Wild Horses Couldn't Keep Us Away!

Tooele, Utah

Today Joan and I started our 4th week inventorying BLM roads in Utah. And it looks as though this may be our last as well. No, it's not what you think. Rather our 'team' has done so well that we will be moving on to our next location before the end of the week. And that location is in Idaho! Yahoo!

L-R Chuck, Claudia, Joan, Steve, Sawyer,
Jim, Barb, Max & Dave

Here's a pic of our original team in Tooele. Chuck & Claudia were our trainers and supervisors when we started. Alas, they left last week headed for their new location and a new crop of trainees. They took Sawyer with them. Jim and Barb are history. They are just finishing their 1st year of full-timing and as interesting as this job sounds, it is work. And work is what they did before they retired and went full-time. Their whole reason for full-timing was to travel and enjoy their time away from work for several years. Joan & I will miss them. We really enjoy their company and were looking forward to spending lots of time with them this summer. We do plan on catching up with them this fall. Dave & Maxine are racking up miles as they burn up the BLM roads and trails in this area. And we've already enjoyed several game nights with them playing Fruit Salad, Golf & Dominoes.

That's probably how the entire summer will go; working an area for 2-4 weeks, then moving on to the next location. The 1st 2 weeks were really stressful; learning how to use the equipment; understanding the items that we needed to identify while in the field; and ensuring we were 'logging' and photographing everything properly.......while driving/riding in a 4-wheel drive vehicle across and through pretty rugged countryside...on roads and trails very much different from the ones we're used to being from Florida.

That being said, by the 3rd week we were really starting to enjoy ourselves as we got more and more comfortable with the processes and procedures. And we've been really pleasantly surprised by the ability of the jeep to handle some of the more challenging terrain we've encountered.

State Capital Building

We've taken some day trips into Salt Lake City for shopping and sight seeing.

Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum

Maxine & Dave joined us for a tour of the DUP Museum.








Some of that shopping was to get parts for a couple of RV maintenance issues that I've worked on over the last couple of weekends, including removal of the power 'take up' reel and rewiring of the 50 amp power cable from the reel to the power transfer switch. One of the days it was snowing and we were unable to work, we started to notice that we were losing power to our appliances. As the morning wore on we lost the heat pumps in the roof AC units, microwave,.  satellite & TV. It appeared we had a broken inverter. But after talking to the manufacturer's tech support and performing several troubleshooting tests, we were able to determine that we were not getting shore power to the inverter. Further testing isolated the problem to the 'take up' reel. The repair itself only took about 30 minutes. It was the 4+ hours of calling dealers who couldn't schedule us an appointment for at least 2 weeks; contacting mobile techs that either didn't work in our area or couldn't work on inverters; and waiting on hold to speak with manufacturer's tech support; then 2 hours outside the RV testing this and that....all while it snowed that wore me out. Once the 'take up' reel was removed everything went back to work just like new. I also repaired some loose weather stripping on one of the slides; installed a new handle on the screen door; and removed and replaced a broken foot rest on my recliner.

Sometimes it might seem that our RV lifestyle and maybe even our jobs can be challenging, but it's days like last week when we drove up on a group of wild horses blocking the road that make it all worth while.

I think we'll keep doing this for a while longer.







Well, that's it for now. Stay Tuned. More to Come