Bad Weather, Ho!

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)
We left Zion National Park on April 11, Carolyn’s birthday, and headed north to Provo, Utah, some 274 miles away. Not a great way to spend a birthday, I’m sure. But when anyone asks, I tell them that for her birthday I gave her a “road trip.”

As we drove farther north, the weather seemed to get colder. Just the very thing we were trying to leave. The distant mountains were covered with snow. The closer we got to the mountains, the closer the snow got, until at last it was along side the road way as we passed. Diesel fuel was disappearing fast in the mountain terrain.

Provo is located about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City along the mountain range called the Wasatch Front. This is the snow-covered mountain range you see in the first picture above, as viewed from our camp site. Provo is the home of Brigham Young University, operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called the Mormon or LDS Church). The LDS Church's largest Missionary Training Center is located in Provo.

Provo was originally called Fort Utah when it was settled in 1849 by 33 Mormon families from Salt Lake City, but was re-named Provo in 1850 for Étienne Provost, an early French-Canadian trapper who arrived in the region in 1825. Provo has a population of 115,135 —making it the third-largest city in Utah.

The weather got even colder. The prediction was for the temperature to drop to 28 degrees overnight. To keep our water pipes from freezing we allowed the faucet in the kitchen to slowly drip so we wouldn’t have to disconnect the hose. The next morning, I got up, opened the bedroom door and went down into the kitchen to get more heat going. When I stepped onto the tile floor it looked wet. I put my hand to it, and sure enough, it was wet. I then noticed that both kitchen sinks were overflowing. The water was no longer dripping. My first thought was that the drain pipes had frozen.

I got a bucket from our storage compartment under the trailer, and we started dipping water out of the sinks. We then noticed that a laundry bag full of clothes to be washed was setting on the floor and almost completely saturated with water. I went outside to check the water valve. It had been turned off by someone. Water was dripping from under the trailer and three wet spots were evident on the ground. One large one, and two smaller ones. I looked in the compartments underneath to see what was wet. That is when I discovered that the water tank valves were closed. The tanks were full and the water had backed up. I opened the valves and the water in the sinks disappeared. Normally I leave the gray tanks (two 35 gallon tanks for all water except sewer) open to allow the water to run freely. I had forgotten to open the tanks.

Most of the cities on this trek are just stopovers on the way to Spokane, Washington. So basically we just ate out a couple times and looked around the city. We had been to Salt Lake City before, so we decided, considering fuel prices, that we would not make that trip. We filled the truck with diesel for our continuing trip, at the “tune of” $120. The highest diesel price we have encountered so far was $4.43 per gallon.

To give you a perspective on how much it costs us to pull the fifth-wheel along, do this. Get several rolls of quarters, dimes and nickels. Now, every mile you drive, throw one quarter, one dime and one nickel out the window. That is about what it is costing at these fuel prices.

We were scheduled to leave Provo for Twin Falls, Idaho on Monday the 14th and spend a couple days there. The weather forecast was for Twin Falls to have rain/snow on the 16th , the day we were to leave. We decided to change schedule and leave a day early to miss this weather event. So we rearranged our forward schedule. We had half-a-day to get to know Twin Falls.

The city was founded in 1904 as a planned community, designed by celebrated Franco-American architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, with proceeds from sales of townsite lots going toward construction of irrigation canals. The city is named for a nearby waterfall on the Snake River.

The original townsite follows a unique design. It is laid out on northeast-to-southwest and northwest-to-southeast roads. The northwest-to-southeast roads were numbered and called avenues, while the northeast-to-southwest roads were numbered and called streets. Only two central streets, the northwest-to-southeast Main Avenue and the northeast-to-southwest Shoshone Street, were named. It is purported that the reason this was done was to allow sun to come into every room in the home at some point during the day. This system created situations where one side of a street may have an entirely different address than the other, and where the corner of "3rd and 3rd," for example, was in more than one location. In 2003 the numbered northeast-to-southwest streets were renamed to alleviate decades of confusion.

Twin Falls became the center of national attention in September 1974 thanks to an attempt by the daredevil Evel Knievel to jump the Snake River Canyon in a specially-modified rocket cycle. Watched by millions on television, the attempt ultimately failed due to high winds and a premature deployment of Knievel's parachute. The foundation of the launch ramp, which lies on private land, can still be seen. The second picture above is of Snake River Canyon. You can see the high cliffs at the rear of the picture.

You just can’t trust the weather! Just after we made changes in our schedule to avoid the weather, the weather changed it’s schedule and arrived a day earlier. As a result, our travel day was one of bucking the wind. The wind was blowing steadily at 35 to 40 miles per hour, with gusts near 60 miles per hour. The wind was blowing from the West, and of course, we were driving West. We were glad, however, that it was blowing toward us rather than from the side. Our greatest effort was just keeping the trailer straight, and throwing more quarters, dimes and nickels out the window. Our fuel efficiency on this leg was about half of normal.

We arrived in Caldwell, Idaho on April 15th. Caldwell is located just a hop, skip and jump West of the Capital City of Boise……provided you can hop, skip and jump for about 25 miles. Above is a very colorful sign for the City of Boise. Our RV Park here seemed to be one of the very few that lives up to its billing as a “Resort.” Not only did they have terrific, large camp sites, free WiFi and Cable TV, but they also served free coffee and muffins for breakfast. They also helped with our exercise program by having a very nice, clean exercise room with six different machines.

Caldwell has a population of somewhere around 35,00 people. It seems that it’s claim to fame is mostly negative. In the 1870s and 1880s, Caldwell was home to hundreds of Chinese immigrants, but the town was central in Idaho's aggressive anti-Chinese backlash that culminated in an 1886 convention of the Anti-Chinese League in Boise. By 1890, however, every last immigrant had been driven from town by social pressures and outright violence.

In March of 1908, at the end of a series of trials relating to a miners dispute and the Colorado Labor Wars. Albert Horsley, better known by his psuedonym Harry Orchard, pleaded guilty in District Court in Caldwell to the assassination of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. The Judge sentenced Orchard to hang, but his sentence was commuted, and he lived out the rest of his life in an Idaho prison.

We departed our last stop in Idaho on April 17th for Standfield, Oregon, a distance of 224 miles. Standfield has an elevation of 592 feet and a population of about 2,000. Remember, I told you we were only making “stopovers” on the way to somewhere else. Nothing outstanding to see around here, but it does have a little history.

Originally named Foster, Stanfield is named after Sen. Robert N. Stanfield (1921-9127) who purchased the area for use as the headquarters of his extensive sheep and wool enterprises. Because of its proximity to the railroad, the site was used for shearing wool, holding sheep for shipping, and storing supplies for the operations in warehouses. (At one time, Sen. Stanfield and his brothers operated the largest sheep ranching operations in North America.)

With the development of an irrigation system serving the lands around Stanfield, Sen. Stanfield joined with a developer to subdivide the area and create the town of Stanfield, operating excursion trains to bring interested buyers to Stanfield to see the lots that were being offered for sale. Sen. Stanfield donated a number of parcels for public purposes, including the site of the high school.

The last picture above is of Hat Rock, located in a State Park of the same name, off U.S. Highway 730 along the Columbia River (dividing Washington and Oregon). Hat Rock was the first distinctive landmark passed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on their journey down the Columbia and recorded in their journal.

We are scheduled to go to Spokane, Washington tomorrow, April 20th. The Spokane weather forecast is calling for rain/snow tonight, tomorrow and Monday, with highs in the low to mid 40s. We will have some high country to go through, so we are hoping for the best. It doesn’t seem to be worthwhile to keep changing schedule. This is our last point West, before heading directly East across the top of the country. Next time, we’ll let you know how the snow blows! Did someone say it is Spring?