October 21, 2010

From the Zion Canyon Campground and RV Park; N37°11.582’ W112°69.475’

It has been a little over a month since we got to the house in Las Vegas. We have spent considerable time catching up on doctor’s appointments, and taking care of business around the house.

The week of Oct. 10-16 I went to the National American Coach Rally at Sam’s Town. There were some good seminars and venders and great food. Kevin Mallory did some of the work that we started last year in Celina, OH and were supposed to do this year in Quartzsite. We plan to finish the work of replacing the incandescent lights with LED in Quartzsite this year, plus a few other things. The list seems to keep growing.

At the house we finally got the leaking shower in the master bath fixed. The control was s corroded that it sprayed water into the wall and it ran down and onto the floor outside the shower door. Luckily there was no damage to the tile and only minor damage to the dry wall and baseboard. After the water problem was solved we got a contractor to take out the carpet in the bath and closet and replaced it with tile. The tile goes past the bedroom doors so the travel area from hall to bath is now tile. They also redid the grout as needed in the shower. This job was finished on Wednesday. We also contracted for decorative iron gates across the front entry arch. They were scheduled to be installed today along with some repair to the side gates leading to the back yard.

By about 10AM we were on the road to Zion Canyon. This is the resumption of what used to be annual trips to Zion with Bill and Elaine Cavagnaro. We have missed the last two years. The trip was uneventful for us, but Bill had a flat which delayed their departure from Las Vegas. We have had rain for the last several days and today the weather looked threatening with low clouds on all the mountains. We arrived at the RV Park and were set up by about 3:15 PM, MST. Bill and Elaine arrived about an hour later.

On the way through Springdale we had both noticed a new restaurant, the Flying Monkey. We had to go because of the name. A geocache called Flying Monkey Mesa is nearby. Flying Monkey Mesa is actually Smith Mesa on your maps. It has the unusual name because of US Army activities there during and after WWII. The geocache page has some of the legend at; http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f08ce1b5-3a04-4527-8441-bd8c574528ee&log=y&decrypt=. This cache was my first Didn’t Find It after I started caching in 2002. We did find it on the next trip in Sept. 2003. A very memorable cache! And not a bad dinner, the feature pasta and pizza in a wood fired oven.

After dinner we visited for a while back at the park and then retired for the night.