Sunday/Monday: Uncle Joe and RV Repairs

We’re having a great time in Yellowstone today, but I thought I’d mention some fun we had on Sunday in Provo, Utah. It was a nice lesson in patience, but God brought us through it.

 

First, we found out that little aluminum bed frames aren’t very strong. When kids bounce on them in the back of the RV playing trampoline, they tend to snap in half. We also discovered from the Lowes’ guy that Aluminum is apparently a hard project to learn welding on. So, we skipped learning how to weld, and instead bought lots of nice metal brackets to put everything together with. After spending some time redoing the frame, we now have a much more “kid-tolerant” bed frame that should withstand the rigors of kid travel. We even built some little aluminum legs that fold down when the bed is in travel position so people can now sit on it without bending and/or snapping it in half again.

 

The reason we had plenty of time to rebuild the frame I mention above is as follows. In Provo, Utah, we found that Ford 10 cylinder engines occasionally throw their spark plugs clean out of the engine, ripping the threads out of their socket. At least that is what Ben, the traveling-work-on-Sunday-for-a-premium-repair-man told us. Luckily, he said his Uncle Joe knows how to put a re-threaded socket back into said Ford 10 cylinder engines.

 

After calling Uncle Joe in Provo, Utah, we discovered that he was indeed available to work on the task Monday morning at his house a few miles down the road. We also discovered that a 10 cylinder engine runs very loudly when driven using only 9 cylinders.

 

So with the extra time on Sunday afternoon, we went to a nearby RV park, let the kids go swimming and rebuilt our bed/trampoline. (It works pretty well now.)

 

With a few reservations we showed up at Uncle Joe’s house at 8:30am Monday morning. We noticed Joe’s neighbors were happy to see us bringing our 30-foot-long-RV-that-sounds-like-a-Harley-Davidson-with-no-muffler and park it in Joe’s little driveway. Putting our fears at ease, Joe says he’s actually done about 20 to 25 of these exact issues and said he’d be done in about 2 to 4 hours. Not having much choice, we let Joe go to work while we took the kids to see the new “UP” movie in a rental car. We expected to have to leave the RV with Joe and the neighbors for 2 to 3 times the estimate since that is typically the scenario with mechanic estimates.

 

Amazingly our multiple prayers were answered and Joe was able to have the RV purring like new by noon. And he charged less to fix the problem than his nephew did to tell us what the problem was on Sunday. We thanked Joe and his 4 kids for fixing our RV and then headed off to Yellowstone.

 

God was really watching out for us and the RV is still running well. We got to Yellowstone Monday night. – More to come on the Steele Family Adventure… J

 

 

 

Grand Canyon North Rim Photos

Here are some pictures we took at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon Friday. It sure was beautiful there. We loved it and thought it was a lot nicer than the south rim. We could have stayed there for days.

 

It had these amazing walk ways that went along and into the canyon out onto craggy outcroppings. The paths were beautiful in themselves even if the canyon wasn’t there. There were beautiful trees that grew out of the rocks in these amazing shapes and designs. It was a little scary having Josh & Dan so close to the edges, but we held onto their hands tightly!

 

Photos on the road Friday morning (Before the Grand Canyon)

Here are some photos that we took on the way to the Grand Canyon on Friday. Mikaela was blogging, we saw some awesome sequoias outside of Flagstaff.

 

Greg

God is the master of beauty - Zion National Park

 

On a whim, we decided to turn west and go through Zion National Park today. WOW!! What a great decision. This place was so amazing we decided to stay there most of the day doing hikes and looking around. It was super beautiful.

 

The colored cliffs were ominous. They went straight up from the valley floor. We went on a hike along the valley floor following the river until we couldn’t got any further. At that point the river spanned the entire canyon bottom of only about 100 feet or so across. Many folks went on through the river to a point that is only about 10 feet across further up – they call it the slot canyon because it goes thousands of feet up, yet is only about 10 feet across.

 

There were several places that the sandstone was “Weeping”. The guides said that the sandstone absorbs water and eventually has to “weep” it out when the water hits a layer of shale. The water then goes horizontally and drips out of the sandstone making a place for these “hanging gardens” to grow. Beautiful flowers and fern like plants that seem to be growing right out of the vertical cliffs.

 

Everything was so beautiful. It was truly a wonderful “accident” or more likely, God directing our paths.

 

Ponderings today: The Lord has so much beauty in the world, that we could never, ever see it all even if we spent our whole life pursuing it. This is such a contrast to our human efforts, where we typically only beautify the areas of house, person, work projects, etc. that people can SEE. God on the other hand has so overwhelmingly placed beauty in this world and universe that will hardly ever be seen. It really brings more meaning to songs that proclaim that he IS “Beautiful”. He is the creator of all things beautiful and is so thorough, we’ll never run out of seeing NEW beautiful things, people, acts and thoughts.

 

My mind is blown – He is a master at beauty.

Grand Canyon - North Rim - Jewel of the Deseret

Wow! All I can say is wow! – This is an amazingly beautiful area. We showed up at the north rim turn-off at around 4:30pm Arizona time and were wondering if we should just camp or if we should continue on to the rim which was another 100 miles or so. We decided to go on and got to the north rim of the Grand Canyon about an hour before sunset. We were so glad we did.

 

I’ve seen the south rim of the canyon a few times and enjoyed it, but the north rim is so different! Less people, more trees, amazing walks, it’s more like you are a part of the landscape instead of viewing it from the outside. Much more secluded and much more amazing. I’m now ranking the Grand Canyon as one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. And that last hour before sunset was perfect! The light in the canyon was SO beautiful.

 

There was a trail we followed out to a narrow jutting peak that was actually in the Canyon. You could look down for what felt like miles on either side. (We had firm grips of the Josh & Dan at all times.) Every step of the walk was amazing. The trees that grew up there seemed like the inspiration for the beautiful bonsai trees of Japan. There were overlooks framed by trees all along the trail. The twisting, growing, twirling branches and trunks seemed to know exactly how to grow so that hikers could sit in a picturesque, perfect spot, stopping-time for eternity. It was breath-taking and if you listened really close – You could hear the Colorado river miles away down in the canyon, secretly sculpting the next generation of beauty.

 

Marble Canyon on the way to the north rim

 

We decided to skip the closer south rim of the grand canyon, and try out the north rim, which we had never seen before. People say that it is very beautiful though most people don’t go to it due to the extra distance it takes to get there.

 

We are already really blessed that we came. You drive through the Glen Canyon and Marble Canyon area to get there and those are amazing. You are in them looking up as you drive. The bluffs and painted canyon walls are saturated with reds, pinks, and royal purples. It’s like God was determined to paint a special canvas for the simple desert dwellers who live there. It was an interesting mix. The native American poverty was evident in the area. Very simple and run down dwellings, hidden into the dustiest, barren sections of land, set against beautiful canyons and bluffs. Broken stripped cars from another age, next to no-longer-mobile homes from past decades sitting under majestic walls of color and desert paint. The contrast of ageless beauty from centuries ago contrasted with the aging-not-so-well cast off dwellings and transportation of the poor.

 

Even before getting to the Grand Canyon, we are already glad we came this way. It is a beautiful, moving experience.

 

First mobile office experience complete!

I spent my first mobile office experience in the RV, and amazingly, it worked! We stopped at a rest stop where I had a good cell-phone internet connection, then I called into a conference call. Marsha ran a GoToMeeting virtual desktop session so everyone on the call could see a demo of a product the customer was interested in. I was able to participate in the voice and video part of the call about as well as if I were at the office. Wow! Pretty cool for being on the road in an RV on the way to Flagstaff!

 

And for those of you who are shaking your heads saying, “What’s wrong with him!? Why would he want to work on his vacation?” I twist it around and say, “Hey I got to leave a day early!! All I had to do was join a 45 minute call in the middle of the desert to get an extra day and-a-half of family time.” J

New Blog!

Hey everyone,

As a family vacation project, Mikaela, Jonathan, and I are setting up some blogs. We're going to practice journaling, learn about blogs, do some creative writing, etc. Fun stuff to do in an RV to pass the time.

Mikaela: http://mikaelasteele@blogspot.com
Jonathan: http://jonsteele@blogspot.com

Love everyone!