2017/06/20 - Tuesday - Vacation - Day 06 - Arch in the distance.

It was hard leaving friends in the morning, but finally we left a little after 9:30.

On the way to the freeway, we got stopped by a train, so I took that time to double check the straps on the van, yep they needed tightening. 

The toll road cost a little less then $10.

We stopped for fuel and lunch at Flying J's in Joplin.  I could not see any signs of the tornado from several years ago.

Next stop again was another Flying J's for more fuel of course.

St Louis is not fun to drive through in a big vehicle.  Several of the ramps backed way up onto the freeway causing some major slowdowns.  And that down town exit to cross the river is really bad!  But of course you can see the Arch while we were waiting for traffic to move.

 We stopped about an hour east of St Louis for the night.

Amanda started working on dinner and Mom M, Turquoise and I walked around the pond.

We watched two movies tonight. 

Amanda noticed that a rain cell was going to move over so we put the Thunder Shirt on Turquoise and that did seem to work.  He was a little nervous but not totally freaked out.

2013/07/10 – Wednesday – Vacation - Day 20 - Grand Staircase, Tire

Today was a lazy start, we did not get moving until a little after 10.

My plan for the day was to explore part of The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. 

We stopped to get gas in the van and then headed to the first visitor center, Cannonville.  We got some information and Amanda got her JR Ranger booklet to fill out, then headed on out.  We finally made it to an arch, down a long dusty road.  We took several shots of the arch and then headed back.

Next stop was at Kodachrome Basin State Park and toured around that area for a short time.

Now it was time for a late lunch, so we stopped at place that had food, but not a restaurant in Cannonville.

We then headed further East along 12 to the next town.  We briefly stopped at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park but we did not do any of the walks because it was over 98 degrees.  We proceeded to Escalante where we found another visitor center and that is where Amanda was able to turn in her JR Ranger program for the Monument.

We headed further East again towards Boulder (no not Boulder CO but Boulder UT).  The views were great. 

On our way back I took a different route.  I turned off the main road and headed over a Forest Service road.  The lady at the Escalante visitor center said it was a good road.  The road was in good shape for a FS road.  Almost near the top of the pass a deer jumped out in front of us and I barely missed her!!!  As we went over the pass I noticed the low tire light was on so I stopped and checked the tires, sure enough the passenger rear tire had a leak in it.  I back the van back to the top and found a relatively flat spot so I could change the tire.

Once back into Bryce City, I stopped at the auto repair place and had to buy two new tires.  The leak was in a non-repairable location and the tire did not have enough meat on them anyways, so replacement was the only option.  I needed to replace all four, but I was planning on doing that once we were done with vacation, so I will get the other two replaced once back home.

Everybody else walked to the RV while I waited for the new tires.  Once done, I picked them back up and headed out for dinner.

Back at the RV, we loaded the van onto the tow-dolly and got ready for tomorrows drive to our next two night stay.