#404a Young Field WMA Holden, UT, boondock

Bryce to Provo was four hours and more than I wanted to do in one day so we found a boondock halfway. It was kind of a nature refuge ranch land sort of place. I figure ranchers are using it as grazing and they kind of have to allow us to disperse camp here but they want us to keep the gate closed and that seems like not much to ask. I had seen some reviews where some of the idiot Rvers had not kept the gate closed which is bad for cattle Ranchers. It was an enormous field and a gate so we pulled off the interstate and took the service road. As we turned where the GPS said you were supposed to there was a sign that said you were in the right place that was comforting. We went in and there was a pretty big berm to get up and over so the rig landing gear kind of plowed through that. We saw a place where we could do a nice lazy loop and it had a fire ring made of old rocks so we felt like we were definitely at the right place. We set up and it was only meant to be a one-nighter but I enjoyed being way out here in the middle of nowhere for free we had the world to ourselves and of course great dark sky at night. Bert loved it because there were no rules and it was just a pleasant boondock but nothing anywhere near us so we would be eating out of the fridge today for sure.

Now that we were down the hill it was really hot, about a hundred degrees. It was in the afternoon so it was very hot inside the rig. We hooked up the generator and ran the air conditioner and just hoped for the best. All you could really do is stand under the vent and try to be cool but you would never be comfortable, it was just be better than no air. After five minutes or so the generator would cut off. I would go out and crank it back up again but it would cut off way too often. After about three cycles of this, I thought about what could possibly be happening. Just for fun, I checked the oil level and it looks like it was just a little low and I'm not even talking that low but the Honda generator is so smart that it will not let me destroy it. Even though it was just a little low it just cuts itself off. I didn't have any motor oil but I had some transmission fluid which is slippery enough and man whenever I cranked it up it stayed running so that was it. I knew that pretty soon I needed to change the oil as soon as possible and all but it would be slippery enough to run for a few hours. Well, the good news is in the evening maybe 8 pm it did cool off enough to where you could just open everything up and enjoy the night air. Until then it was kind of rough. We will be heading to Provo the next day to a state park and nothing's perfect but at least it was a full hookup with 50 amps and we needed that with all this heat. I write this after the fact and I will say that once we left Bryce we would not have a cool day again until we got to San Francisco as it was always a hundred degrees and brutal so we could never really boondock during this stretch. Whenever we were in higher elevations up in Idaho it wasn't bad, maybe 85 but that would be the exception.

Dept. Fish & Wildlife

I-15 Frontage Rd.

Holden, UT 84636

GPS: 39.1659, -112.2156