Nothing Special's Moab Trip - 2024

[Nothing Special]

Friday and Saturday - Heading Home

But first I need to catch up on a couple things from Thursday.  Two of the YouTube channels I watch are Matt's Off-Road Recovery and TrailMater.  Matt does recoveries around Sand Hollow (SW Utah where we went in 2022) and Rory uses his off-road tow truck, named TrailMater, to do recoveries around Moab.  I stopped at Matt's place (but didn't meet him) when we were at Sand Hollow, and I was planning on stopping at Rory's place Thursday afternoon, hoping to meet him.  So the point of all of that is that a while after going down Dragon's Tail she told me what she was thinking as we went down.  She really didn't want anything to go wrong where we'd need to be recovered, but her thoughts were "I don't want to meet Matt today, I don't want to meet Rory today, and I don't want to meet Jesus today!"

The other thing from Thursday is that we did stop at Rory's shop, but it was closed, so we didn't meet anyone.  But TrailMater was parked there, and there was an empty spot next to it, so I did get a picture!



OK, on to Friday.  Some people in the campground had told us about a short hike close to town up to a place called Fox Falls.  We Googled that and couldn't find Fox Falls, but we did find Faux Falls!  Turns out it is real water, and it is really falling, but when our kids asked "did you see the fox? I could answer, yes, we saw the faux!

The last part of the drive to the falls said "high clearance and 4WD required."  Pluto has the clearance, but he was front wheel drive at this point because I had already pulled the rear driveshaft for the tow home.  I ended up needing the front locker and still had to take a few tries to get a big enough run up some sandy hills!

Anyway, here are some pictures







And here's a short video



And then we hiked up to the top of the falls where we saw the faux



Apparently this is a man-made tourist attraction, where they pump the water up to make the falls!

So we headed back to camp, got everything packed up and hooked up and were on the road by 11:00 AM.  We drove until 9:00 PM and stopped in eastern Colorado on Saturday, then planned to have a relatively short day Saturday and spend the night in Iowa.  But after getting on the road at about 8:00 we were still going strong in Iowa, so we pushed on and got home at 10:30, an 800 mile day.

It was a really good trip, and thanks for riding along!

[Gary Lewis]

Yikes!  I think Lesley's state of mind is easily understood when she's thinking "I don't want to meet Matt today, I don't want to meet Rory today, and I don't want to meet Jesus today!"  

I'm guessing that was caused by physically and emotionally-draining day the previous day as you've done most of that stuff before.  So I can see why you headed home when you did.

But TrailMater looks cool.  I think I've watched a bit of Rory's stuff, but mostly watch Matt's channel.  (I was scanning one of Matt's videos recently and saw that he hooked up to the trailer hitch on a Ford pickup that was in danger of going off the road and down a valley.  And I was thinking "NO!  Don't pull him out with that".  But then I realized he was just keeping the truck from sliding sideways and the actual towing was in front.)

As for the sand, it is amazing how hard it is to get through some of that stuff.  I hadn't locked the hubs in on Big Blue when we did the Sugar Creek Loop recently and got into some sand that required a whole lot of throttle and a struggle to keep the rear end behind us.  So I understand the problem you were having.  But the scenery was good, even if the waterfall was faux.  And Lesley is smiling in the pic.  

And I also understand having a long day to get home and sleep in your own bed.  We've many times had a really long day 'cause we didn't want to stop a couple hours from home.  There's no place like home.

Glad you made it home safely.  But sorry that you got such bad news and had a rough day - at the same time.  That can't have been fun.

[Nothing Special]

Overall Lesley still had a good day on Thursday.  She laughed at her "I don't want to meet..." thoughts too.  And it wasn't specifically her state of mind that led me to decide to cut the trip short a day.  We had done what we wanted to do and we were both pretty worn out.  We could have forced another hard trail in, that neither of us would have really enjoyed.  Or we could have done an easy, scenic trail in 104° heat, but that didn't seem worth it.  Or we could check out Faux Falls in the morning before it got too hot and then take it easier going home (or, as it turned out, still push going home but take it easier unloading and unpacking all day Sunday rather than Monday after work).  Lesley kept asking me "are you sure you don't want to do another trail?"  So it wasn't her, it was just the right call.

As to Matt using a trailer hitch as a recovery point, he embodies a thought I gave my kids as they were learning to drive.  When they'd do a rolling stop (like I sometimes do) I'd tell them that until they were reliably looking both ways I wanted them to come to a complete stop to do it.  But the way I said it was "don't start developing bad habits until you have good habits."  Matt really knows what he's doing, and he takes shortcuts.  If you've seen his shop videos you've probably seen him using a cut-off wheel without ear- or eye-protection.  And he's constantly welding without gloves and with his arms uncovered.  I'm not going to say he does things wrong, especially on recoveries.  But I will say that most of us shouldn't take what he does as the text book for how to do it right.

And TrailMater is really cool!  It's not a pretty truck, but it's a really capable rock buggy that can do it while towing a truck or pulling out a side-by-side on a trailer!  I would have liked to meet Rory, but I am glad I didn't do it off the side of Dragon's Tail

[Gary Lewis]

Good points all around.  First, it isn't good to push it on a vacation.  It is best to heed the inner voice that says "it is time".  Too many of us don't and end up wishing we had.

As for short cuts, but only after developing good habits, that is a good way of explaining it.  Matt knew that he wasn't going to put much rearward tension on the trailer hitch.  Instead, he was placing mostly side pressure on it to keep the truck from going downhill.  He already knew that using the drawbar as a full recovery point wasn't a good idea, so wasn't doing that.  But at first glance that's what it looked like.

And both Rory and Matt have cool equipment that they've developed specifically for the recovery needs they've encountered.  The Morrvair is one example of that, but so is Trail Mater.  Totally different but both get the job done.  Still, it is good that you didn't need their services.

Good trip!  Thanks for letting me follow along vicariously.  (Wish it could have been first hand, but that wasn't meant to be.)

[BigBrother-84]

Nothing Special wrote

OK, on to Friday.  Some people in the campground had told us about a short hike close to town up to a place called Fox Falls.  We Googled that and couldn't find Fox Falls, but we did find Faux Falls!  Turns out it is real water, and it is really falling, but when our kids asked "did you see the fox? I could answer, yes, we saw the faux!

Apparently this is a man-made tourist attraction, where they pump the water up to make the falls!

They say that «It was created in 1981 as part of a water storage system. Water from Mill Creek was diverted through a tunnel, and then over the landscape itself to cascade down until it reaches Ken's Lake.».

Funny that they didn't name it "Fake Falls" but preferred instead to use a French word.

[Nothing Special]

"Faux" just sounds so much better than "fake", maybe especially if you think it's pronounced "fox", because that would indicate you don't know any French so you don't know what it means!

I'm reminded of a guy I used to work with who brought his mail into work to open.  One day he had an ad for costume jewelry (this was pre-internet spam).  He ended up ordering about $20 worth, which came in two 18" cube boxes (which gives you an idea of the quality!).  As he was picking things out he was really excited by one piece.  He loudly announced to all of us "look, this one isn't cubic zirconia, it's a genuine fox diamond!"

[Gary Lewis]

[BigBrother-84]

LOL!