral.

2011/07/05 – Tuesday – Up and Over

We left on time and we started the required climb to cross the continental divide.  With the climbing I had to keep monitoring the tire temps so on several climbs I would keep my speed down.

We turn south from I80 and headed south, I did not know how high we would climb, I know we climb over the 8,000 feet about three different times. 

I did not know we get to cross the Flaming Gorge Dam and we stopped at the visitor center.

We stopped at the KOA for two nights so we could do the Dinosaurs National Monument tomorrow.