7/31/1991 - Wednesday

John:  We started the day thinking that we would be in Glenwood Springs with lots of time to kill... but we ran into a lot of road construction along the way that really slowed us down.  Another thing that slowed us up was that somewhere in Flaming Gorge our roof carrier top blew off!!  We discovered this when we decided to stop under this nice big shady tree in a small town in Flaming Gorge... I got out of the truck and looked up and couldn't believe my eye balls!!  The whole top half of the carrier ripped off and was gone into outer space.  All our stuff inside the carrier was still sitting there nice and neat.  (The lid to the box with our bathing suits and towels blew away and the bathing suits were ready to fly off next...) so we had to re-shuffle everything and pack everything into the truck.  What a sight... I wish I would have seen that thing fly off... Guess it didn't make it all the way home like I thought it would.  The Flaming Gorge area was pretty.  We saw lots of antelope in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado...  We also saw a mother moose with a baby in the north/east corner of Utah... so close to Colorado, that I think there must be some moose in Colorado.  We saw a lot (25-30) of deer also.  Our original plan was to camp somewhere in Colorado around the White Nat’l Forest, but because it took so long to get out of Wyoming, our schedule was blown... We got to Rangley and there was nothing, to Meeker... still nothing and getting later... to Rifle, nothing... so decided to go in to Glenwood Springs.  We got a camp spot at the “Hideout” which is out by the new Pizza Hut (where we ate supper).  We drove 358 miles.

ODOM:  31984

Roof carrier lid gone!

Flaming Gorge

Flaming Gorge

Moose & Baby

7/30/1991 - Tuesday

John:  Woke up to another beautiful sunny day.  We drove to Jackson Hole and did our laundry for the last time... that took a big chunk of time.  After that we drove to Teton Village and went to some more shops.  I bought a T-Shirt from the Mangy Moose Saloon.  We ate lunch, gassed up the truck and hit the road.  We followed the Snake and Hoback Rivers.  They look like great canoeing rivers... After we drove out of this nice area, we reached the “waste lands” of Wyoming... Tons of sage brush and rabbits.  We saw some antelope at the place we’re camped at (which came up out of the sage brush like a mirage).  It’s called Fontenelle Creek Campground.  Our spot is next to the Fontenelle Reservoir... it’s pretty nice compared to visions of camping in tons of sage brush... (we’re still surrounded by sage brush, but at least there’s a reservoir here!!)  Before leaving Teton Village, we spotted a huge stick nest on top of an abandoned telephone pole.  It had three large babies in it.  We waited for a while, then saw the big mother bird fly over with a fish in her talons and fed the babies.  The babies were quite large.  Not sure what kind of birds they were, but I think they might be Osprey (gotta look in our bird book when we get home).  We drove 164 miles today... After supper I noticed the roof carrier hung different.  So I climbed up to check it and found that one of the hinges on the front was cracking off... I couldn't climb onto the roof without breaking my neck, so I tried putting duct tape all around it, but couldn't reach the badly broken part.  So with a little Yankee ingenuity and Kansan ingenuity we were able to get a rope tied around the stupid carrier and tied to the camper rack.  Hopefully this will help hold it together for a few more days.

ODOM:  31626

Stick nest

Antelope