Grand Canyon - South Rim

May 15 - May 25, 2013

We spent a full ten days in the area of Grand Canyon National Park. We loved it! I can't say enough about this amazing park. My last post described the idyllic National Forest Service campground where we spent 8 wonderful nights. We spent 2 additonal nights at a KOA "down the road" (60 miles) from the park. The KOA was expensive, dusty, and dirty, but it allowed us to get some laundry done, clean the RV, and explore the quaint little historic town of Williams, AZ.

But back to the canyon. I had seen the canyon before about 40 years ago. It was Rick's first visit. But neither of us was prepared for just how grand, beautiful, and humbling it really is. We took many photos, but our little camera was no match for the scenery. I've included some of the better photos here, but you'll have to trust me that they don't begin to do it justice.

Having a full 8 days at the canyon really allowed us to get to know it. We were camped outside the canyon's south rim, so that is what we saw. The north rim is ten miles away as the raven flies. (Ravens are much more common than crows at Grand Canyon. And as anyone from Baltimore knows, they're better.) It's about 20 miles away on foot, going down one side and up the other, or it's a five hour drive. We hope to get to visit the north rim for a few days later in this trip, but the south rim had plenty to keep us busy during our visit.

Although SiSi wasn't allowed on any trails that went below the rim, she was allowed on the beautiful 12 mile long rim trail which we hiked most of in bits and pieces. Mather Point is the most famous GC overlook, and also the most crowded. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. As always, clicking on the pictures will give you a larger view.

 

 

 

Along the rim trail one view was more beautiful than the next. We took hundreds of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

There are also several interesting historic sites along the rim trail. There is a museum and an archeological ruin of a village that was believed to have been occupied between 1185 and 1225 by the ancestors of the people who are now the Hopi Indians.

There were several structures that had been built in the 1930's by noted southwestern architect, Mary Colter. The Watchtower was inspired by prehistoric structures from the Four Corners region. It affords glorious views of the canyon and the Painted Desert. (I seem to have misplaced my photos of the exterior of Watchtower. I borrowed this one from the internet.)

Here's what it looks like on the inside. My photo, this time.

Also built by Colter was Hopi House, another wonderful building that now contains a gallery of Indian Art.

One of the most interesting museums along the south rim was Kolb Studio,the former home of Ellsworth and Emory Kolb. The Kolb brothers built their home and studio right on the rim of the canyon and took photos of tourists descending into the canyon on mules. In order to develop their photos they would walk miles into the canyon to obtain water, sometimes several times a day. Exhibits about their lives at the canyon fill the studio. They spent their lives exploring the canyon from top to bottom, and made a film of a trip they made through the canyon down the Colorado River which was shown by the National Park Service into the 1950's. They were brave and daring and some of the stories about their exploits are amazing.

We were fascinated by the large number of foreign tourists that we encountered at Grand Canyon. We estimated that at least 60 percent of our fellow tourists were speaking a language other than english. And when you factor in the english speaking foreigners, the percentage of non-Americans was probably closer to 75 percent. I wonder whether this is typical for the GC, or whether it's a function of the weak dollar. Our campground was frequented each night by many rental RV's like this one.

While we have seen rental RV's before, we have never seen them in these numbers. The camp host at our campground explained that travel agencies in several European countries sell tours of the US that include rental RV's. What a great idea!

We got a real kick out of this Russian tour group who stopped at Mather Point and were taking pictures of each other standing on this rock and waving the American flag! When Rick and I started snapping pictures of them, they got shy and wouldn't do it anymore. I wonder if they thought we were the KGB!

"Dry Camping" in Kaibab National Forest

May 15 - May 19, 2013

After dumping our waste water tanks and filling our fresh water tanks at our campground in Holbrook, we made the easy drive to the Grand Canyon area, arriving in time for lunch. I had discovered a nearby National Forest Service campground by reading rvparkreviews.com. This campground is only 3 miles from the park's south entrance gate, and it is the nicest campground we have ever stayed in. When we arrived, the very helpful "camp host" directed us to a campsite that was appropriate to our size motorhome.  It turned out to be a beautiful spot inside a forest of ponderosa pine. The sites are huge and private and the sound of the wind in the pines lulls us to sleep at night. Rick and SiSi startled two bull elk on their walk one morning. It's paradise! And only $10 a night!

The only down side to this campground is the lack of amenities. There are no hook-ups, no dump station, and no restrooms. They do have pit toilets, but no showers. They have water spigots available, but RVs can't fill their fresh water tanks since there is no well and all the water is brought in by truck and stored in a holding tank. None of this has bothered us a bit. We actually find it a kind of fun challenge to "dry camp" and try to see how long we can get by on our holding tanks, battery bank, propane, and generator. We were able to camp for six nights before we had to take on more fresh water and dump our waste tanks. There was a nearby private campground that, for a fee, allowed us to resupply and get rid of the waste.

We had three girls in their early 20's camped next to us in a tent for a few nights. We woke up one morning to 28 degree temperatures. Rick noticed the girls standing around in gym shorts and flip flops, trying to start a fire in their fire pit with twigs. He and SiSi went over and built them a proper fire, donating some real firewood. I then invited them over to the RV for coffee and blueberry pancakes which they called "amazing." They were recent graduates from the University of Indiana who had become friends in the university ski club. They were on a road trip, visiting the Grand Canyon and various other western sights before returning home to jobs and the real world. We enjoyed talking to them, and I got teary-eyed missing my own girls.

If a Log Falls in the Petrified Forest is it on Daylight Savings Time?

May 13 - May 15, 2013

Since we left home on this journey on March 20th, we have basically been "winging it." We left with no reservations at all. This has generally worked for us, allowing us to stay until we're ready to go, and not forcing us to adhere to a pre-arranged schedule that may not suit our needs when push comes to shove. Sometimes we're having so much fun that we want to stay longer in a place than we thought we would want to, but sometimes it's not as great as we had hoped, and we decide to move on.

Usually, a day or two before we move on to a new location, I call the campground where we want to stay next and make a reservation. We have only been turned away from one campground (in Fredericksburg, TX), and our second choice was perfectly nice. When we left the rally in Natchez our goal was Grand Canyon National Park. Before we left Natchez, I had attempted to get reservations at the two reservable NPS campgrounds within the Grand Canyon park. They were both completely booked until the end of July! So we left Natchez on a Sunday not knowing where we would be staying when we reached the Canyon.  Since there is a third NPS campground in a less desirable location that is "first-come-first served" we reasoned that arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday would give us a better chance of scoring a campsite than if we arrived later in the week. But that made for a rather exhausting trip across the country.

We had several very long days, but Rick was a trooper. The first night we stayed in a Cracker Barrel parking lot in Alma, Arkansas. The second night we stayed in a nice little campground in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and the third night in Holbrook, Arizona. Both of these campgrounds offered dinner and breakfast for a reasonable fee, and we gladly took them up on it. We didn't arrive in Holbrook until after 7:00, because we had spent a few hours touring the Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert along the way.

We were pleasantly surprised by this beautiful area. The "painted desert" is a colorful area of desert badlands that is partially contained within Petrified Forest NP. There was a thunderstorm going on as we drove through, so my photos really don't do the colors justice. You can click on these pictures (in fact any picture anywhere in this blog) to get a larger view.

The petrified forest part of the park is an area where more than 200 million years ago trees fell into streams whose riverbanks were eroding. The trees were carried downstream to the then swampy lowland which is now the desert park. They were trapped underwater where they were buried under sediment that contained volcanic ash containing silica. Over time silica began to replace the wood until the logs were literally turned to stone. The silica logs were stained by iron oxide and other minerals, causing them to have beautiful colors. Later the park area was "uplifted" and many of the logs were exposed. Many contained beautiful semiprecious stones such as agate. I say "contained" because most of the stones and much of the petrified wood has been stolen from the park over the years by collectors and dealers. We enjoyed our short time in this park and may return on our way back through the area in a few weeks.

 This petrified log is supported by a concrete brace made by the park.

These photos show an area where many petrified logs have fallen from the cliffs above into this valley.

It took many hours of driving to get from Natchez to Grand Canyon. But we were helped by multiple time changes. We left the Central time zone and hit Mountain time when we arrived in New Mexico. And Arizona's in the same time zone as New Mexico, right? Wrong! Did you know that those independent Arizonians don't do daylight savings time? So this time of year, it's actually as if they're on pacific time. Except, of course, the Navajo Nation which DOES do daylight savings time, even though it's in Arizona. This caused all sorts of confusion for us. Thank goodness for cell phones. The Petrified Forest visitor center had four clocks on the wall giving the time in Arizona, the time in New Mexico, the time in California, and the time in the Navajo nation!

Natchez, MS

May 6 - May 12, 2013

We've both been pretty sick. We're much better now, thank goodness, but the bubonic plague, or whatever we've had, is still not completely gone.

Trying to access health care when you're on the road can be a real challenge. Finding Natchez's "after-hours walk in clinic" closed at 10:00 am on Saturday morning, the Walgreen's pharmacist took pity on me. He called a local nurse practitioner that he knew had Saturday morning hours and got me an appointment. A couple of hours later I had shots of an antibiotic and a steroid in each hip, a nebulizer breathing treatment, a couple of prescriptions and a diagnosis of "it might be pnuemonia and you might have a broken rib, but I can't tell without a chest x-ray."

We spent about a week in Vidalia, LA, which is just across the Mississippi River from Natchez. I've always wanted to visit Natchez, and it didn't disappoint. It's a pretty, quirky little town, built on bluffs high above the river. It has many wonderful old antebellum mansions that were mostly spared during the civil war while the Union concentrated its attentions on New Orleans and Vicksburg. Our campsite had a great view of the river and we loved watching the barge traffic.

We came to Natchez for a rally held by the Coach House Owner's Club (CHOC.). We actually sold our Coach House RV in January when we bought the Itasca, but I'm still an officer in the club and always look forward to its fun rallies. It's a small club and the rallies are also small and everyone gets to know each other well. The small size allows us to have all sorts of diverse adventures, and this one didn't disappoint.

We toured several old mansions including Dunleith:

un

 

and the unfinished Longwood:

 

 
We took a tour of the city and saw the lovely Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows:

We took a fascinating tour of an historic cotton plantation where we learned about how cotton is grown and processed. Its owner gave us a great lecture about the civil war. Using lots of oral history, film and powerpoint, she kept us all interested for about an hour.

 

We also spent a day at the campground enjoying each other's company, playing lawn games, and eating tasty catered meals. When the rally was over, several of us stayed an extra day or two and had fun just hanging out.

We can't wait for the next CHOC rally in Mystic, CT at the end of September and we're building another (shorter) trip around it for this fall.

Heading East for a Bit

May 1 - May 5, 2013

We had to backtrack a bit. We are due at a "rally" with an RV club that we belong to on May 6th. The rally is in Natchez, MS. We had intended to spend some time in Dallas or Austin on the way back, but we spent too long in Santa Fe, and then we both got sick and didn't feel like doing anything. We toyed with holing up somewhere along the way, but finally decided that we'd rather just "get there" and try to rest up and convalesce before the rally begins.

After leaving Palo Duro we spent two nights and three days traveling to Natchez. We spent one night in a very comfortable campground in Wichita Falls, TX. We had a "pull-through" campsite which means that we could just pull in without bothering to un-hook the Elantra. Rick hooked up the utilities, we ordered a pizza, watched some TV, and went to bed. But by the second night, Rick was feeling so poorly that we didn't even bother with a campground. Using my trusty copy of The Next Exit, I located a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Shreveport Louisianna, and we pulled in for the night. After eating a tasty dinner, we obtained permission from the manager, and settled in for the night. We have everything we need onboard, so we can easily "camp" without utilities for a few days, We can carry up to 88 gallons of fresh water, and we have propane for heat and cooking, and hot water for showers. We could have cooked dinner and breakfast in our RV kitchen, but it's part of the deal with Cracker Barrel that if RVers spend the night in their lot, they're expected to eat at least one meal at the restaurant. We ate two, enjoying a delicious breakfast the next morning.

We arrived at our campsite for the next 8 nights in Vidalia, LA (just across the Mississippi river from Natchez) at about 1:30pm on the 3rd. Rick got all the utilities hooked up, unhooked the Elantra, and prepared to take a well-deserved nap. But when I went to move the Elantra to its parking place, it wouldn't start. After three days of being towed and never being driven, its battery was dead. When it's under tow, the key has to be in the ignition and turned to the first position in order to unlock the steering wheel. This is never a problem because we always start it up when we get to camp, and drive it around to all of our adventures. But in our sickened zombie states, we hadn't touched it since we left Palo Duro, and the battery wouldn't even crank. Luckily, we were able to get a jump from someone at the campground.

We have a lovely campsite here in Natchez with a great view of the swollen Mississippi River. Hopefully, we will be safe from the flooding everyone's hearing about in the news...especially because we're on the wrong side of the levee!

Palo Duro Canyon

April 28 - May 1, 2013

Palo Duro Canyon is another amazing Texas state park. It's the second largest canyon in the US and it's pretty darned impressive. We camped at the very bottom of the canyon and had great views of the beautiful red, tan, and pink rock formations. The sunsets were gorgeous.

The canyon was formed millions of years ago, but some of its more recent history is worth noting. The Comanche Indians were led by Chief Quanah Parker, the son of a captured white woman. Quanah and his tribe had refused to go to a reservation and had been raiding and harassing white outposts and settlements for years. US Colonol McKenzie finally put an end to this by conducting a dawn raid on Quanah's secret camp, deep in Palo Duro Canyon. The Comanches were caught completely by surprise and fled for the rocky canyon walls. Only 4 Indians lost their lives, but McKenzie was able to burn all their food and supplies, and captured 1,400 of their horses. This forced Quanah to surrender and retreat to the reservation. For more information on this story as well as a wonderfully readable history of the treatment of the Native Americans by our forefathers, Rick recommends the book The Empire of the Summer Moon by SC Gwynne.

Unfortunatley, we were unable to really enjoy Palo Duro. Beginning back in El Paso, I had been fighting a cold for about ten days. By the time we left Santa Fe, the cold had won. I was down for the count for our entire stay at Palo Duro Canyon, with a fever, cough, cold, and general misery. And now, of course, Rick has got it too, and it's greatly complicating our traveling plans.

Here are some nice photos that Rick took of the canyon before he got sick.