We departed Arches around 8AM, it was 38F and mostly sunny. Our original itinerary's next stop was the Grand Canyon since we have a camping reservation there. However we chatted with a couple from the area on the Devil's Garden hike and they strongly suggested we pass through Bryce even if we don't have time to do any hiking. Allowing a few hours at Bryce would put us into the Grand Canyon around 8PM. This breaks one of our rules about not driving in the dark, but only by a little bit.
The drive to Bryce was in high wind conditions, but not as bad as when we came across Kansas, however Mercedes didn't like it...again no cruise.
When we left Arches we had just over 1/2 tank of fuel. I typically fuel up every 250 to 300 miles, so I planned to go about 100 miles and look for fuel. There should be a sign on I70 that says no fuel for 150 miles...if there is, we missed it. We went 175 miles before finding a fuel station, 376 miles on a tank fighting high winds. I was sure we were going to run out of fuel, I cut the speed back to 60mph and coasted down every hill. The Mercedes stopped reporting distance left on fuel and just said go to a fuel station, this was for at least the last 50 miles. It was very stressful. The sprinter holds 26.4 gallons and the fill-up took 23.7 gallons, so technically I had 2.7 gallons left but I don't know how much of that is usable. Anyway, I am now looking far ahead for fuel stops, we would rather do without self inflicted stress.
We made it to Bryce around 2:30PM and stopped and talked with a ranger about what to see in a short time. We took her recommendations and set off for Bryce Point
The views are spectacular. and pictures just don't capture it.
We also visited Inspiration Point; each location has a unique vista.
At Inspiration Point there is a bit of hiking to get to the different views and covered in 6 inches of slushy snow it was like walking in quicksand.
Our last stop was at Sunset point where we asked a young man to take our picture. He was British on holiday with a few buddies, they were a hoot....after about 5 mins of joking, they said 'oh you wanted a picture of you two', they were fun. We ran into them again in the parking lot, they had serious RV envy.
This is the picture they took.
We left Bryce and headed for the Grand Canyon. It was another 300ish miles to go, it was an uneventful drive. We arrived in the dark at about 8:30, our site was posted on the window of the closed office and we somehow found it in the dark. We cooked pizza in the convection oven for dinner, all on batteries, very cool.
I know most don't think this is cool but I do.
This is a screen shot from my battery monitor. It shows the oven sucked about 140Amps of power when it was pre-heating, the inverter was putting out 1800 Watts, it is rated for 3000.
It also showed the entire process was about 1/2 hour and used about 15% of the battery or about 42Ah of capacity, our batteries have a 280Ah capacity. You would not be able to cook too many pizza's on batteries.
I am sure the batteries will rebound tomorrow with solar and the little bit of driving we do to check in and go to the visitor center.
Friday we will get the views some hiking and maybe biking.
After Pizza (and beer) we turned it, it was a long driving day.
We camped in a tent at Bryce in a huge rainstorm. Not fun. Finally a sunny day today. Sue
ReplyDeleteYes. It was in May 1970 and the desert was in full flower. Had to move our tent in the middle of the night as we were camped in a “Dry” creek bed until it started to pour.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your trip is going smoothly and hope it will continue that way.
Sue, that sounds moist. Bryce was still in full winter when we stopped, hiking or camping would have been messy. Fred J.
DeleteBryce was also stunning but hiking was not on the agenda. Hopefully, the Grand Canyon will be dry.
ReplyDelete