Day 28: Thursday 22-Jul-1999
From: Duck Creek, Utah
To: Moab, Utah
Distance : 300 mi (480 km)
(Total towing distance upto date :3177 mi (5083 km))
Time: 7h
Erik and Isabella slept out in the tent, like the night before. Closing the roof vent of the trailer did not help that much with regards to the morning temperature. We did have it a bit warmer before we went to bed. It must have been about 2F (1C) warmer, bringing it up to 42F (5.5C) outside .. As we got up and checked our trailer batteries we saw we had plenty left, so we just turned on the furnace to bring up the inside temperature. We ate breakfast, completed our packing and went to the dump station before we were on the road. We had planned to leave around 7 in the morning, but did not pull out of the campground until just after 10.
For some reason we expected the pull to Moab to be very long, like 500 miles. But when we checked with our map software it was just around 300, which is quite doable in one day. Lillemor started to drive. She was nervous going down those steep hills from Duck Creek towards the main road, given the weight on the truck by the trailer, which makes things go a lot faster. Even engine breaking does not always work too well. She ended up pulling all the way to the first rest area on I70 east, which was about 163 miles in one shot. We ate lunch in the trailer with the fans on. It was hot outside.
After the late lunch break, Per took over. This turned out to be an interesting drive. Parts of the drive was downhill into a valley. Per had to use engine breaking. Even shifting down into 2nd gear made it accelerate... He tried to stay off the breaks. In front of us was an 18 wheeler with what appeared to be a less experienced driver. He held his foot on the breaks all the way down. By the end of the hill, big plumes of blue smoke was coming out of his rear end. Another couple of thousand feet and it would probably have caught fire. We could feel the smell of toasted breaks in our truck from the guy in front. This was the first time we saw our transmission temperature INCREASE as a result of engine breaking. The hill just went on and on.
Next we went through a number of long ups and downs. The engine was doing fine, but the transmission crept up towards 245F on the climbs. Next Per made a bit of a split-second mistake. We fell behind a very slow 18 wheeler on our way up what would turn out to be a very very long hill. Per decided to pass. We slowly passed it as we were climbing. But we made it. About two minutes later, while still climbing the same hill, our transmission temp kept climbing. It was very hot outside and zero shade. No trees. Just high desert. When it hit 250F, which is the top of the Trans temp gauge, Per pulled over into the breakdown lane to see if we could cool things down. Unfortunately, we had no choice but to park in the middle on the sunshine on black asphalt. Even the truck breaks felt soft.. Guess what? It took very long for the temp to work its way down enough that we dared to continue, slowly, in the breakdown lane. Signs on the Interstate pointed out that slow moving vehicles needed to use the flashers. We could not, from our experience south of Page, or else our trailer breaks would pulsate. After a while, Per backed off the trailer breaks to zero and turned on the flashers as we continued up the steep hill, in the breakdown lane. We were doing about 15mph. After a while the flashers went silent... We finally found shade under a bridge. There was a narrow breakdown lane we could use. Cars and trucks were zipping by at high speeds. We left the engine running as we let it cool off. The engine cooled rather quickly, but the transmission took for ever to reach 210F. As for the flashers, turns out we had blown its fuse in the truck. Something is seriously wrong with the wiring. Fortunately we had a spare fuse.
Once it had cooled off to a reasonable, but not low, temperature, we started moving again. Nothing appeared to be broken. We made it to the top of this long hill without reaching 245F and the following downhill cooled things down nicely. But we had several long hills ahead of us and touched 245F on each one (and 230F on the engine). We stopped at a gas station by the I70 Moab exit and bought some gas. We could feel the heat outside and it partly explains why things got that hot. They say the Rockies are tough to pull a trailer through. Technically, we have not even hit the Rockies. We wonder what we have ahead of us when we start moving home in a few days?
The campground is turned out to be nice, although the pool is a tad small. Typical southwestern gravel field with a few trees planted in it. We have a nice view of the mountains and are about 9 miles north of Arches National Park. We got setup and walked over to the pool with the kids. It was full with a group of teen-age campers and it made it hard for the younger kids to play. But at least it was cooling us off a bit. We ate at the trailer. This is the first campground we have visited that also has modem hookup. Per used it to dial up and upload some new diary pages as well as get emails. The evening was hot. We turned on the AC, but it could barely bring down the temperature inside, given how the kids kept opening the door.