… and we had a glorious paddle on Quail Reservoir this morning before heading off to Zion National Park. Mike and Westi left this morning to join us. Lucky us though… we’re only a half hour from Zion so our travels are short. We spent the last two nights here, outside St. George, Utah. It’s lucky we were so close to a city since Ginger got sick and needed to go to the vet. It turned out to be a bladder infection and something else we’re not sure of … maybe a side effect of her heart meds or maybe she ate something she shouldn’t have. At any rate, she seems to be on the road to recovery today.

Being out on the water was blissful. The water was serene, the views outstanding, and the bird watching was fun too. I didn’t expect to see loons in southern Utah but there they were, in the middle of flocks of eared grebes (life birds for us), western grebes, buffleheads, golden eyes and mergansers. Oh, and with the requisite osprey flying above and the lovely song of a canyon wren serenading from the shore. I took pictures but haven’t done anything with them yet. The same is true for the three days before that spent on BLM land in the Nevada desert, in a place called Whitney Pockets. It was beautiful in a way that photographs (at least mine) can’t begin to capture.

Everywhere has been wonderful … except for the wind. It wasn’t windy in Pahrump, and it wasn’t windy in the Bakersfield Camping World parking lot. Other than that, this morning was the first break from wind we have had. As I said, it was blissful.

… but now we are.

Pahrump, Nevada is an hour outside of Las Vegas and we weren’t going to go there. We just left Tecopa Hot Springs (that post was supposed to be next but it will have to wait now) and we took a short cut to Vegas rather than going through Pahrump. So, when the “check engine” light came on again, and we lost power, we found ourselves in the middle of the Mojave Desert, 80 miles and a mountain pass away from Vegas, with no cell signal.

We’re handling it well so far. We pulled off the road and I checked to see if I could get an internet connection. Yep!! I’m thinking… I’ll email everyone I know and have the first person to respond (we were laying odds on it being Kim) call a tow truck for us. We’ve got water, food, internet … everything we need. If we have to spend the weekend out out here, we’ll be fine. While I’m thinking this, a nice man and (I’m guessing) his son, stop to check on us. They’re from Vegas and they know something about diesel trucks. They suspect a vacuum leak from the turbo charger and they suggest we limp our way to Pahrump.

We didn’t have to limp as, when we started up again, the engine had normal power. Now we are in Pahrump and, as I type, the Chevy dealer is running diagnostics. Will they be able to fix it? Will we spend the weekend in Pahrump? Tune in next time for the answer to this, and other, scintillating questions!