Zion was, of course, spectacular! We drove through it, admiring the views at every turn.
Big sheets of flowing sand stone draped the cliffs. Pink, orange, white and red cliffs towered above the road.
We followed a long line of cars snaking though the canyon. In one section there was a tunnel where the Earthroamer barely fit. Had we been any bigger we would have had to have an escort take us through.
Note to self for future trips… It looked like overnight hiking required strategic planning as far as parking was concerned. There were many hiking trails off the main road, but you weren’t allowed to park along the side of the road for very long.
Many people were waiting for shuttles to take them to the part of the park that was closed off to passenger vehicles. If you wanted to go hiking in that area, you’d need to plan ahead. We noticed a pet kennel just outside the park too.
We stopped in one area and hiked up a really gorgeous slab of rock with spires coming out of the side.
The boys, including Jason, each posed on top of a rock.
Many hematite “Moqui Marbles” were partially embedded in the sandstone. Some had eroded completely free from the sandstone and rolled down the hill to the bottom.
The reddish color in the sandstone is due to iron. Sandstone is very porous, so water passing through the sandstone leaches the iron out. This iron rich solution then mixes with oxygenated groundwater, and at the interface of this mixture the hematite precipitates out forming moqui marbles.
It was not permitted to collect them here, since it was a national park. But we found them for sale later on our trip, and appreciated them even more, after seeing how they were formed.
Here is a more detailed description of the process. http://hudsonvalleygeologist.blogspot.com/2012/02/moqui-marbles.html
The first Earthroamer (ER) issue of the trip started with a broken beer bottle. Shortly after we exited Zion, there was a muffled popping noise, a hiss, and a sudden smell of beer. Cyrus shrieked that a bottle had exploded and broken in the back seat. We were perplexed. Had someone kicked it? What was it doing rolling around on the floor in the first place? Was anyone hurt? While we were wondering about this and looking for a safe place to pull over, an engine light came on with a corresponding cough, and a sudden decrease in power. I had thought Jason had been pretty upset about the broken bottle that had soaked beer into the carpeting and smelled like a brewery, but no. NOW he really had a cow! This was potential mechanical failure, a much bigger problem. The rest of us were quiet, while Jason simmered.
We stopped to mop up the beer and troubleshoot the ER. No immediate solutions presented themselves, nor was the problem very obvious. It now seemed nothing was wrong, but the engine light said otherwise. We needed to stop at the nearest mechanic. I dreaded the potential carsick miles I’d have to spend staring at my phone searching for a Ford mechanic. Fortunately a few miles down the road a giant sign “DIESEL REPAIR” revealed itself out of nowhere. Yay! Problem solved. We pulled in. Unlike in the Bay Area, where this would have been an all day affair, the owner helped us right away! After a friendly greeting, he plugged the diagnostic laptop into the truck, and pulled the codes.
It turned out that this particular group of codes was usually caused by loose terminal. Sure enough it was loose. We tightened it, and $35 later we were on our way! Unbeknownst to us, even though the terminal was loose, this was not really the cause of our problem, nor was it completely the end of our ER issues. But for now, other than the one less bottle of beer, everything was fine.
We headed to Lake Powell. Originally our plan was to go to Antelope Canyon, but everything we had read made it sound very touristy, from the preplanned places to take photos, to the waiting in line to take the photo, to the limited time you were allowed to take the photo. Instead we ended up at Lone Rock OHV Campground on Lake Powell. Here we were able to drive right up to the water and camp. A large rock with steep sides protruded from the middle of the water. It was quite picturesque in the evening light.
Temperatures were around 100 or maybe higher. It was crowded and hot, but the water looked inviting. It was the perfect swimming temperature, and it was lovely!
We all enjoyed a refreshing swim. We ate New York steaks barbequed on our grill, with ice cold beer for us and rootbeer for the boys. Even Roscoe went swimming.
All was fine and dandy until the sun set, and we went inside the ER to get ready for bed. It was immediately clear that the window screens were NOT bug proof! How, we thought, could the Earthroamer designers have overlooked this important detail? Mosquitos were blocked by the screens, but somehow they kept coming in. There was some kind of termite hatch happening, and the winged beasts poured in and around the edges of the screens. After a careful inspection we determined that any winged insect attracted to light, with the ability to crawl, could get inside. It was too hot to shut the windows. Our solution was to turn off all the lights and only use a few dim lights inside. This was inconvenient, but it did help. Once the lights were off we were comfortable enough. The screens needed to be fixed though, and we had an idea how to do it once we returned home.
