Feeling Unlucky | vlog 2202-05

Trying to Get Back on the Road

We’d been in Wyoming for a week and it was time to get on the road so we could arrive at the Idaho Property and also have a few days to explore more along this route.

Bird’s Nest Anyone?

A new live in guest needed to be evicted before we left. This was a first for us and humorous.

We were oblivious as to why the birds kept hanging around the camper while we were parked in the driveway. Then one afternoon, Steve’s cousin parked behind us and had a nice view into a grand nest.

Derailed Departure Day

Finally, it’s departure day. We chugged some leftovers for lunch, locked up, hitched up and set off to meet sunset somewhere along the I-80. At this point, we were still on track to arrive before dark.

We headed out and after driving just a few minutes we heard a disappointing pow and woosh sound. The sound had me jump out of my seat. The replacement turbo hose had separated and it felt like we were back at square 1 with this turbo hose failure.

We pulled over. We repeated this process 2 more times while on the side of I-80 in Wyoming.

Finally, we turned around and returned straight to Mike’s shop. It helps to have a brother with an auto mechanics shop. After the brotherly consultation, Steve took another pass at tightening down the clamp in a different manner.

We stress tested the connection by driving around a few blocks. Just as I started to relax, a loud pow and whoosh yet again.

This time it was the lower hose, not the new replacement hose. Steve had disconnected the lower hose to get the top new hose reconnected in a way that it wouldn’t come loose. In the reassembly process he just didn’t get it quite tight enough.

We stress tested it as much as possible as we made our way to the highway again. Then, repeat a couple more times while we still have exits we can use to limp back to the shop, if needed.

Alas, it is holding and we continue on our way. Phew!

Overnight Stay Changed Plans

It was dark by the time we hit Green River, WY and we still had dinner and 2 hours of driving left. We’d already decided the overnight destination was going to simply be a wallydock. So, we continued on to Evanston, WY’s Walmart. We arrived after 11pm and settled into a spot amongst many other RVers and big semi trucks.

Woodruff Reservoir

Woodruff Reservoir was the new destination that didn’t happen last night. It was on our driving route and we had time to at least drive along the reservoir and see what the area is like. So after a grocery run and McDonald’s breakfast, we hit the road.

Oh, very awesome! Now, this visit was in May and not buggy while we were there, but we suspect it’s buggy in the summer. Surprisedly, it also wasn’t busy at the beginning of this long weekend. There’s many beautiful spots overlooking the water. We’ll make it a destination on a future drive along this route.

Franklin Basin Road

I have a review post with the specifics of this dispersed forest camping area. Click HERE to read the REVIEW. Franklin Basin is also FR006. There’s a pit toilet and parking near the entrance. This is also the only dispersed area in this canyon making it popular for ATVs.

It’s Friday mid day, Memorial weekend, and raining. The stretch of forest road was over 3 miles and sprinkled with many dispersed camping options. I’m optimistic that we’ll find a pullout for Maximus and Jeep.

Mile 1? None Nada. In fact the pullouts are large and packed with 3, 4, and 5 trailers and 5th wheels. Some sites have tents and chairs. And some even have people. But many were vacant.

Mile 2? Still nothing. But that’s ok. My target was still a ways down the road.

We start noting a couple of side roads as possibilities to recon in the Jeep. But we keep going on the main road.

Mile 3? Nope. The whole town came out for the weekend play time.

By now we’re hungry so we find a wide spot to park, eat soup, unhitch the Jeep and proceed on a recon mission. This is how we ended up on a pullout off of FR289. The sign at the entrance to the road said “steep canyon” and I thought that was the roads name until much later!

We enjoyed our downtime the next day. It was an alternating mix of rain and blue skies.

We enjoyed a late afternoon walk up our road. At the top, was a creek spilling over the road and small pockets of snow on the northern hills sides. The evening sky below was quite lovely.

The Logan River Area

Colorful Birds

We entertained ourselves with the rainy downtime with a few games of monopoly and bird watching. I don’t know what these are, but they were sure colorful.

Rain and then Snow

The weather forecast, as I remembered it, was rain night and day 1 but not our 2nd day. So, we decided to not move on and stay a 2nd night. That turned out to be a mistake.

It rained HARD the second night. Our kitchen window leaked (again, but much less than the original leak) and it did not look promising for the day. We still spent a leisurely morning before deciding to head out.

We probably should’ve moved a little quicker. The rain turned to hail then snow and we still need to get down the steep canyon to the main road.

Earlier, there was hail but with temps at 40F, I wasn’t expecting snow and it just kept coming as we drove out. We ended up driving out separately to the main road and then made our way into Logan, UT.

I drove the Jeep down first. It’s a strategic decision so I wouldn’t have to watch Maximus drive down. There was enough mud that neither of us could keep our right tires up out of the erosion and experienced a little slip and slide.

Aborted Rest of Our Trip

Since the weather was proving to be uglier than I initially gleaned from the weather updates, we decided to abort the rest of the trip and skip our next reservoir area to explore.

Onward to the Idaho property we head. We were glad to be there. Even with a week’s worth of work to accomplish, it would be a needed respite from the road.

Video – Camp Area Review

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