Bomb Cyclone!

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Waldo

Bomb Cyclone just sounds cool. It’s one of the better weather-words. It ranks right up there with Polar Vortex.

Anyway as I’m writing this a Bomb Cyclone is laying waste to the country from Denver to Dallas and parts east. Roads closed, flights canceled, planes damaged, etc.

Here in Fruita we’ve been getting a lot of rain and winds gusting to 35 mph. Nothing damaging but it’s keeping me off the bike and the boys in the house

The burner on the Hotsy stopped working after a few tanks of fuel

I have been busy in the shop this week. Since the Park is getting geared up to greet visitors we have been using equipment to clean the Park and it has been breaking. So far I have resurrected two snow machines from a mouse-infested shed, fixed reverse in a Kawasaki Mule, and changed out 700-pounds of batteries. It seems every time I fix something and get it out of the shop two more things come in to replace it.

I have done a little work on Truck 2.0. The fuel filler pocket I fixed with epoxy 20 years ago finally fell apart so I taped it back together with Gorilla Tape (the filler pocket is the space behind the fuel door where the fuel cap is)

I did come here to keep busy so I guess the prophesy has been fulfilled

ॐ

Park Model

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Waldo

2018 was our big year on the road. We visited friends and saw the sights. We toured from southern Arizona all the way to Canada. From Texas to California and back to Colorado. All told about 16,900 miles, more than 300 hours of crate-time for the boys. That’s enough hours to get a commercial pilot’s license! Too bad they were sleeping and not studying

2019 will be a year of sitting quietly, working on Park stuffs, and maybe some Repairs & Modifications (Like a sky light!)

I’ll post the interesting happenings as the spring turns to summer, then to fall once again

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Gooseberry Road to Fruita

Posted on February 27, 2019 by Waldo

We left at 0-dark-hundred and arrived in Fruita before lunch. The sunrise was a very pretty event which camera’s cannot capture so I’ll save you looking at a washed out rendition of reality.

UDOT keeping it interesting out on the super-slab

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100 Posts!

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Waldo

A year into our big adventure and we have posted 100 times! YaY!

Sand Hollow State Park to Gooseberry Canyon Road
After a long day on the road we got muded out of our planned camp spot. Almost got stuck in the mud, but didn’t!

Kitty hunting big game in the Utah desert

We ended up in a nearby UDOT work yard where the boys got to play in the mud and make little kitty paw prints

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Beacon Station to Sand Hollow State Park

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Waldo

After I thought about it for awhile I got to wondering if Beacon Station was part of the Air Mail route between Salt Lake and Los Angles. Not far to the south west is an Air Mail Arrow and if Beacon Station had a runway back it 1924 maybe it was part of that system. I googled it and didn’t come up with any evidence to support my hypothesis

As the sun came up this morning I saw it gleaming off of two huge solar arrays

We packed up early and headed north. Got thru Las Vegas while everyone was still in church so no traffic. When we crossed the State Line into Arizona the highway warning sign said,

“Don’t stop on the side of the
highway to play in the snow”

I had to read it about six times before I realized what it said. I guess snow around here is so rare that it is a tourist attraction. A few miles down the road I saw a family pulled over on the side of the highway playing in the snow

The view from the camp ground to the north

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Beacon Station, CA

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Waldo

This place reminds me of Radiator Springs! I was wondering around and met Paco. Paco has been here for 20 years now. He drives the local tow truck (yup, Mater). He told me the place was founded in 1924 by a family who ran it until 1980. Back then there was no I-15. Highway 93 (maybe) was the route from Barstow to Vegas and it was a bit more bendy and followed the curves in the desert. Paco said back then there were gas and repair stations about every twenty miles. He said that was because twenty miles was as far as a car could go before needing repairs.

Looking up runway toward the gas station

Now there are three families living and working at the Beacon Station Shell gas store. The current owner also has a plane which occasionally lands here. There use to be two runways, but now it looks like only about half of one runway is still useful. They got a water well when the new owners took over, before that they hauled water in.

A walk around the desert was a trip back in trash-time. There are cans strewn about the desert many of which are oil cans from a time when oil came in cans. There are drink cans which were opened with a church-key, drinks opened with removable pull tabs, and modern cans too. Some of the vintage cans are all-steel, while other have an aluminum top. The aluminum top lasts way longer than the steel can.

It’s amazing how long trash lasts. I hope a hundred years from now people will be as interested in old starbucks cans as we are in old oil cans. On the other hand diapers from 1930 decomposed long ago. Not so diapers from the 21st century.

It snowed two nights ago. Now the grass is growing so fast you can see the difference from morning to noon

Smokeless tobacco is known to the state of California to burn semi-trucks to the ground

All the brown spots are piles of old oil cans

Drink can on the left, Oil can on the right, floating in a sea of beer-bottle glass. Multi-media circa 1940

Old-style drink can opened with a church-key

Steel can with aluminum top. Old pull-tab style

Modern aluminum can with captive pop-top. Thanks Starbucks!

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Bakersfield to Rasor Road

Posted on February 23, 2019 by Waldo

Still in California
We left About 8:30 and headed up the hill towards Mojave. It started out green, turned to white, and then transitioned to brown. We stopped for lunch at the rest area near the Borax factory. We could see the planes flying from Edwards AFB – Zoom! I was going to visit the Flight Test Museum, but it’s off limits to muggles (It’s on-base and behind many gates and guards)

Much drier now. Still cold, but it’s a dry cold

After we got back on the road a B-1 Bomber buzzed us! I heard it long before I saw it and it was loud!

This was our 5th day in a row on the road so Plan A is to spend a couple nights here in the desert south of Vegas. I picked a spot where the boys can go outside and play with rocks if they want to

There is good solar access here; no trees to block the juice-making photons!

ॐ

Ask Mike Moore

Pondering

Author Archives: Waldo