If comedy is tragedy plus time, then RVing must be the funniest activity on the road. Here’s an RV boondock camping adventure from Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Maps you should definitely have because there’s no cell service.
- Utah DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer has amazing detail for a map this large that you can actually use all over Utah.
- A National Geographic foldable map just for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument
The time the RV almost sunk into the earth to become just another fossil.
At 2 am we heard the pitter patter of rain. The prudent thing to have done, would have been to get out into the storm and leave. But the 2 am brain says, “nah, it’s gonna stop soon.”
Not early (enough) risers…
“Don’t walk around outside!” CT said to me by the time he woke me up at 5 am. Within the span of three hours, the top two inches of iron red of the decayed sandstone had turned to slime while the slivers of petrified wood and dinosaur bone fragments floated to the surface.
Only after repeated attempts was CT able to use our GMC Sierra to coax “Dolley (as in Madison),” our RV trailer bumper pull, out of the muck.
Forward. Backward, Sideways. The two vehicles skimmed along the mud skating toward a Utah juniper. A branch dragged the length of Dolley’s side while I yelled, “The tree!” to no avail.
Window be darned.
I thought that branch was going right through the side window. Junipers in the southwest are not known for their flexibility. Even dead branches don’t decay. CT had heard me yell out but knew that if he stopped there might be no starting again. We had gone to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to be one with the earth but not to forever be one IN the earth.
Somehow the truck and trailer got on the “hard pack” dirt road from our sheltered camping spot, window intact, and somehow, even with a couple inches of red mud stuck to all tires, we made it to the blessed asphalt on the highway. There’s a time for asphalt and there’s a time for dirt.
Southwestern USA RV Road Trip Adventures Continue with Cotton Candy…
Fast forward to the next day as we were coming into Flagstaff, AZ on Hwy 89 at a good speed of 70–I mean no faster than the speed limit, we see pink cotton candy, and lots of it, trailing behind us into following traffic.
At the next forest road turn off we pulled to discover that the Utah juniper branch of previous day had pushed into Dolley enough to loosened screws along the side panel. The speed down the asphalt and the 40 mph winds for the past few hours since leaving Grand Staircase-Escalante had wrenched the panel open excreting our pink insulation entrails into the highway behind us.
Thankfully with an array of tools always carried, a few random screws, some hemming and hawing, and several swear words later, the rig was hobnailed back to drivable mode.
Ready for more USA RVing mishaps… Read how we lost our awning in the UP.
There’s more stories of insulation flying out behind us to come…
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