July 8, 2013
Trailer Tales and Tribulations
Cheryl’s Meanderings:
The sandstone bluffs of Monument Valley surround us as we relax in the trailer today at Gouldings RV Resort. Out the window in front of me as I write, a sheer cliff climbs into the bright blue sky directly above those who are hardy enough to be out here in tents today. We've got our air running with the windows open and staying perfectly comfortable as we complete the computer and housekeeping tasks that come right along on vacation with us no matter how good our intentions are to avoid them. It’s a long lazy afternoon stretching out before us after an exciting beginning to our day.
Thunder, lightning and a downpour crowned the morning around
3:30 a.m. daylight savings time and then blew quickly out across the desert as
storms tend to do out here. By 4:45 a.m.
Frank and I were stationed outside the RV office anticipating the arrival of
the tour jeep taking us out across a land spiked with statues carved by
centuries of wind and water. Yes, we did
it, we and we alone signed up for the sunrise tour! Our Navajo guide didn’t
seem to mind being awake at the crack of dawn, but I bet he would have laughed
to know how the dual alarms on our phones blasted us awake. First Frank’s went
off sounding like an air-raid siren followed immediately by Willie Nelson
singing On the Road Again on mine. Never
mind, at least we rolled out of the sack.
First stop at the new View Hotel allowed us to catch the
rays of the morning sun creeping across
the valley floor, gently illuminating the monoliths so familiar to most of us from
years of post cards dating back to the 1930s. The glow behind the sculptures
seemed to expand the size of the stone giants the brighter it shone on them. We
walked further up the path toward the hotel behind a short stone wall, and
Frank took the sweetest picture of a young woman in a cowgirl hat perched there
accidentally in what was the perfect spot to compliment the mittens, as these
sandstone creations are known.
For the next two and a half hours we bounced and braced over
sandy, boulder strewn meandering roads to see the outer reaches of this vast
valley of nature’s artistry. We stood next to the cube, got great shots of the
three sisters, and marveled as the sun lifted its glowing red ball between the
crevices and cracks to illuminate the desert floor. The road was especially
churned up today after accommodating large semi-trucks used to haul
movie-making equipment and amenities out to the film crew of a movie called A Million
Ways to Kill Yourself in the West. Let’s hope that’s just the working title.
Frank and our guide stood and told yarns to each other at
the site of today’s filming while I took pictures and videos of the crew and
all their paraphernalia. Such a lot of standing around, gesturing, and pointing
went on among the dusty-booted location and camera scouts. I even got a picture
of the Event Ambulance making a run through the area. All in all, I think it
would have been more fun to travel back in time to get a glimpse of the Duke or
Henry Fonda when Harry and Mike (her nickname) Goulding first invited Hollywood
to visit their modest homestead set among some of the most photogenic landscape
in the world. The Goulding’s were down to their last $60 when they went calling
on the movie lot moguls. Call it luck or just plain old perseverance, but at
any rate magic began happening in cowboy movie-land, putting the Gouldings back
in the black big time and John Wayne right in line to stardom.
There’s an excellent museum here housed in the home the
Goulding’s built in the 30s that Frank and I fell in love with immediately.
Frank took pictures of the interior with dreams of finding some old guy who
still knows how to apply plaster like you've never seen before! That is if we
ever do build anything out at Rancho Del Monte, our dream land, in Arizona.
If you’ve never visited here, and you live in Arizona, it’s
only about 160 miles from Flagstaff. Make it a two-day weekend you’ll remember
for the rest of your life. Eat at Goulding’s restaurant overlooking all the
grandure of the desert that remains largely as it looked way back when Harry
and Mike lived here. The food is delicious, but the view tops the charts!
Tomorrow we’re doing a little backtracking, but I’ll let
Frank tell you all about that little adventure.
OK, Frank here. And now for the tribulations.
We left Phoenix on Saturday at about 10AM. The plan for the day was a slow, easy shakedown
drive up to Flagstaff. The drive went
great but when we were setting up the rig we discovered the refrigerator wasn't
as cold as we thought it should be. Cold
yes, frigid no. I checked all the
electrical and propane systems and couldn’t find anything wrong, but then I
wasn't even sure at that point that there was anything wrong. Decision:
let it run overnight and check it in the morning.
Came the dawn Sunday morning and the refer didn't seem to be
any colder but also didn't seem to be any warmer. We asked the Google if there was an RV
repair shop anywhere nearby and he replied, “Why yes, there’s a Camping World
just to the west of us and they are open on Sunday.” So we
packed up and headed west. When
we arrived we discovered that the Camping World was in fact open, but their
service department wasn't. I spent some
time asking questions and found that they actually had a perfect replacement
unit for our refer, but of course couldn't install it until the next day,
Monday. I decided that I didn't want to
stay over, especially since we had a firm reservation for a two-day stay in
Monument Valley, and anyway I wasn't totally convinced the refer was really bad
and wouldn't just straighten itself out on the drive to MV and be just
fine. Cheryl disagreed, but I digress.
We left Camping World, stopped at a Walmart and bought two
large ice chests, eight bags of ice, off-loaded the refer’s contents and struck
out for MV. Four hours later we arrive
in MV and the refer was deader than a warm Mackerel. I mean seriously dead as in even the
indicator lamps were no longer lit.
Monday (today) the Google and I did research and with about
a bazillion interweb searches and a dozen phone calls I finally found a RV shop
in Casper, Wyoming that could get us a comparable refer and install it on the
coming Thursday. So that was the plan until we talked about it
and decided that three more days of eating soggy food out of the ice chests
just didn't sound like fun and Flagstaff was only 175 miles behind us, and didn’t
make more sense to backtrack and buy the exact refer we need rather than press
on and take a chance on an unknown replacement?
So, that’s the plan.
Tomorrow we go backwards for a day and get the refer I should have
waited for. So far Cheryl hasn't said, “I
told you so”, but I figure she has a free one coming.
So that’s our tribs.
It’ll be OK and we’ll have a nice new refer tomorrow. So it’s only one day lost to an unexpected
adventure.
Jong Wang says, “Catch you later pilgrims.”
Love, Cheryl, Frank, Peanut and Cleo
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