Overnight at Lake Kegonsa State Park

After our trip to Point Beach State Forest, I finished up the converter.  You know how you get to the end of a project and have pieces left over? Well, that isn’t a new occurrence for me.  It turned out that the main shore power cord needed a wire clamp to hold everything in place.  It would have been better to install that before everything was wired into place.

So there was some disassembly and then some reassembly.  Later,  the converter needed side shims to close a gap and to provide more support for attaching the converter box to the interior frame of the  Brew Hut.  I finished everything on Wednesday.  On Thursday, I took the Brew Hut in for the final summer upgrade:  new tires.

When I originally purchased this Scamp trailer, the owner told me that the battery and the tires were new The old battery was dead, and the tires were bald.  However, he also admitted that he bought the cheapest replacements that he could find at the local farm supply store.   I immediately replaced the battery.  After traveling to Arizona last fall and to Texas this spring, I didn’t trust the cheap tires for another long trip.

Based upon several recommendations at the Fiberglass RV forum, I ordered three Carlisle Radials.  The existing spare tire was the original (stamped 2000), so it was time for that to be replaced also.  After the tires were balanced and installed on the Brew Hut, I was off to Lake Kegonsa State Park for a quick overnight trip.

On a Thursday night, there were plenty of campsites available.  The sites are nicely spaced and wooded.  There are about 100 campsites; however, I saw only a few that would be good for solar power. Since I was checking out my electrical system, I opted for an electric site.

After a long hike on grassy trails at the edge of the woods, Callie and I watched the Packers game on my little-used television.  Well, Callie mostly watched me watch the Packer game.

Everything electrical seems to be working, and the new tires have set my mind at ease. On Friday, we moved Justin’s things to his new dorm room and moved Justin back home for a couple of weeks of relaxation (for him, not me).

During the next couple of weeks, I’m on caregiver duty.

After Justin starts college, I’m heading southeast in the Brew Hut, hoping for a quiet hurricane season.  Julia plans to join me again closer to our destination.  If all goes well, we will enjoy some time in a new place:  the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Price, Utah

After discovering low air pressure in my problem tire while camped at Tibble Fork, Google recommended Burt Brothers Tire and Service in Highland, Utah.  Google isn’t always right, but that turned out to be a good one.


Service was polite, fast and cheap–it doesn’t usually work that way.  They found a screw in the problem tire, did a full synthetic oil change, and replaced my wiper blades for about $100.  I needed the oil change anyway, and now I should be set until I get back home in November.

Feeling much better, I drove to Price Utah and filled out the paperwork to stay at the Legacy Motel and RV Park for $38/night.  It had everything I needed:  hot showers, laundry, sweet tasting water (I had last filled in Thermopolis, and the water was horrible), electric and wireless.  A week had passed since a real shower, so I took several of them, and the hot water felt great.  I downloaded a bunch of Netflix shows, caught up on blogs and comments, and took a night to recharge.

For supper, I went to Grogg’s Pinnacle Brewing Company.  It was ok.  The Hefeweizen was thin, without flavor and served with a slice of orange.  Next, I had a black lager that was pretty good, but maybe that was in comparison to the hefe.  They do not brew their own beer, but offered others’ brews.  My Baja burger was messy and just ok.  The homemade chicken noodle soup was really good and saved the meal.  Service was prompt, but if you are going to call yourself a brewery (really a craft beer bar), the staff should understand the styles of beer. Not the case, but a helpful customer steered me to the black lager.

After doing laundry, dumping tanks, and refilling with water,  I drove to Moab, Utah, where I plan to stay for a few days in a Bureau of Land Management Campground.  There will be photos from the Moab area.  I considered taking photos in Price, but no wants to see a parking lot or a laundry room, I hope.

Tibble Fork, Utah

After leaving Rock Springs, I made several changes in plans. Once I left Wyoming and entered Utah, I started looking for places to camp. Rockport State Park looked interesting and close to Interstate 80. Unfortunately, the State of Utah wanted $30 for a crappy little site without showers. If I can’t take a real shower, I’m not willingly paying $30.


I was now in prime T-mobile country, so I pulled over to look at my options. Antelope State Park had showers and a camping fee of $20. Unfortunately, as I approached Salt Lake City, the realization hit that I was going to have to drive north through Salt Lake and backtrack when I left the park. I’ve driven in a lot of big cities, but I was not having fun driving with a trailer in five lanes of interstate when they kept deleting my lane as the exit lane. When I should have gone north, I opted to go south.

After driving through most of Salt Lake, I pulled over for gas and looked at my choices. If I headed straight east from Lehi, I could drive into the Unita Wasatch-Cache National Forest, where there were several public campgrounds. I set my sights on the Mt. Timpanogos campground. As was getting close, the road started to steepen and narrow. A sign said not recommended for vehicles over 30 feet. I figured that neither my Scamp nor my truck was over 30 feet individually,but it was getting a little hairy. Rocks slides leaving debris in the middle of the road weren’t making it any easier.

When I arrived at the campground, they wanted $34 or some ridiculous amount, and it was for dry camping. I didn’t see any good campsites available so I drove up into a trailhead parking lot and talked with a young Forest Service employee who was writing tickets to people without user fee permits. She was apologetic about it, but she was still writing tickets. I had my America the Beautiful Pass so I wasn’t going to get a ticket.

I told her that it was my first trip up into her forest, and did she have any recommendations for campsites. She asked did I need a campground or was I looking for dispersed camping. I said that dispersed camping would work fine, especially given the camping fees. She explained that the campgrounds are run my an outside private company, and that they set the rates. She then offered two suggestions for dispersed camping; one was higher elevation and close; the other was lower elevation and a few miles away. Given that our conversation was taking place at 75000 feet in elevation, and that there was a crispness in the air that promised freezing temperatures that night, I chose the lower elevation.

To get to my site, I backtracked on Hwy 92 and turned off on Hwy 144 north to Tibble Fork. Where the pavement ends, the gravel begins. A short time later, a sign was posted indicated that dispersed camping for up to 14 days was permitted. I found my creekside campsite almost immediately after the sign. Normally, I would have driven further in, and I did walk the road later to see if there were better sites. However, this site ticked all the boxes for me. I could hear running water from the Brew Hut, and it wasn’t from my faucet. A beautiful mountain stream was less than 20 steps from my front door. The site was so level that I didn’t even need to unhook. I put up my rear stabilizers and was good to go.

I spent the afternoon taking walks, collecting solar power, reading, and preparing supper of leftovers (beef curry with noodles). Because my campsite is in the bottom of a narrow canyon, the sun set quickly behind the mountains, and the temperatures plummeted. I watched some downloaded Netflix after supper and had a glass of port. By nine pm, I was buried underneath my heavy sleeping bag, which kept me quite warm. The one negative to the campsite is that I am close to an atv and dirt bike road. I was amazed that they kept driving by well after dark. But by ten pm, they had either stopped or I simply fell asleep.

I woke at 7 am to the sound of Elvis doing his early morning shake to awake. 35 degrees in the Brew Hut. Not cold enough to freeze the water tanks, but that set a new record for this trip. After eating hot oatmeal and making coffee, Elvis and I took to the trails. A trailhead for the Mill Canyon Trail (#040) was less than 100 yards from our campsite. We ended up hiking beyond the end of the Trail on part of the Ridge Trail for a total of 8.5 miles and an elevation gain of 1500 feet. At 7500 feet in elevation, we found patches of frost. At the beginning of the hike, I had several layers of clothing on and wished for a hat and gloves (that I didn’t bring). But the steep ascent quickly warmed things up, and I was back to a t-shirt by the time we arrived back around noon. We saw deer, turkeys, and vultures.

We passed the afternoon blogging, reading, and enjoying the sound of the creek. I could easily stay here for a week. But there is so much to see and do in Utah.  In the morning, our problem tire was giving us more problems.  We are headed for tire service and an oil change.

Rock Springs Walmart

When I hitched up at Flaming Gorge to leave, I received a “low tire air” warning light. Sure enough, my rear driver’s side tire was down 20 percent. This was a good opportunity to use my portable air compressor for the first time. Actually, a better opportunity would have been to use it before leaving Wisconsin so that I knew how it worked.


Anyway, after a few struggles and tries, I figured out that the compressor’s tire fitting was threaded, which once screwed on to the tire valve, actually allowed air to enter the low tire. Once that was completed, I drove to the Walmart in Rock Springs to resupply and see if the tire air was holding. I suspected a slow leak. That same tire had been repaired about six months ago for a nail hole.

Now my wife and I have never been very big supporters of Walmart, which has driven many small independent businesses out of business. One nice thing that Walmart does do (sometimes) is to let recreational vehicle users stay overnight. Walmart figures they will spend some money resupplying, and it’s a cheap overnight for people on the road. Many Walmarts, in response to pressure from private campgrounds and local city councils , have stopped offering the service as ordinances are passed prohibiting overnight stays in parking lots.

Some of this is understandable, as there are always people who take advantage of the situation: staying for weeks, taking prime parking spots, leaving trash and worse behind, and generally treating the parking lot as their personal free campsite instead of just an overnight sleepover.

Thankfully, the Walmart in Rocks Springs, Wyoming, still allows overnight stays. When I asked for permission, the manager, seeing my shopping cart full of provisions, told me that it was ok to stay overnight but to park in the back of the parking lot (which I had already done). Knowing that I was going to Utah (where watered down beer happens), I stocked on beer, food, toiletries, and miscella-neous items (including ice cream). I took Elvis on long walks to make up for leaving him alone while I shopped, read, caught up on email and the blogs, and generally relaxed. That was the good part.

The bad part is personal to me. I need darkness to sleep. The security lights at Walmart make it seem like broad daylight at 3 am. I slept quite poorly. I know that I should have black-out curtains or an eye mask or something, but I think that I will make my overnight trips to Walmart infrequent. In the morning, I was glad to see that the tire was holding it’s pressure at 35 psi. I also checked the trailer tires which also were holding pressure. All good for the next adventure. To Salt Lake and beyond!