The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home - Day 28 - Ferries Are Real!

Monday, July 22, 2015

Today was all about Utah. The plan takes us from Monticello to Hite for gas. Then we head south and eventually come back to Lake Powell at Halls Crossing. At Halls, we take a ferry across to Bull Frog for the night.

The day started out with some fun, fast, mountain roads.

My self-portrait

Hanksville is exciting! ...Blanding is, well, ...not exciting

It was quite a change from the 13,000-foot passes we were on yesterday! It's amazing how fast the terrain has changed - just as beautiful but in completely different ways.

That butte in the distance is called Jacob's Chair. There are lots of great names on the buttes around here like Cheese Box and Bear's Ears.

We were trying to set a pace that would get us to Halls Crossing by 2pm. We had left at 6:30 am and figured that we needed about a 30 mph average to make the last ferry. We rode without fault or stop for two hours but found that we were only averaging 25 mph on these twisty roads. I rerouted us to shorten the route and eliminate the stop in Hite. When we reached a point where I could check the mileage, it looked like we would be about 10 miles short on our range. This forced us to head into Hite for fuel. From here we had 100 miles and about 3.5 hours so I added a few more road miles to speed it up and we made it to Halls Crossing with 30 minutes to spare.

When the ferry pulled in, we were the only ones waiting. It was strange to see the ferry run into the beach far to the left of the ramp. Then they backed up and came in again. This time they rammed the dock off to the right of where they should be with a loud crash and the solid poles of the dock flexed so much the entire ramp slid up the slope. We felt ourselves backing up!

At this point, we were questioning if we should get on this boat. The third try they rammed the post again, but they were closer to being lined up. Finally, they got it docked and the vehicles on the ferry were allowed to drive off. We were the only ones waiting and after a few minutes, the captain announced over the loud speaker that the ferry is broken and they are not going to Bull Frog! One of the crew came out to tell us that the front thruster was not working and they could not risk the trip (that explained a lot).

This left us with a new dilemma: Riding around the lake would take around 3 hours which was possible but the thought of 3 hours on pavement with these dirtbikes was not at all appealing. I was frustrated and ornery, but Hank convinced me to go ask around to see if someone else could get us across. I was not one bit confident that this would work, but I thought I'd honor his enthusiasm. One thing led to another and we were hooked up with "Captain Tony" . Tony got on his radio and got a hold of Captain Robin who just happened to be on her way to Halls to pick up an Ice Truck. She agreed to let us on her barge!!