At The Ranch – RVThereYet

I still have a couple more blogs to post about our stay in Moab, but things will be a little out of sequence as I wanted to update everyone on where we are, and what we’re doing!

First, the truck update: as of Friday, it was still at Young Ford in Morgan Utah. Ford had decided before they would authorize a new engine, they wanted the engine torn down to find out exactly what is wrong. That, of course, added extra days. Friday Dean called and said that a fuel injector had stuck open, dumping extra fuel into the cylinders, and that cylinder 6 was burned out and cylinder 8 was close. He sent the diagnosis and pictures to Ford extended warranty and is awaiting their decision. He doesn’t expect them to deny the claim, but said they MAY send out an inspector to verify the damage. Hopefully not, and work can get started soon this coming week. Fingers and toes are all crossed!

We pretty much hit the ground running here at Luton’s. We arrived Friday afternoon, and got settled into our site. Saturday we were off all day and set out to do a brief exploration of this north end of Grand Tetons National Park. Saturday night we gathered at the Lodge to have dinner with the other couples working here, and hosted by our employers, Brad and JoAnn Luton. JoAnn had prepared a great meal of baked ham and sausage, with roasted potatoes and vegetables, dinner rolls and pie for dessert. During dinner they encouraged each couple to talk about where we’re from, how long we’ve been working on the road, where we’ve been. It was a wonderful introduction to each other, and Brad and JoAnn also participated, telling us their history and how the guest cabins came to be. It’s quite a fascinating story.

The cabins as viewed from across the field

Both Brad and JoAnn’s families are long time Wyoming families, and the guest ranch is built on a parcel of land originally belonging to JoAnn’s family. In 1989 they had to make a decision on what direction they were going to go with the property, and ultimately decided on making a portion of the property a guest ranch, with cabin accommodations for visitors coming to Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

The cabins were all built by Brad and JoAnn themselves, with help from a few family members. They started by getting a permit from the Forestry Service to harvest dead lodge pole pine from the forest ( the trees had been killed by the devasting fires in 1988), and then felled the trees, hauled them out of the forest, and did the process of “peeling” the logs. All before actually beginning the construction of the buildings! They have a scapbook online, which can be viewed here going into more detail of the process. I found it all fascinating, as well as not being able to im…