TravelStream™ news feed for member rurucru on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/rurucru en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:09:21 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1217041320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1217041320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1217041320/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:09:21 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Winchester, Kentucky, United States

This morning we got up and called the mechanic to hear that the Jeep
had a blown head gasket and the mechanic said it was cheaper to replace
the engine. At that point we started calling Uhaul locations for
a carrier. We found one 30 minutes up the road so we took a taxi
there, got a 14' box truck (the smallest they had) and a car carrier
trailer. We then drove it back to the repair shop, loaded the
Jeep and headed out about noon. We made it a good distance today,
getting just past Lexington KY so tomorrow we should be in Nelson,
VA. It was a relief to get on the road today even if the Jeep is
dead. At this point, we just want to get home. Beth called
the General Lewis Inn (our next stop we were to stay at) and cancelled
since we would not make it in time. Since it is so close, a long
weekend would allow us to go there in the future, we just won't be
taking the Jeep. We refrained from taking pictures today as well
since the only good shot was the Jeep on the trailer.



Take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216953000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216953000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216953000/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:02:43 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Rolla, Missouri, United States

Today we went only a short distance before the Jeep started
overheating. We stopped in Branson and they said that
everything was ok, it was an air bubble in the radiator. About
an hour later, the heat gauge went off the charts again. We
pulled over and let it cool down and limped to the next town, Rolla;
and a service station. We spent the next 4 hours there while the
mechanic replaced the radiator and off we went... another 15
miles. It overheated again. We then had to get it towed
back to Rolla, same mechanic. He met us and locked the Jeep up in
their garage for the night and we walked a block to the Best
Western. No pictures...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216871520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216871520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216871520/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:59:37 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Eureka Springs, Arkansas, United States

This morning we ate breakfast at the Crystal Dining Room in the
Crescent Hotel. Shortly after that, we went to the Eureka Springs
downtown area by way of the Trolley to do some sightseeing.
Downtown, there is a quaint little village of shops and some of the
natural springs as well as the Crescent Hotel's sister hotel, The Basin
Hotel. We left about noon so Beth could make her Spa appointment
in the basement of the Crescent Hotel, the New Moon Spa.
When we arrived, Beth had talked me into also doing a massage so we
both went in for an hour massage and Beth stayed for a face, hand and
feet thingy. The massage was relaxing and I think I can
make the 1000 miles left to drive. Beth came out almost
asleeep. We ate dinner again at the Baker's Lounge on the
fourth floor of the hotel, We went for a short swim and just
after dark, took a walk around the grounds and took some night pictures.



Tomorrow we leave after breakfast and head off toward Tennessee.



Take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216772880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216772880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216772880/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:30:38 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Eureka Springs, Arkansas, United States

This morning, we stopped at a Shell station in Van Buren to have the
Jeep checked out and get the oil changed. They flushed the fuel
injection to clean that out, thinking this was causing the sputtering
on idle. We left there about 11:30AM and headed north. Most
of this trip was at 15-20 MPH because the Crescent Hotel is situated in
the Ozark Mountains. Upon arrival, we were stunned by the hotel
and our room. The hotel was built in 1886 and is made of
limestone from the area. The view from our room (419) is
beautiful. We can see over the mountains from the view on the
fourth floor.



Our room is dark green trim with light green walls and is the room
where the ghost Miss Theadora is known to show herself. The room
above us is the penthouse and Dr. Baker's previous residence where he
is known to visit. On the ghost tour we found that the room below
us is where a college student fell to her death after the building
changed into a female college. Below that, on the second floor,
is where Michael, an not so happy ghost resides. They call the
"19" rooms (i.e. 419, 319, 219, etc.) a vortex where it attracts these
ghosts. On the ghost tour, we also got to go into the old morgue
where the "doctor" performed many questionable operations with some
German "doctors" during WWII being involved. We have a picture of
a table used during some of the live autopsies. Some of the
individuals that were in our group on the tour made the comment that
they had felt like someone/something had "touched" or "pinched" them
during the tour, however neither of us experienced anything out of the
ordinary. We also took a picture of a locker down in the morgue
area that had previously been seen on the television show Ghost Hunters
(you can actually go onto YouTube and type in Ghost Hunters and
Crescent Hotel to see what was revealed during this
investigation). Like the rest of the hotel, our room is
breathtaking and lavish (we constantly find ourselves "oohing" and
"ahhing").



Before the ghost tour, we walked around the garden/exterior of the
hotel. In addition, we grabbed a bite to eat at Baker's Lounge,
which just happens to be located on the same floor as our room.
We ate outside on a patio and enjoyed taking in the views as we ate our
dinner. The food and views were both wonderful.



Tomorrow will begin with a breakfast that is served in the Crystal
Dining Room, a trip on the trolley into the actual town portion of
Eureka Springs for some sight seeing and possible shopping, a quick
lunch, and then Beth is off to the Spa to receive some TLC (Tadd is
still trying to decide what to do doing this 2 hour time period, he
just is sure that he doesn't want to spend it "alone" in the room).




Hope you are doing well and take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216690200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216690200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216690200/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:08:29 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Van Buren, Arkansas, United States

Today we finished traveling through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and
ended just into Arkansas. We gave a shout-out to Olga's family in
Oklahoma on the way through :) We tried a Tex-Mex restaurant in
Amarillo, Texas for lunch. We never knew that so many types of
salsa's existed. Both of us were relieved when we started seeing
trees again in Oklahoma, however this marked the return of the
humidity. We stopped for about an hour at the Route 66 museum in
Oklahoma named "Devil Wire Museum". The devil wire being barbed
wire. Thee entire museum was all about barbed wire with some
Route 66 history thrown in. The pictures for this day are from
the museum.



The Jeep was rejecting the heat today and at a few stops for gas,
decided to stutter on idle until we let it cool down for 15 minutes or
so. Tomorrow we plan on stopping at a service station to have it
checked out and will be headed North for a short hour and a half to our
next destination; the Crescent Hotel.



Take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216605000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216605000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216605000/tpod.html Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:40:25 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Santa Rosa, New Mexico, United States

We left Utah this morning and headed South to the Four Corners.
This is where you can stand in one spot and be in 4 states at once;
Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. The center area of the
place (all outdoors) has a large area marked out for the corners and
all around this are vendor booths with all Navajo indian vendors
selling authentic Navajo arts.

We left there and headed South to Gallup, then East toward Albequerque,
NM where we planned to stay the night. On the way, we saw Route
66 signs and stopped at the Route 66 Casino. Beth had never been
in a casino before so we decided to gamble a little. It was great
watching Beth try to decide which slot machines to play. We each
had $20 to blow and Beth came out with $10 left and I, $5 and 2 slips
to redeem for 2 cents and 4 cents.



We made it to Santa Rosa, NM which is about an hour and a half farther
east than Albequerque, NM so we have a shorter drive the next 2 days to
Arkansas.



Take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216506540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216506540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216506540/tpod.html Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:43:05 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Moab, Utah, United States

Well, rafting down the part of the Colorado River we did today wasn't
the adventure we expected but we stayed cool. It was 8 hours of
mostly floating on a raft with a few small dips. We ate lunch at
a wonderful ranch, Red Cliff Ranch (the second oldest ranch in the USA)
where there was a cookout style meal. We had a lively group for
the morning half of the trip where we chased other rafters and had
splash wars with them to keep everyone cool. The afternoon group
consisted of a German family that looked like they didn't want to be
there (only the husband spoke some English and one of the kids kept beating
Beth with the ore) and a Mormon couple... They were all
quiet.


After that we did laundry :(


Tomorrow we head off toward Albuquerque, New Mexico with the next major
stop being Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We are also going to stop at
the "Four Corners" and take some photos so we should have some to post.


Take care,
Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216427400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216427400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216427400/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:50:22 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Moab, Utah, United States

Today we headed southwest of Moab to the Canyonlands National Park for
some off-roading. We set off with maps in hand and plans to take
Shafer Trail from Moab to the Canyonlands, in itself, was labeled an
easy 2 hour trail. The beginning was a nice, somewhat rocky, even
drive. About 45 minutes into the ride and we were on the edge of
a cliff. One particular pass (in one of the pictures) was quite
frightening to say the least. It was a single lane that looked
like some of the edge had fallen off around a blind right hand curve,
downhill. Beth had a "come to Jesus" moment as we made that
turn. Soon after, we had a breath-taking view of an "S" shape of
the Colorado River from 3500 feet up (no ropes, no fence). You
can see the Jeep parked next to the cliff edge in one of the
photos. The trail wound around the cliff edge for quite a bit,
then connected with another trail which heads up the face of the cliff
in a series of switchbacks. We had a driver in front of us in a
2-wheel drive Toyota SUV that got stuck numerous times. We helped
put rocks in the sand areas on the cliff edge to get them
through, At one point I thought we were going to have to tow them
up. Once at the top, there was an overlook of the switchbacks
which we posted as a photo on this page.

Once at the top, we
took a breather at the "Island in the Sky" visitors center, then
followed the asphalt roads to the overlook points on this uppermost
tier of the Canyonlands park. We have a picture of Beth and I at
the Grand View overlook and we have some incredible panorama video of
the view.

On the way down, we took a trail called the "Long
Canyon". This starts off with "Pucker's Pass" which is labeled a
difficult trail and it was a technical rock crawl in a canyon that was
barely wide enough
for the vehicle to pass. A little ways down
and there was a huge fallen rock that I guess was too big to move so
you just drive under it like a tunnel (see photo). The rest of
this trail was a fairly easy set of switchbacks since the drop was only
about 500 feet as opposed to the 4000-6000 foot drop on the other trail.

Once
out we ate at a diner in Moab and are calling it an early night since
we are getting up at the crack of dawn to white water raft on the
Colorado tomorrow.

Take care,
Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216347300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216347300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216347300/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:34:39 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Moab, Utah, United States

Where to begin... After breakfast at the Inn, we headed back down the
steep 30 mile drive into the town of Moab where we setup a Saturday,
all day rafting trip down the Colorado River, bought lots of bottled
water and Visine and headed to the Arches National Park entrance.
Oddly enough, there we were met with vacationers in rented drive
campers, mini-vans and cars. The park is setup with paved main
roads that gets you within a short hike of the view. We were able
to see all the main road had to offer by about 2PM and decided to take
one of the "4 wheel drive only" jeep roads out. That is where we
left the others behind. For 2 hours, we were all on our own,
crawling down a beautiful dirt path. The path crossed over alot
of dry stream beds and giant petrified sand dunes. About half way
down, there was a small sign set on a hillside. We stopped,
walked over to it and we were standing on fossilized dinosaur
footprints. They were all over that area. It was a treasure
in the middle of nowhere. We will post one of the best pictures
we got of the footprints on this page. Beth pushed me out the way
to take a turn driving. And for a while, she was comfortable
until we came to a steep embankment where she turned the wheel back
over. There were a number of challenging banks, creek beds and
rock hills which made it a great ride. I am not sure without the
lift kit and tires, if we would have made it through without any
vehicle damage. Near the end, there was a nice big mud puddle and
Beth, knowing what was coming, rolled her window up. Little did
we both know, it was deeper than imagined and the wall of water went
over the hood and down from above HAHAHA!!

After the ride, we went into town and did some shopping in the town of
Moab for t-shirts and hats and signed on for "dutch-oven dinner and a
boat tour". This is where we found out about petroglyphs on a
rock face nearby so we went over and checked it out.

The dinner was great and was setup family style. After dinner,
everyone loaded onto a large, flat, open-topped riverboat and went up
river. Along the way, the tour guide spoke about the area and
modern history of Moab. Then coming down the river, they put on a
lightshow on the canyon walls and went through the history of the rock
formations all the way through the Indians of the area which was
wonderful.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Canyonland State Park for more off-roading.


Take care,

Tadd and Beth
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216353540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216353540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rurucru/1/1216353540/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:33:49 -0400 Moab or Bust!

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Moab, Utah, United States

Greetings from Moab, Utah. We finally made it.

The day was only supposed to be 8 hours according to Google but it took
us over 12 hours... of course we stopped at every overlook point.
The Rocky Mountains were spectacular--both visually and on the Jeep's
performance under straining conditions (11,000 feet above sea level
does not allow a vehicle to easily mix air and gas, add in 7% grades
and you have an interesting trek across the Rockies). We stopped
along the Colorado River and enjoyed seeing a group of rafters (we are
planning to do this ourselves later this week in Utah). The
temperature ranged from 100 degrees in Denver to a cool 60?? degrees at
the top of our journey over the Rockies.

As we approached Utah, so did the stormy weather that had been
following us throughout much of the second half the Rockies
journey. We became happy when we finally entered Utah and saw
three snow covered mountain peaks off in the distance (this both
represented the La Sal Mountains, as well as an end to a long day on
the road). We drove on I-70 for approximately 50 miles of vast
open nothing (no gas stations, no houses, etc) until we finally
embarked onto the last portion of our trip (Moab--30 miles off the
interstate). We found Mt. Peale Inn and have settled in for the
night.

Tomorrow will most likely represent more time driving (but this time it will be "Jeep Style").

Take care,

Tadd and Beth
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