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Rare sight for sure. Larry's rig on the hook.
Here's why he's on the hook. Good thing he added a pinon gaurd last winter!
Ty follows and walks over it. His skill behind the wheel of that massive Dodge had Ian and me questioning if it was an automatic trans or not. He like Bill is surgical with that truck. Very cool to watch.
Don was the wildcard here. No lift at all, one size larger tires. 3 large ledges. Have to admit it was kind of a gut punch to watch that Power Wagon work. Showroom stock and he crawled right over it. He did drag his belly and one of the lower rear control arms over one ledge but it’s got a lot of protection so the scraping was superficial. A little lift and this rig is perfect.
It was at the top of the 3rd ledge the ladies of the group found a stray calf. He was laying down, crying for it’s momma which we had no sight of. The girls fed him some water and I made cruel jokes about cooking veal for dinner that night. Sometimes my humor is under-appreciated. Poor taste yes, but I thought it was funny.
From here Ian and I were left in the lead dog position. Oh yeah, we still haven’t the foggiest clue what trail we are on. We know it’s not the right way for Sinbad, but at this point, we were on for the adventure. We all got enough food, water, and beer for 5 days we’ll eventually run into a landmark we can find our way out. Ian and I are still in awe of our surroundings at this point. 360-degree views. Not a bad direction to look in. No sign of man at all. Could have been 1817 or 2017 if it wasn’t for our rides. Another oddity, no traffic on the trail. We didn’t see a soul on the trail this day. Might be the trail we are on if we knew what it was!
The scenery
We plod on reaching a few more technical spots connected by two track. We pulled a ways ahead of the group when we lost radio contact due to Don cutting a tire on a rock and the group knocked out the tire change without much lost time.
Ian and I guessed something was up and took a break to wait for the group. Ty ended up catching up to let us know what was going on. The sun was starting to reach for the western horizon so the call was made to search for a campsite.
Not too soon down the trail we come across a wide flat area that was the best we had seen. It fit the need for Bill to be able to get around with his wheelchair. The camper crew liked it as it was relatively level and those of us in the tents had to use every thing we had to weigh down our tents to keep the wind from blowing them back to Moab.
Room with a view for sure!
As the first official night on the trail, dinner is Bill’s doing. His camp stove fried chicken is something of legend.
While Bill and Jenn got the frying pans on high, the rest of us rats mow down on chips and salsa brought by Don and Larry. Beers are toasted and we review the day’s fun. Bill’s chicken is to die for. No if ands or buts about it. Perfect cap to the day for sure.
Funny thing about our location at this point. While we couldn’t see a sign of man in any direction we were barely 6-8 miles north of I-70 at this point. But we still had cell coverage. I get a text from my buddy John back home who has been tracking us via Spot all day. I ask him if he can gauge what trail we are on from the Spot location. He can see we were near the devil’s monument, but couldn’t ID the trail we were on. Every body turns in with the wind making it chilly. I stay up a little bit and play around trying some long exposure night shots. I turn in and enjoy my Flintstone accommodations.
My first time with long exposures. Pretty cool effect.
To be continued....