A decent night’s sleep and a nice, slow start to the day. I won’t be driving all day and a leisurely start is always good. Hopefully I can find a place where I won’t be bothered by anyone like last night’s annoying idiot encounter and also not full of “residents”.
I took off west toward Vernal, where I would make a turn north. The scenery definitely turned more desert-like the farther west I went. At one point it got to 95 degrees- still way too hot for me – but the humidity was probably in the single digits. It was dry. Much better than a week ago.
I did enjoy the landscape. The older I have gotten I have learned to open my eyes to everything around me and I can appreciate the rock formations and plants, bugs and animals struggling to survive. The mountains are certainly my special place but there’s beauty in ALMOST everywhere. Almost.
My daughters all sent me Father’s Day greetings while I was driving and that was the best part of my day. It’s actually the best part of ANY day!
I planned on going through Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area and on up into Wyoming, continuing north to wherever I ended up. I ended up stopping for an hour or so on a side road in Flaming Gorge. I was going to get out for a look and let the refrigerator run to maintain it’s coldness.
That turned into overnight pretty fast.
I thought about just being able to enjoy the peace and quiet and being left alone. No zombie fighters and no freaks wandering over. It is more my style of camping to be away from people and I certainly have it here even though it’s a forest road off a side road.
I had extra blankets and sweatshirts if need be. Since I was not going to be using the furnace at night I needed to be warm. It was like being in a tent. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.
The dry wind was blowing but the dust in the road was like talcum powder. You didn’t see the dust blowing but could feel it on your skin at the end of the day so I though a shower would be great! I fired up the propane water heater and sat down to ponder what was for dinner while the water was heating.
I had closed the windows earlier to preserve the heat in the trailer. In less than a minute I began smelling something weird – something that wasn’t me. I knew that smell – it was fumes from burning propane. I took the cushion off the bench and removed the cover for the compartment and the smell was overwhelming. It has been the water heater this whole time and not the furnace. I immediately turned it off and opened up the windows and turned on the vent. The carbon monoxide detector sits right above where it can seep out of that storage area.
I still left the furnace off, deciding I’d rather be cold than not wake up.
