Southeast Utah - Trip report and lessons learned - Pictures on attached file

Well the Tab is now cleaned of all that red, Utah dust, washed and waxed and waiting for our real spring here in the Cleveland area.  Just wanted to share the highlights of our March through April month long roundtrip to Southeast Utah.  We avoided disaster by having a pre-trip TV check.  They found some corroded wiring resulting in no trailer brakes!  Easy fix, but a good reason for a good mechanical check-up before extended travel.  As luck would have it, we had snow just days before our departure which made for a cold packing experience.  

              We took six days to arrive to Moab.  Our longest days were 400 miles which was plenty - even with 2 people taking turns.  We routinely drove at around 62 mph on cruise control.  This being our first long trip and still winter, we elected to stay in motels in transit rather than camp along the way.  I highly recommend the Choice Motels app!  We called ahead, inquired about parking, and they easily accommodated the Tab.  We ran into more wind the further west we drove.  The book "Next Exit" was handy to find Love's Travel Stops - convenient for our frequent refuelings as our mileage was a sorry 11-12 mpg!  We reached Moab where we de-winterized at the full hook-up Moab Rim Campark.  We no sooner arrived and the forecast changed for overnight weather down into the high 20s and low 30s and warming during the day.  What to do?  Blow out the lines and start over again?  Nope.  We found that all of the clamshell plumbing lines are in a heated area.  The Alde heats the water pump and galley sink plumbing, the under bench plumbing, and the shower/sink/toilet plumbing is exposed to the cabin heat.   We decided that full tanks were not going to freeze at the limited exposure time so we took a chance and just put antifreeze in the more exposed areas - shower trap, toilet and tank gates when extreme temperatures were expected.  This served us well the entire trip.  The forecast called for snow until noon as we departed for Dead Horse Point State Park, only to have it start to snow and continued to snow as we approached the campground at 6,000 feet.  I was glad to have that behind us!

Approach to Dead Horse Point State Park Campground                                   Made it!

Dead Horse Point State Park turned out to be our favorite stop.  A new campground area opened, doubling their site numbers! The views, especially at sunrise, made everywhere else pale in comparison.  We hiked directly from the campground.  We were able to deploy our tent which remained tethered through some serious gusts.  Love PahaQue products!  We visited Arches and the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. 

Dead Horse Point at sunrise - brrrrrrr!                                            The Tab and tent survived 35 mph wind gusts.

Arches National Park                                            Canyonlands National Park - Island in the Sky district

              We discovered that Moab's biggest annual event - Jeep Week - was going on during our trip.  Who knew?? The town goes from 8,000 to 100, 000 people.  Preferring a less crowded venue, we found a very nice BLM site south of Moab called Wind Whistle.  What a find!  It was located a short distance off Rt. 191 and it was practically all ours.  The camp hosts from Oregon were lovely and we were close to some interesting sites like Needles Overlook. 

                                      Wind Whistle BLM Campground                                                                                          Needles Overlook

              After camping on top of the canyons, we moved to the bottom!  We stayed at Canyonlands Needles Outpost - a private campground right outside the Canyonlands Needles entry.  Although convenient to the park entry, and surrounded by beautiful, climbable sandstone rock, this campground is undergoing some renovation and it is not quite ready for prime time.  We filled our tanks and water jugs before traveling here.  Jug refills were available at the Needles Campground which looked amazing, but are first-come-first-serve.  For me, the Needles district was the best part of Canyonlands.  We also stopped at Newspaper Rock to see petroglyphs, hiked on some slickrock and visited some ruins.

Canyonlands Needs Outpost Campground    Canyonlands Needles district along the road                           Newspaper Rock

             Next we stayed at the Blanding Blue Mountain RV Park with full hook ups.  Right on the main road, it is a well cared for and surprisingly quiet.     Our assigned site was right next to another Tab and Forum member - Hi Ron!  We enjoyed his company and conversation.  While in Blanding, we visited Hovenweep National Monument, Goosenecks State Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Valley of the Gods and traveled the Moki Dugway.  We also did some hiking in the Cedar Mesa area of Mule Canyon where we saw some more ruins.  If you enjoy Navaho rug and basket weaving, there are 2 trading posts (Blanding and Bluff) owned by 2 brothers.  Beautiful work that is harder to come by as the newer generation is not learning this skill.            

Hovenweep ruins                         Goosenecks                       Valley of the Gods                                            Moki Dugway

              Our final Utah campsite was at Goblin Valley State Park.  We brought along an extra 5 gallons of gas, just in case, but, there are stations along the way and we never needed the extra gas.  If you ever take this route, there is a great rest area with trails called Hog Springs on Rt. 95 just past the Colorado River where we enjoyed our lunch.  Although Goblin SP was a dramatic place surrounded by red rock and close to the actual goblins, to do it over, we would stay in Capitol Reef and make a day trip to see the Goblins.  The Goblin park bathhouse facilities were below average and the water from the spigots had brown water from sediment.  Besides the goblins we enjoyed a slot canyon hike in Little Wild Horse Canyon.  We drove over to Capitol Reef for a couple of short canyon hikes (Capitol Gorge Trail and the Narrows) and dinner at a great restaurant in Torrey called Cafe Diablo. 

Hog Spring Rest Area                                                                               Little Wild Horse Canyon

                                                            Goblin Valley State Park and the goblins - ?Bob Hope?

 Goblin put us in a great position to head north to I 70 for the long trek home.  The roads were dry and free of snow going through the Colorado passes, but, wouldn't you know it, a spring Northeaster came in and our visibility through Kansas was limited.  Then, of course, no sooner did we hit our home state of Ohio we had more snow!!  Anyways, home safe and the Tab performed fabulously!

Things we learned:

1.           Bring less stuff and more of the right stuff!  This was our opportunity to see what we really need and use.  We                    found the need for a portable camp kitchen with drawers for dishware and to store food in the galley instead of                  in the van.  Thank you Amazon fo the Camp Chef!

              We found the Tab stove to be under powered and our 10,000 BTU tabletop burner was all or nothing, so we have                downsized to 6,000 BTUs. 

              The Weber grill is way too bulky and we are searching for a combination grill/burner unit.  Paper plates work                       great, but only if you have a decent size trash can! 

2.  Cell service with ATT -  we had as much service as anyone else!  Our booster was helpful or service was a short trip down the road.  The WiFi at Moab Rim and Blue Mountain in Blanding was usually great.

3.  Anderson levelers were easy and used for the first time.  If you have rolled forward on the front chock, just roll back an inch and you can free up the chock.  If you find that you can't lock your tongue while on the Anderson, just pull forward off the Anderson and then lock.

4.  Our Techonsha Prodigy RF brake control hand unit died.  We called the company and they mailed one out to our next campsite - no charge.   Meanwhile, the brake controller assumed the prior setting, so it all worked out.

5.  Battery SOC: the Victron Battery Monitor, requires that you only follow the calculated State of Charge % (SOC).  It factors in a lot of variables to arrive at a % SOC and there is no need to isolate and rest the battery to get a voltage reading.  We were able to run the Tab installed ARB overnight off the Tab battery.  After our longest charge delay of 19 hours, our SOC was still 93%.  The 150 amp battery does help. In addition, the Tab battery recharged after a days driving while still running the ARB.  This was with cooler temps and I can only assume it will be different with higher temperatures.  We did not use any solar for our last 3 days, but once on the road, the battery recharged 60 amps after 11 hours of driving.

6.  The cold weather did not allow us to use the tent as a second room as we like.  2 people in the Tab in cold weather for a long trip is a challenge.

7.  Although we always use a filter when we have a city water hook up, we do not filter the water provided at spigots.  The Goblin State Park water had a lot of sediment and I can't imagine what that does to the Alde over time.