Grand Canyon National Park - North Rim

October 5, 2009
This morning we took the truck to a shop to get the axle oil leak fixed and to have a new DMI rod put on the tire. It was productive and a good feeling to know those things were fixed. It only took about one hour.

We then drove south to the North Rim only to find out the last road we needed to collect was still closed. It is difficult to pass time in the North Rim because there are not many trail. We ended up sitting in the lodge doing some work on our laptops and then eating lunch in the lodge, which turned out to be pretty good food. We then drove up to Cape Royal road at 1:00pm and the gate was finally OPEN!!!! We collected the route, took a short hike to an overlook and we finished around 3:00pm. We then had to drive to the South Rim which is only about 23 miles as the crow flies but since there are no direct roads through the canyon the drive took about 4 hours.

The area driving up to the North Rim looks a lot like Yellowstone, not something I really expected. Today we saw Bison in the field when we were leaving the park.

Also, the truck is officially dirty. These days clean is only a relative term but we've had such long days (another 80 hour week last week) and a lot to fix on the truck to keep it running that washing the truck just doesn't take priority. It is hard to be proud of the truck when other people ask what it is, not only because it is dirty but because it often isn't working. I attached a photo of the outside of the truck. The axle oil is all over the back tire and on the chassis behind the tire, there is gas that flowed down the side (for some crazy reason), there is dirt, dust and bug guts everywhere. What a sweet truck.

Grand Canyon National Park - North Rim

October 4, 2009

Today we drove from Washington, UT (ZION) to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and then back up North a bit to stay in Kanab, UT.

The wind at the North Rim was howling today. They had gusts up to 70mph. They closed Cape Royal Road due to trees down on the road. A park ranger said by noon they had already cleared about 25 trees from the road. We should hopefully have access tomorrow. Since the road was closed our collection day ended around 2:00 so we took a short hike to an overlook (photo is posted). It was rough because of the wind.

One of the attached photos shows a bird that decided to hop on the truck while we were collecting routes in a campground. We were looking at some pavement video and were just about to do another run and this bird comes flying up at us. I have no idea what it was thinking...maybe it was trying to say "get out of my space".

Zion National Park

October 3, 3009
Today we finished collecting in ZION! It was a pretty good day. We only had one collection error that made us restart the route. The truck still has issues....Today some guy at a rock shop told us we were leaking axle oil on the rear tire. I said "what else is new". There really is a leak and it is pretty obvious but I just like to pretend that I didn't see it and live in ignorant bliss. Just another thing to get fixed. To bad we can't tape up that problem.

I took a couple of more photos from the truck. We didn't really have any time to get out and enjoy the park. There was a traffic jam near the 1.1 mile long tunnel because some camper dumped transmission fluid inside the tunnel. It created a pretty big back up. Other campers were not allowed in the tunnel at all because they couldn't pass the stalled camper. I'm surprised that it wasn't our truck that dumped transmission fluid...that is our kind of luck.

We saw this advertisement on the back of a park shuttle bus (above photo). It looks like our hands when we are done changing controller boards and timer chips.

Zion National Park

October 2, 2009

This morning we left Bryce Canyon and headed for Zion. The drive there was pretty uneventful (which is always good). We collected 2 routes in Zion when I noticed the van was getting hot inside and a computer started beeping. I jumped in the back near the computers and it was really, really warm back there. I looked at the AC controls and sure enough they were on AC but nothing was coming out of the vents. I never would have predicted that would happen today...our rear AC was broken. We had to take a detour to a Ford shop to figure out what the problem was. The mechanic determined that the "door" inside the AC unit was broken. After some discussion we decided that since they didn't have the part to fix it and we don't care how "pretty" the truck looks (as long as it works) we all decided that taping up the door would be the best solution for now. After about 2 hours we were on the road again. We headed back up to the park and collected some more routes. During collection I got an error that a computer was not responding and realized it had shut off. We discovered a bad power supply. We had to take another detour to Best Buy with hope of finding a power supply that would work. Luckily we found one and at 7:00pm we changed the power supply in the parking lot. It worked! At 8:00pm we finally got to eat dinner and at 9:30pm we finally checked into the hotel for the night.

Bryce Canyon National Park

October 1, 2009
Today was a pretty good day. We had some grade errors in the morning but we took out the grade computer and fixed our problem. The rest of the day went pretty smooth. We finished around 3:00pm and decided to take a short 1 mile loop hike. It was pretty and it was nice to get some exercise.

As far as run-ins with people go let's just say I'm disappointed. Here is a little insight as to why...
1st - People shouldn't be so quick to assume they are right especially where there is quite a bit of ignorance on their part. Not letting me get a word in didn't help. I ended up having to just get in the truck and let him continue to complain while I drove away. Little did he know that I also dislike the exact same thing he was complaining about but I guess that didn't matter. I guess I can take the verbal abuse...why not.
2nd - If you are a cashier in a store and someone (like me) walks up to pay for something the cashier should at least ring up the items and not turn their back and tell a gossip story to another cashier leaving me standing there waiting for the gossip session to be over. I ended up just leaving my stuff there and walking out. I'll never understand that one and I'm not about to stand there like I don't matter....