Back in the Pizza Parlor... but...

MY BRAKES WORK! Dropped it off last night so that I could ride with a guy from California on a trail today. Got back in time to pick it up. Seems to be working just fine. Ran it through a drive-thru wash to get all the dust and sand off. Suprisingly clean for $6. It was one just like LaserWash. Anyway, Tonight was a raffle. They were raffling off some really nice things. Tools, a winch, gift certificates, XM Radios, and a few other things. I wasn't going to buy any of the tickets but at the last minute figured, what the heck, and bought 3. $10 bucks a piece. Aaaand actually ended up winning something. Won a gas/water can carrier that you can mount either on the roof or if you have a tire-carrier bumper or even inside. Just the carrier, no can. Costs $100... soooo, not too bad in my opinion...

Well, afraid I can't post any pictures sense I'm not on my computer. Pretty frusterating. But oh well. Definitely has been nice having the 2GB memory stick. Plenty of room for taking pictures at 5MP. I've taken quite a few and will have quite a time sorting through them. Took a good bit of video but didn't really get as much as I thought I would... of course, I did miss a couple of days of wheeling. My in car video mount didn't work as well as I thought it would. Bounced around alot more than I expected. So, people may get a little sea sick watching the footage. Will try to edit something out of it. Oh, and I should have clarified, Mike, the river in the pictures below is the Colorado River. The Green River and Colorado River meet in one of the canyon areas around here and the Colorado continues.

I believe that I'll be leaving in the morning. There are some guys from Lubbock who are heading out pretty early and heading to Albuquerque where they have some family. They've offered for me to stay with them, but we'll see. I may just see how I feel at that point because they're talking about leaving around 6am and it's around 6hrs to Albuquerque. So, may try to make it a bit farther so I don't have to drive so much in one day. Find an inexpensive hotel along the way. But like I said, we'll see. The guys from Houston are probably leaving after tomorrows run, but... I just don't really feel like chancing breaking something at this point. I've already spent a bit just fixing the stupid brake issue and don't want to spend more time and money to fix something that would probably be more expensive. Plus, I'm just ready to head back to Nac. I've really really enjoyed this trip and would like to think that I could do more to my truck and come back in a year or 2 and do alot more and enjoy it even more and maybe even bring somebody with me. But, time will tell. This will most likely be my last post from Moab. I plan to be back sometime Saturday with tons of pictures, so, once I'm back with a faster connection I can add alot more to this. Of course it may just be easier to tell yall in person. But for the people not in Nac, I will do my best to summarize the trip well through this page. Again, thank you all for your prayers and e-mails, etc. Please continue to pray that nothing brakes on the way home and I can get home smoothly and safely... See yall soon!

Jon

Hiking around Moab...

Well first off, this is what my cabin looks like on the inside. Used the fisheye lens so you could actually see more of it. Not too bad. Works for me. And yes, the PC is sitting on the top bunk so I can get a better signal.


Hard to see in this picture, but this is a wide shot of the Portal RV Park with my cabin on the left side. If you click on it you can probably see it better. Anyway, that is the view I get to see in the morning. Not too shabby.
One of the Moab signs. It's been plastered with random stickers. A little suprised they haven't changed it out. But I guess once they do it will just get stickered again.


Here is a look down one of the sidewalks. Plenty of little shops and stores to go in and check out. Some nice eating places as well. It really kinda reminds me of The Drag in Austin. If you look close you can actually see me in this picture...



And yes, gas is a bit more expensive here. Was glad that I was walking and not wasting gas today. Although I do have a pretty nice tan now. Of course, my left side is darker than the right due to driving with my arm out of the window mainly while offroading... trying to watch where my wheels are going to go. Pretty neat to be able to just go down the street and look up to see these mountains and rocks all around you. Thanks to everyone for the birthday calls and messages! I really appriciate it! Is a bit weird being away from everyone on my birthday. I look forward to being back in Nac. See yall soon!

Just another day in Moab...

Well I got the parts in this morning, so that's good. Went back by a shop this morning to talk to them about maybe installing the parts for me. They don't have time today, but will tomorrow. So, they gave me a price that didn't seem bad. So, I'd rather just drop it off with them in the morning and get it back by noon instead of having to bug some of the guys here to death to help me install the stuff. I know I said that I was sure they'd help me, but tonight is the do your own thing night and I think that alot of the guys have things planned. So, anyway, should be back in order by noon tomorrow. The trails they were taking today were kinda iffy for me anyway.

Well, didn't bump into anyone this morning who was going out to do anything, so, I'll figure out a way to entertain myself. I think I'm probably just going to pack a backpack and go take some pictures. Don't worry, not going off into the mountains or anything, at least nothing to where I'd have a chance to get lost. I'll have my GPS though. Yeah, Mike, you'd love to come up here and backpack or MTN. Bike. Those guys are everywhere. Would be cool to have a bike today. The pizza was pretty good last night. Plus the fact that it was free. They had one pizza that had a cheese that seemed to have a Chalula type sauce mixed into it then had some chicken mixed in... man.. it was good.

Figured I'd just post a few more pictures from yesterday.

A nice day of riding... not driving...

Well, I stopped by a parts store to talk to them about parts and we'll see what they get me tomorrow morning. From what I understand, most people think that the caliper must have frozen, quite possibly at some point on the trail(most likely at a particular spot at which I will show you later) and just ground my brake pad in to the rotor and killed it. So, that makes me feel better that maybe it was something that I couldn't have necessarily prevented before leaving on the trip. Because I don't feel that I ride my brakes hard under normal conditions. But on these trails... they get a HUGE workout. Just got stuck from heating up and going through water crossing... never the less, it's something that has to be fixed before I head home. And will get fixed. Plenty of great and knowledgeable guys here that can and will help me out.

So, with no chance of wheeling, and having missed the 8am caravan out(not because I overslept but because I was at the shops and part stores till after it was too late), I bumped into a guy and his dad that we had met up with in Amarillo from Florida. Cool guys. Bumped into them at Burger King when I was getting breakfast. I was just going to hang around Moab and check things out (which doesn't take too long). These guys were planning a trip to CanyonLands National Park and invited me to ride along. We had a great time. Got along great. Saw alot of neat sights and did a little offroading through the park. Went down some switchbacks and right up next to cliffs and canyons(hence the name...). Saw some Indian writings. Just got back around 5pm. Long day out.

And yes, yesterday was the hardest offroading I have ever done.

Here is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. There was no bypass around this...

Look so so? Maybe not too bad? Check out this picture of the guy who went before me from a better angle...

There was a good size drop off to the passenger side about a foot... maaaaybe 2 foot from where the tires land. (pictures don't do it justice) And when I say "land".. I mean you just about, no no, you definitely nose dive the front down, the slooooowly pull forward and let the back drop down. No damage though.. well... except probably the brakes. Except that I didn't notice any problem till a good ways down the trail. Anyway, so, that's the most exciting offroad obstacle to date. Anyway, another shot with me in it. Well I've got to go grab some supper. Nissan is buying us all "Zak's Pizza". The guys I rode with today said they ate there last night and probably would be finding something different tonight... so... we'll see if it's any good.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

Will try to call later...

So close... yet so far...

So, let's all think together... What's something else one should check before going on a trip? What's something you should definitely get checked especially before going offroading? What did I forget to check? My brakes... Everything was going well. We were on a very long and pretty challenging trail (at least for me). Went down quite a few big drop offs and up some big ledges. Made everything I tried. We were less than a mile from the end of the trail when I noticed my Xterra wasn't sounding right. It had a vibrating feeling and was creaking a bit. First I thought it was just sand in the brakes or something. But I finally got out and we got to looking and long story short, found that I had worn my front passenger side brake pad down to nothing... yeah... Luckily I wheel with guys that can fix just about anything or at least get you off the trails. So, running with 3 brakes right now. We're having a Nissan Repair Clinic tonight... great timing... Will talk to some guys tonight on what all I need to do. At least this happend before I went on Lions Back... might not have been the best thing in the world... Have a feeling I may not be doing it at all now.

On a lighter note. I thought it was going to pour on us when we were at a high point on the mountain but it just dripped a little bit. Nothing bad. The rest of the run was great. Saw more incredible scenery and got to drive some fun trails. This is a picture well before my brake problems. I know some other guys got some great action shots of me that I'll be getting later.
Finally, here is my cabin. At least at outside shot. Will take inside shots later. Have to go to the repair clinic soon... The winds are starting to get pretty crazy here. The inside of my Xterra will need alot of cleaning once I get back... there is a fine, and in other places THICK layer of sand all over the dash and everywhere else...

Moab...

Well, I decided this might be a good way to share some stuff about my trip. We'll see how it works. So far things have been pretty smooth. Today we got up and ate a Denny's then went to Arches National Park. Awesome place. Drove around looking at the different areas. One interesting tid bit. They filmed part of the opening scenes there for Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade. Pretty obvious once you see it. So now I've seen 2 different places in this region from the movie. The other was in Chama, NM. The connection here is really slow. It's "high speed wireless" but there are alot of people on it. So, the amount of images I can share will be limited.

We did a little light "wheeling" today. Had fun, although I'm already sore from riding in the car, plus, the trails we took were pretty rough. Fun though. The scenery is incredible. They actually let 4x4's just drive through certain areas. I was shocked. We took 2 different trails. One was over 9miles long... took FOREVER. Probably an hour or so. But it was good. Driving where alot of other poeple can't go is alot of fun. I feel a little goofy because I'd say my Xterra is probably the smallest one here. Feel a bit dwarfed by the mega trucks. But, we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Start the "real" stuff then.

Well, I'll hopefully be able to do this every night. Should have time to. We don't have tons of stuff planned. The town is nice. The main street is a nice modern up-to-date downtown touristy area. It's neat. Bought a hat and some cheap sunglasses. They help ALOT. Can't find my Old Navy hat... it's the only other hat I have. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well and feel free to share this page with anyone you think would be interested. And feel free to e-mail me. jonathan@frontlet.com