TWOLOST: May, 2012: UT + AZ trip report

[twolost]

Date (day): May, 15 (Day 18)
Source: Bluff, UT
Destination: Mather Campground, South Rim Grand Canyon, AZ
Travel Miles: 230
Resources: Watchtower Info; South Rim Camping;


Deviation from plan: The only real deviation on this simple, paved, get-to-the-next-destination leg was that we had to wait 40 minutes for road construction on Hwy 64. Sitting on the road with no shade and no breeze felt like we were sitting in a crock pot near the end of a cook cycle. Fortunately, our fridge had a sufficient buffer to keep up with producing cold bottled water as fast as we were going through it.


Moment(s): We were just hustling down the super slab on our way to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon today and we did not allow enough time to do any exploring in Monument Valley. Perhaps, next time. The memorable stuff happened after we arrived at our SRGC campsite in Mather Campground. After I stoked up a fire in our fire pit, my wife brought out the hotdogs and marshmallows (purchased especially for this occasion at the SRGC store). This was to be our daughters first time trying such food items. Well, our daughter was brave enough to take a bite out of a formerly sizzling hot dog - but that experienced stopped abruptly after the first bite. Apparently, the dog was just not up to her standards. Next came the marshmallows. I forget why, but our daughter was very eager to try marshmallows (even days before). My wife helped skewer and cook a few of these little unnatural flammable synthetic wonders. Our daughter was skeptical at first (after all, more than one of them had caught fire)… but mom seemed to think that it was ok to try one. Hmmmm… the texture was definitely weird and the white, brown, and black carcass stuck to everything like glue (face, hands, fingers, pants…). Why is dad laughing? Why is dad not eating any MMs momma? Part of my responsibility as a dad means that I am responsible for all food overflows (aka, I get to eat what the others chose not to). As such, I was tasked with cooking and eating the remaining hot dogs (fortunately for me my wife did not purchase a jumbo pack). I think that there were a grand total of three marshmallows consumed that night and with a stomach full of charred dogs, I was not going to attempt to finish the remaining forty seven. I just ended up pitching the newly opened bag of marshmallows in the garbage can (which is probably the common fate of most MM’s anyway).


The story I told my daughter was that eating MMs may have seemed like a good idea but the reality was that MMs are little synthetic sponges likely originally designed to be ‘scrubbers’ that pull pollutants out of active commercial smoke stacks. Putting these little sponges over a campfire may help keep the air around the campfire a little cleaner, but eating one afterward is roughly equivalent to consuming a hydrocarbon espresso. Someday she will understand.


Takeaway(s): We only started to use the SPOT satellite messenger that we brought along on this trip about a week ago when on the White Rim Trail. We turned it on in the morning and turned it off when we went to bed. The two Energizer AA lithium batteries lasted about a week before the unit would not stay powered on any longer. I read somewhere that battery life should be 14 days if tracking is on (sending messages every 10 minutes) and only last 7 days if in 911 mode (sending messages every 5 minutes). While I can verify that we were sending messages on 10 minute intervals… we only had 7 days of usage before we needed to replace the batteries out of the bunch that I had.


Sportsmobile Note(s): Our 3CF fridge does ok in cooler climates where the temperature of the non-chilled drink items is around 65 degrees (F). For example, we can start off the day, use up all of the cold drinks that had all night to cool down in the fridge and then keep rotating in room temperature drinks to keep all three of us happily consuming cold drinks without a second thought. However, when the outside temps are in the 80s, 90s, and 100 plus, then this fridge just cant keep up with our fluid intake over the long run. To help mitigate this, we purchased a medium sized cloth cooler that when full of ice can keep drinks cold for at least one day. This backup/reserve system really helped keep us happily and frequently drinking ice cold beverages regularly - even on the hottest days.


Desert View Watchtower.






The grand marshmallow experiment.


MM first bite.


MM initial reaction.


Mather Campground (SRGC)