My Life and Travels
Drove back to Monument Valley to look around the gift shop at the valley edge and to take the 16 mile drive out into the valley. We had taken guided jeep tour back in 2007 and this time we have a vehicle we can take ourselves.
Also on Monday night the weather (no wind) and the people (no one running around with flashlights or driving in or out of the park) combined so I could take some night time pictures.
The wind blew hard all day in the 20 to 30 mph range but up to 50 mph gusts. We stayed inside the coach all day.
We drove over to Monument Valley this morning and did a little shopping. Didn’t find very much most of the individual stands at the entrance to Monument Valley were closed/empty. A lady at one of the shops said the vendors and the management who is running the building are not getting along and the management company has locked out most of the venders. We didn’t stay at Monument Valley very long, the wind was coming up and I did not close the slides on the coach before we left.
Here are some Gooseneck State Park pictures:
Fishing:
While we were in Montana this Spring my wading boots were wet the whole month and a half we were there. When we got to the big house I made some 12 volt boot driers.
This is where I put them when I wanted to dry them.
Today’s drive:
We drove the longer way to Gooseneck because I wanted to check on a gas station we saw a couple of weeks ago to get propane. Good thing we stopped today because the station has propane but not the adapter to fit our coach, we need propane before Albuquerque.
Campsite view
Parked right on the edge for 4 nights.
Do have some weak internet here.
Here are some pictures from today’s drive:
After two great weeks of fishing on the San Juan River at Navajo Dam we have internet again. We are at the San Juan County Fair grounds because as we were leaving town we developed generator problems again. A last week we had a new carburetor put on the generator. This week I was running the generator so we could have some air conditioning, when I turn the A/C off the generator quit running. We went back to Cummins where the new carburetor was installed and asked them to look at the generator again. Their generator person is in Durango, CO until the end of next week. The service guy gave me the name and number of two other local guys who are good at generators. Neither one of these people called me back. One I left a message the other one had a really nice lady who said they would call me but they didn’t.
At 5 o’clock we decided to give up on getting help and spend the night here at the fair grounds and move on to Gooseneck State Park, Utah tomorrow. We may be able to live without a generator for a while. The biggest challenge will be the week and a half at the Balloon Fiesta. We are there from October 2 – 14. Weather will drive how this works out. With sunny weather the solar panel and watching our electricity usage we may be able to make it through. If not we may have to buy a portable generator. We will see what happens.
I will be going back and updating the blog for our time at Cottonwood Campground, Navajo Dam, New Mexico September 11 – 26.
Today’s travels
Campsite photos
This picture has a fair ground special feature. The fair ground has 574 sites.
Moved to site 6 across the street, our reservations were for 14 nights and our time in site 5 is up. Somebody else has site 5 starting tonight. New Mexico parks have about 1/3 of their sites on no reservation status. Last week I asked the campground host if it would be alright if we stayed one additional night. She said it would be ok to stay another night.
This last picture is looking back at site 5.
If you have something that is messy or you don’t want water all over your site just go across the street and use the open site after people leave and before the next person gets there.
27 fish today
Got a fish on the first and second cast of the day
Fished from11:30 to 4:30
First half of the day was 10-12 inch trout mostly toward the 12 inch size, than got 4 small fish, than nothing.
I was using Zebra Midge size 18, went to a smaller 20 and 22 and started catching fish again, they are tough to hook with such a small fly and equally difficult to get all the way to the net.
Here is the summary of my epic fishing this year on the San Juan River.
9/12. Thursday: 25
9/13 Friday: morning 17 – afternoon 2
9/14 Saturday: 23
9/15 Sunday: morning 6 – afternoon 5
9/16 Monday: no fishing, new carburetor for the coach
9/17 Tuesday: 10
9/18 Wednesday: morning 13 – afternoon up stream to “Qualify Water” 1 to net and nice fish on
9/19 Thursday: morning 9
9/20 Friday: 19
9/21 Saturday: 33
9/22 Sunday: morning 35 – afternoon 26
9/23 Monday: morning 21 245 to date
9/24Tuesday: morning 13 – afternoon 16 in 10+ to 12 inch arrange, one 16 inch brown, 2 casts after this one a 14 inch brown
9/25 Wednesday: 27 on our last day
Total 301
13 morning fishing, all small.
During the afternoon I got 16 fish to the net, all the fish were in the 10+ to 12 inch arrange except for:
One 16 inch brown
Two casts later a 14 inch brown
Last fish about 3:30 quit at 4:00
21 this morning fished from 10:00 to 1:00, between 10:00 and 12:00 caught all the fish at about 12:00 everything stopped and I didn’t have a strike in the last hour.
Today was the most amazing day of fishing. This is by far the most fish I have ever caught in one day.
Tied flies this evening I have used up all I had in my fly inventory.
Zebra Midge. Size 22, 20, 18 and 16
DRAFT more information needs to be added.
Went fishing after Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, fished 11:30 to 4:30. 33 to net and 200+ strikes.
They are hard to hook, just touch the fly before they spit it out. The strike indicator will just drop below the surface of the water or change directions. If quick enough you get a fish or feel the tug on the line. Then the challenge comes with getting them all the way to the net without them coming off. A lot of times the fish will come towards you so you have to strip line in like crazy or when the line goes slack the hook will come out of the fish’s mouth, it is fun.
Needless to say I had a lot more fish on then made it all the way to the net.
This is the size hooks I am using.
Picture of hooks and dime.