Living Our Dream

Grand Canyon Part II: Nature Walk and Bright Angel Trail

After the ranger program on the human history of the Grand Canyon in the morning, we went back to the motor home and had a bite to eat. Then we returned for a nature walk in the afternoon. That's a big advantage to staying in the park - you're 5 minutes from Grand Canyon Village by car and about 15 minutes by shuttle. Of course, parking is limited at the village if you go by car, but spaces can be found if you're patient and know where to look.

The afternoon ranger presentation again started at Vercamp's Visitor Center. This presentation covered mainly plants found at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The ranger started with several plants that were right outside the visitor center. One was the agave, which we previously learned about at the Arizona-Sonoro Desert Museum in Tucson. Portions of the plant are edible, and the leaves yield fibers that Native Americans used for rope and for baskets.

For this ranger program we walked east on the Rim Trail from Vercamp's. Under construction along the trail are displays of rock specimens found at various levels in the canyon. Only about a third of the individual specimens were in place when we were there, but the final display showing all the layers was complete.

The trees on the South Rim are largely pinon pine and junipers. The cones from pinon pines yield pine nuts, which Native Americans used as a valuable source of protein. Pine nuts have a sweet, nutty flavor and are still popular today. Sometimes called pignolis, pine nuts are used in pesto, and they are delicious roasted and salted. The ranger had a bag of pine nuts for everyone to sample, and she also had a pine cone she passed around so we could all see the seeds.

Pinon pines were also used for building and for fuel, and the pitch from the sap was used as an adhesive and to line baskets to make them waterproof.

Junipers are the other common trees around the South Rim. The berries are edible and are rich in vitamin C. Junipers were also used for fuel, but the branches and trunks are too crooked to use for building. The bark is very fibrous and it can be peeled off and used as a fire starter. The bark can also be kneaded to separate the fibers to make the bark soft and absorbent. Native Americans used the softened bark as an absorbent padding for their babies' cradle boards. Stripping the bark doesn't hurt the tree, but it's a no-no in the national park. The ranger brought a piece of bark from a tree at home to show us.

Another plant used by the Indians is the yucca, which is a member of the agave family. Like the agave, the yucca has fibers that can be used for rope and baskets. The ranger had samples of dried yucca leaves and samples of the extracted fibers. The fibers were surprisingly flexible and strong.

Yet another edible plant is the prickly pear cactus. The pads of the cactus can be peeled, boiled and eaten, and the ripe fruit can be used for syrup and jam. The ranger had samples of prickly pear candy for everyone to taste. The Ranger was very knowledgeable about the plant life in the canyon, and she made the presentation especially interesting with all the "show and tell" examples and goodies to taste. 

After the ranger presentation, we went back to the motor home for an early dinner. Without daylight savings time, sunset comes at around 7:30 in May, and we wanted to head back over to the canyon for the sunset. It's fun to sit and watch the sun get lower and lower, to watch the shadows in the canyon to get longer and longer, and to watch the rocks get redder and redder.

After the sun got so low there was hardly any light left in the canyon, we walked to the other side of the overlook just in time to watch the sun disappear.

The next morning we went back over to Grand Canyon Village to walk a short way down Bright Angel Trail. The next photo shows the view as we started down the trail.

Last year we got a little way past the first tunnel, which is shown in the next photo. Notice the window that has formed to the right. Judging by the crack in the rock, the window will break away some time in the not-to-distant future.

This year we walked to the first big switchback, which is about half a mile down the trail and a little over 200 feet below the rim. The next photo shows the switchback with the trail down to the left and back up to the right. We started at the area that is slightly mounded at the top far left of the photo.

It was cool and windy when we started out; but as soon as we got below the rim the wind died down. Before we got to the switchback, the temperature felt like it had gone up. As you can see, we had to take off our jackets, and we were wishing we had on shorts.

It's hard for us to judge how far we should walk. The hiking guides tell you it takes three times as long to walk up as it does to walk down. And our legs told us going up takes three or four times as much effort.

As we started back up, we noticed mules coming up from below. There are only two wranglers and no riders, so we knew it was not a trail ride, but the morning trash run. All trash from Indian Garden and Phantom Ranch must be hauled up out of the canyon.

We took our time to allow the mules to catch up to us so we could watch them pass. Mules have the right of way, and hikers have to move aside. We waited at a wide, shady part of the trail.

After the mules passed, we resumed our climb. It really wasn't too bad since we took our time. Maybe next time we'll go a little farther, although the trail guide says the trail starts to get steeper a little beyond where we stopped.

When we neared the top, we saw several people looking up to the rim of the canyon. At first we thought it might have been a squirrel or some other wildlife, but it turned out one of the hikers had pointed out a number of Indian petroglyphs on the underside of some of the rocks. The photo is in focus - the petroglyphs have started to fade and blur.

After our hike, we walked along the Rim Trail a little while, then headed back to the motor home. We were off to a new destination the next morning, so stay tuned.

Grand Canyon Part I: Grand Canyon Village 

This year is our third trip to Grand Canyon National Park (the 4th if you count a stop at both the South Rim and the North Rim in the same year). We went to the South Rim in 2007 when Lora and J. Michael flew out to meet us, then we stopped at the North Rim on our way to Utah after they left for home. We went to the South Rim last year, and again this year. Both last year and this year, we stayed in Trailer Village in the park.

Trailer Village is operated by a concessionaire (Xanterra). The roads are paved, but the sites are dusty gravel. There are full hook-ups with 30/50 amp electric and cable. The site width is decent.

 

The great thing about going to a place you like for the second or third time is you can take time to see and do things you didn't have time for on the first visit. The other nice thing is you can have a more leisurely visit. It was mid afternoon by the time we got set up, but we didn't feel compelled to go out sightseeing right away. We just chilled out in the campground for the rest of the day. It got cloudy late in the afternoon, so we didn't even go over to the canyon for the sunset.

The next morning we headed over to Grand Canyon Village. We have come to appreciate the ranger talks and walks, and there was one titled "The Human Story" that sounded interesting. We had about 45 minutes until the program started, so we walked along Rim Trail to the east a short distance. We came across this little lizard.

We are always in awe of the spectacular views of the canyon. The next photo looks across the Grand Canyon toward Bright Angel Canyon on the North Rim. Bright Angel Canyon follows a fault line that crosses the Grand Canyon. The intersection of Bright Angel Canyon and the Grand Canyon is the center of activity on both the North and South Rims. Bright Angel Canyon is the inverted "V" in the center of the photo.

The program started at Vercamp's Visitor Center. Rather than a ranger for this presentation, we were led by a volunteer. Wally, our volunteer, started with a brief the history of Native Americans who lived in and around the Grand Canyon. Evidence of human habitation at the canyon dates back almost 12,000 years, and many area Indian peoples today can trace their ancestry back to the Grand Canyon.

Wally then gave us a summary of the exploration of the canyon by non-Indians starting with the Spanish in 1540. Although there were others, John Wesley Powell is probably the best known and most successful of the early canyon explorers. Powell led two expeditions through the canyon, one in 1867 and the second in 1871-1872. The second expedition resulted in the first photographs of the Grand Canyon and the first accurate maps.

Most of the early white settlers around the canyon were miners. However, because of the expense of hauling ore up out of the canyon then hauling it a long distance for processing, many of the settlers soon discovered tourism had a bigger potential than mining.

By the late 1800s there were several hotels and tourist camps at the Grand Canyon. The only way to get to the Grand Canyon was by a dusty, bumpy, 12-hour stagecoach ride from Flagstaff, but tourists still came.

Vercamp's Visitor Center was originally built as Vercamp's Curios by John Vercamp. Vercamp, who originally sold souvenirs out of a tent, built the shop in 1905. The store was operated up until late 2008 by descendants of John Vercamp. The visitor center now is owned by the Park Service.

Our walk proceeded west from Vercamp's along Rim Trail where we learned about the people and the history behind more of the buildings in Grand Canyon Village. In 1901 the Santa Fe Railroad completed a line from Williams to Grand Canyon Village. Tourists no longer had to endure the long stagecoach ride, and they began to arrive at the canyon in larger numbers. A luxury hotel, the El Tovar, was built by the Sante Fe Railroad in 1905.

 

In the early days of railroad travel, food and lodging were hit and miss. The Santa Fe Railroad changed all that by hiring the Fred Harvey Company to build hotels and food service facilities along all of the Santa Fe lines. These could be considered the first restaurant and hotel chains. The Harvey Company ran the El Tovar Hotel and most everything else at the Grand Canyon. The Harvey Company waitresses became known as "Harvey Girls."

The Harvey Company hired Mary Coulter to design many of the buildings at the Grand Canyon. She designed the interior (but not the exterior) of the El Tovar. Across from the El Tovar is Hopi House designed by Mary Coulter in 1905. Mary Coulter believed in designing buildings that fit the surroundings, so she built Hopi House in the style of a pueblo using native stone. Hopi House was intended to be a living museum where Hopi Indians could live and work on traditional crafts. Native Americans still sell and sometimes demonstrate their crafts at Hopi House.

 

Incidentally, the Fred Harvey Company was bought in 1968 by Xanterra,which is the company who operates the El Tovar today, as well as other park consessions such as Tralier Village.

A lot of work was done around the canyon in the 1930s by the CCC. During the Depression, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) was made up of single men who worked on conservation and other public construction projects around the country. Margery's dad was in the CCC and worked at what is now Laurel Hill State Park in Pennsylvania. The men received free room, board and health care. They were paid $30 a month, $25 of which had to be sent home to make sure they didn't blow it.

The original walkways and walls around Grand Canyon Village were built by the CCC. There is one place on the wall where there is a heart-shaped stone. The young men in the CCC liked the Harvey Girls, and legend has it one of the guys made a special stone and put it in the wall, possibly to impress one of the Harvey girls.

The next historic building we came to was the Buckey O'Neill Cabin. Buckey O'Neill was an early settler who built a cabin along the South Rim in the 1890s. It is the oldest surviving building at the Grand Canyon. Buckey O'Neill was one of the people who found tourism to be more lucrative than mining, and he was instrumental in bringing the Santa Fe Railroad to the Grand Canyon. O'Neill was killed serving in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in 1898, so he never got to see the arrival of the railroad.

Buckey O'Neill's cabin became part of the rustic accommodations at the Bright Angel Hotel after his death. When Mary Coulter designed a new Bright angel Lodge to replace the hotel in 1935, she incorporated the cabin into her design. Totally updated inside, the cabin is still part of the Bright angel Lodge today.

In 1914 the Fred Harvey Company built Lookout Studio to compete with Kolb Studio, which is located a short distance to the west. Mary Colter designed Lookout Studio the same way she designed other buildings at the Grand Canyon - to blend in with the surroundings. The building can barely be seen from down over the rim. Back in the day Lookout Studio offered photographs and books about the Grand Canyon, just like it does today.

Just to the west of Lookout Studio is Kolb Studio. Ellsworth and Emery Kolb built their studio partially down over the canyon rim in 1904. The brothers made their living photographing hikers traveling down Bright Angel Trail. The brothers also sold photographs of the canyon. In 1911 they retraced Powell's route down the Green and Colorado Rivers and made a movie of the journey. Emery Kolb showed this movie regularly in the studio until his death in 1976 at age 95. The studio is now an art gallery.

 

The beginning of Bright Angel Trail is just beyond Kolb Studio, and while we were there, Wally told us about Ralph Cameron.

Cameron, who owned a number of mining claims in the area of the Grand Canyon, widened an old Havasupai Indian trail down into the canyon and renamed it Bright Angel Trail. Cameron charged a toll of $1 per person to enter the land covered by his mining claim to hike down Bright Angel Trail. The government eventually prevented Cameron from collecting tolls. Today, Bright Angel Trail is a popular place for hikers and for mule trips down into the canyon. We'll have more about Bright Angel Trail in our next post.

Tuzigoot National Monument

Tuzigoot National Monument is located between Cottonwood and Clarkdale, AZ, about 20 minutes from where we were staying in Camp Verde . Tuzigut (TWO-zee-goot) is an Apache word meaning "crooked water," and it refers to nearby Peck's Lake, which is a meander of the Verde River that has been cut off to form a lake. Tuzigoot is the ruins of an ancient Sinagua (Seen-AH-wha) Indian pueblo. The pueblo was occupied from about 1125 AD to 1400 AD.

We stopped in the visitor center where they had displays of Indian artifacts recovered from the site. The pueblo was excavated and the structure was partially rebuilt in the 1930s under the WPA.

The pueblo was built on a hill above a flood plain of the Verde River. The Sinagua people were farmers, and they came to this area because of the availability of water. The pueblo was built over a period of time, and eventually grew to over 100 rooms with about 225 residents. The pueblo was two, and possibly three stories high in places. The visitor center has a small scale model that helps visualize how the overall structure once looked.

The pueblos were built from river rock gathered from the Verde River and stones from the ridge itself. Mud was used to hold the stones in place. Roofs were made from adobe laid over log supports. Like other pueblos we have seen, access to the rooms was through hatches in the roof. This was done so the inhabitants could pull up the ladders and make it harder for enemies to gain access in the event of attack. The hatches also served as smoke holes for the cooking fire.

The visitor center also had a simulation of what one of the pueblo rooms might have looked like.

After looking around the visitor center, we climbed the walkway up to the pueblo.

 

The walls have only been partially rebuilt. When you look into the rooms in the bright sunshine, it's hard to imagine how dark and smoky it must have been inside.

 

From the top of the pueblo, you can look down onto the rooms and see how they were just added on wherever they fit without any master plan.

There is a nice view of the surrounding area from the top of the pueblo. The land was once owned by United Verde Mining and later by Phelps Dodge who sold it to the county for $1. The land was then transferred to the Federal Government so excavation and restoration could begin. In the background just beyond the pueblo in the photo below is the visitor center, also built by the WPA.

You can also see the mining town of Jerome where we visited a few days ago up on the hillside overlooking the valley.

To get to the top of the pueblo, visitors pass through an enclosed room that helps give an idea of what the inside was like, although there are changes that make things safer and more convenient today. The ceilings of the original pueblo were said to have only been about 5 1/2 feet high, and access to the "roof" is now by wide metal steps with handrails instead of a small, wooden ladder.

After we toured the pueblo, we happened upon a ranger presentation behind the visitor center. The ranger was explaining the evolution of weapons used by the Indians to hunt game, which was plentiful along the river and in in the marshes. The ranger is holding a rabbit stick which is a heavy stick that would have been thrown at a rabbit. From what we saw at Tucson Mountain Park, the jackrabbits are very wary and very fast. It would have taken a lot of skill to provide food for your family.

 

We stopped at Walmart on the way back to the motor home to stock up on groceries. We left Camp Verde the next morning with the Grand Canyon as our destination.

Tucson, AZ, Part I: Saguaro National Park

We had quite a long drive from the Texas Hill Country to our next destination of Tucson, AZ. It took us three days driving five or more hours a day to get there. We usually don't drive more than 4 hours a day or for more than two days in a row, but somehow, that's the way things worked out for this leg of our travels.

Our first overnight stop was at Hilltop RV Park in Fort Stockton, TX. Hilltop RV is all gravel, and somewhat dusty gravel at that. They have full hook-ups with 30/50 amp electric and Wi-Fi. All the sites, which are fairly narrow, are pull-throughs. There is some traffic noise from I-10 but there is a nice view from the hilltop toward the west. The photo below shows our site at Hilltop RV.

The next photo shows some of the other sites along our row.

The pull-through site helped us get an early start since we left the toad hooked up. That was good because we had another drive of over five-hours. However, we gained an hour going from Central Time Zone to Mountain Time, and we got to our next stop at American RV in Anthony, TX, by early afternoon.

Anthony, TX, is a short distance past El Paso and right before the Texas - New Mexico border. American RV is located behind and is apparently owned by Camping World. In fact, there is a 200-300 rig rally park there, too. The campground is all fine gravel, but it's not too dusty. The fine gravel, however, gets stuck in the tread of your tennis shoes and gets dragged into the rig quite easily. There are full hook-ups with 30/50 amp electric and Wi-Fi. All the sites are extra-long pull-throughs, and site width isn't too bad. There is a little noise from I-10.

 

The next morning we were off to another fairly early start for another five-hour drive to Tuscon. This time, we would gain an additional hour because we were going into Arizona, and Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time. Our home during our stay in Tuscon was Desert Trails RV Park.

In addition to getting good reviews on rvparkreviews.com, Desert Trails also has a 50% Passport America discount from May to September. The discount is good for up to four days.

Like a lot of campgrounds in the southwest, Desert Trails is all gravel (except for the main road around the campground which is paved), but the layer of gravel was very generous and it wasn't dusty at all. Desert Trails has some sites with 30 amp electric and some with 50. If you need 30 amps, be aware that Desert Trails is another of those fairly rare campgrounds where the the 50 amp sites don't have a 30 amp plug in the box. We wanted 50 amp because temperatures were predicted to be in the 90s most of the time we were going to be there, and we figured we'd need both air conditioners during the day. With 50 amp, not only could we run both air conditioners, but we also could run the washer/dryer and microwave at the same time if necessary. The nice thing is about the desert, however, is it cooled off at night and we could turn off the air conditioning and open the windows.

Overall, the campground is very quiet except for the incessant cooing of the white winged doves and mourning doves that starts before dawn. And someone living near the campground also has a rooster who can't tell time. He crows at random times during the night. The birds start to coo and crow in earnest quite early because with no daylight savings time, it starts getting light at 5:00 AM this time of year.

There are a couple of pull-through sites, but most are back-ins. The sites aren't very wide; but there weren't many people there, and we had no one directly on either side. Desert Trails is a winter snowbird park, and it has pretty much emptied out now that the season is over.

We liked the desert landscaping throughout the campground. There is a large cactus garden near the office, and there are small patches of cacti and desert shrubs scattered around the campground. Some sites don't have much landscaping, but we picked a site with a couple of small trees, some other desert plants, and a rather large saguaro (pronounced sah-WAH-roh) cactus in front.

 

The next photo is a view looking down the road. The sites look a little bigger than they really are because the RVs are parked on every other site. If you can stand the heat, Desert Trails is a really nice RV park in the off season, especially with the cacti blooming in spring; but we're afraid things might be a little too close for comfort when they're full in winter.

In addition to getting good reviews and having a Passport America discount, Desert Trails was located very close to several things we wanted to see in Tucson. One of these was the Saguaro National Park. Sagauro National Park is divided into two units about 30 miles apart separated by the city of Tucson. The two districts are the Tucson Mountain District (Saguaro West) and the Rincon Mountain District (Saguaro East).

Saguaro National Park is named for the saguaro cactus that grows in the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert includes the southwest corner of Arizona, the southeast tip of California, and runs on down into Mexico and the Baja Peninsula.

Saguaros can live to be over 150 years old, and a mature specimen will usually be 30 to 50 feet tall. Saguaros grow mostly on the south-facing slopes because they need the heat of the sun to survive in winter. The cooler air also collects in the valleys, and for that reason, not many saguaros grow naturally on the valley floor either. We'll have more information on the Sonoran Desert and saguaro cactus in our next post.

Saguaro East is a higher elevation that Saguaro West, and the Sonoran Desert in Saguaro East gradually gives way to conifer forests. Mica Peak in Saguaro East rises 8,664 feet above sea level. We were more interested in the desert, and since Saguaro West was only 5 or 6 miles up the road from where we were staying, that's where we headed.

We stopped at the visitor center and watched an excellent slide show on the desert and on saguaro cacti from a Native American perspective. Then we took off to drive the loop trail through saguaro West.

What we didn't know was, although the loop road in Saguaro East is paved, the loop road in Saguaro West is not. Not only isn't it paved, but it's pretty rough in places. Fortunately, the Saturn Vue didn't have any problem even though it doesn't have very high ground clearance.

There was an interesting balanced rock near the beginning of the loop.

In addition to saguaro cactus, the park has other desert plants like the ocotillo (pronounced oak-oh-TEA-oh), prickly pear cactus, cholla (pronounced CHOY-ah) cactus and plenty of creosote bushes.

On the return side of the loop, there seemed to be more branched saguaros.

Botanists aren't sure why some saguaros form branches or arms and others don't. A saguaro may have to be up to 75 years old before it gets arms. The one in the next photo was very impressive in both size and the number of arms.

We completed the Saguaro West loop with a very dusty car. Although the scenery in the park is nice, it isn't anything you can't see on the hillsides along many of the area roads. Tucson Mountain Park is a 20,000 acre county park that you have to drive through to get to Sagauro National Park, and its scenery is every bit as nice as that in the national park with much better roads.

There are several hiking trails in both units of the national park, but at 98 degrees we passed on the hiking. Still, we're glad we visited the park because we got to stop in several places along the loop road and see some of the cacti a lot closer than we would have just driving by in the car.

We have only scratched the surface of things to do in Tucson, so stay tuned for more.

Grand Canyon Part III: Desert View

When we visited the Grand Canyon back in 2007, we drove the car up from Flagstaff where we were staying to visit the canyon for a second day. We drove along the rim to the east of Grand Canyon Village and stopped at some of the overlooks. This trip, since we had more time, we drove east all the way to Desert View, which is near the east entrance to the park.

Desert View is located about 27 miles from Grand Canyon Village, and if you have the time, it is well worth the drive. The main part of the Grand Canyon within the national park runs roughly east to west. At Desert View, the canyon takes a turn toward the northeast. This bend in the canyon provides for expansive views. The photo below is looking northeast. You can see the Colorado River just to the left of the center of the photo.

 

The next photo is looking west. They were conducting a controlled burn of dead branches and debris down toward the southern entrance that day, and you can see the smoke drifting out over the canyon.

 

The real gem at Desert View is the Watchtower.

The Watchtower is another building at the canyon designed for the Fred Harvey Company by architect Mary Colter . The Watchtower was designed as a gift shop and rest stop for tourists. The tower, which is designed to mimic an ancient Indian watchtower, was opened in 1933.

There is a gift shop off to the side of the tower on the first floor. From the second floor of the tower, you can step out to an observation deck over the gift shop.

The most impressive part of the tower is the interior. The interior of the tower is open with circular balconies. There are narrow staircases going up to each higher level. The photo below is looking up the central opening with its surrounding balconies.

 

The interior of the tower is decorated with images painted by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie depicting Hopi mythology. In the photo below, Paul is sitting in front of one of those images.

Murals and other images painted on the walls and balconies by artist Fred Greer are copies of prehistoric pictographs and petroglyphs. Margery is standing by some of these images in the next photo. The small windows keep the interior of the tower rather dark to give it a cave-like appearance.

After we left the Watchtower, we drove about three miles from Desert View back toward Grand Canyon Village and stopped at Tusayan Ruin, which is a pueblo from about 800 years ago. We happened to arrive just as a ranger-led tour started. The rangers really know their subjects and are very interesting to listen to. She talked about some of the artifacts in the small museum, then led the group outside to the pueblo where she described what life was like for the pueblo dwellers. The photo below shows the partially reconstructed and stabilized walls of the pueblo.

 

The pueblo was "U" shaped with the sleeping rooms at the base of the "U" and smaller food storage rooms on the two legs of the "U." The photo below shows a scale model of the pueblo that was in the Canyon View Information Center.

Like other pueblos we have seen, entry was through openings in the roof. This would have helped keep animals and wind out of the pueblo. Activities such as grinding corn, weaving baskets, preparing game, and cooking would have taken place on the roof or in the courtyard enclosed by the "U."

The circular structure at the left corner is the kiva, or ceremonial chamber. A larger kiva (in the background to the upper right in the above photo) was constructed a little later. The next photo shows the base of the later kiva.

 

The kivas we have seen at other ruins have been completely or mostly underground. Here, there is only about 18 inches of soil before you hit solid rock, so the kiva was constructed mostly above ground. The ring of stones in the center was for the fire. There was a semi-circular bench around the perimeter on the near side on which ceremonial vessels were placed. The two posts indicate where two of the four roof support posts would have been. The original posts were taller. Logs and branches would have been leaned up against the perimeter of the roof and then the whole thing would have been covered with mud.

While we were listening to the ranger at the pueblo, we also learned  the yellow-green, twiggy balls in the juniper trees were a variety of mistletoe.

From the pueblo, we headed back toward the west and stopped at several of the overlooks along the way. At Grandview Point, Paul hiked a short way down Grandview Trail. Grandview Trail was originally constructed by miners and follows an ancient Indian route down to Horseshoe Mesa where the Grandview Mine, also known as the Last Chance Mine, was operated by Pete Berry from 1892 to 1901. The trial is quite steep and narrow. The photo below was taken from Grandview trail.

 

Pete Berry also operated a hotel at Grandview that had the reputation of being the best accommodations at the canyon. However, in 1901, the railroad arrived at a spot 11 miles to the west and travelers no longer wanted to take the bone-jarring stagecoach ride to Grandview. The El Tovar Hotel was built at the rim of the canyon near the rail terminus by the Fred Harvey Company and opened in 1905.

We had a great visit to the Grand Canyon. We had time to do a lot more than we did on our first visit, and we really enjoyed being able to hike along the rim and down into the canyon. From the Grand Canyon, we continued on our way west toward California.

Grand Canyon Part II: Hermit's Rest

After our hike down Bright Angel Trail, we boarded the shuttle to Hermit's rest. Along the way, you can get off at any of the numerous stops to explore the overlooks, and then catch another passing shuttle (shuttles run every 10 to 15 minutes) to continue your journey.

The road along the rim to the west of Grand Canyon Village is closed to private vehicles, and only commercial tour buses or the free park shuttle bus are allowed. Near Grand Canyon Village you can board a free park shuttle bus going along the rim to the west.

When we visited the Grand Canyon with Lora and J. Michael two years ago, we took a short, narrated bus tour along this rim road. The bus tour was available as an option when we bought our train tickets. However, the bus tour didn't go all the way to Hermit's rest, and it only stopped at a few overlooks. Since we were staying longer on this visit, we wanted to be sure to see Hermit's Rest. We also chose to get off the shuttle at most of the stops along the way.

In the photo below, Paul is using the binoculars at one of the stops to look for the Grand Canyon Lodge over on the North Rim, which is about 10 miles away. If you know where to look, you can just barely make it out. We learned where it was located on the bus tour we took during our visit in 2007.

The next photos show some of the beautiful views from the overlooks.





 

Margery usually looks away if Paul gets close to the edge, but she somehow managed to take the next picture even though Paul was only a few feet from the drop off.

Powell Point is one of the overlooks along the road to Hermit's Rest. Here, you can look down over the edge (there's a railing, so you can safely lean over far enough) and see the remnants of the Orphan Mine. In 1893, a prospector found copper and opened the mine. Difficulty getting the ore up to the rim forced the mine to close after a short time. In 1951, uranium was discovered at the site, and the Orphan Mine became America's richest source of uranium - even though the mine was within the national park. By 1969, the high-grade ore was mined out and operations ceased. The Park Service gained control of the mine in 1988. The photo below shows a shed (left) and the rusty remnants of the tower (just below center to the right) for the tramway used to bring ore to the surface.

 

The photo below is yet another beautiful view from one of the overlooks on the way to Hermit's Rest. You can see a short stretch of the Colorado River near the center of the photo.

 

At the end of the shuttle route is Hermit's Rest. Designed by architect Mary Colter and built in 1914 as a rest stop for tourists in coaches operated by the Fred Harvey Company, the building now contains a snack bar and gift shop.

 

The next photo shows the fireplace and some of the furniture inside Hermit's Rest designed by Mary Colter.

Architect Mary Coulter was born in Pittsburgh and is well-known for pioneering in the aesthetics of an architecture appropriate to a natural setting. Hired by Fred Harvey, the various buildings at the Grand Canyon including Hermit's Rest, Hopi House, Desert View Watch Tower, and Lookout Studio are excellent examples of some of her work.

Fred Harvey Company got its start by opening high-quality eating houses for railroad passengers. He contracted with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to build eating houses all along their routes. The eating establishments grew into hotels. When the AT&SF Railroad built its Grand Canyon Railway line to the South Rim in the early 1900s, Fred Harvey also got the contract to build hotels, inns, and rest stops at the Grand Canyon. Do you remember hearing about The Harvey Girls?

The name Hermit's Rest comes from a Canadian-born prospector by the name of Louis Boucher. In 1891, Boucher staked mining claims below the present-day site of Hermit's Rest and carved a trail down into the canyon. Although not a true hermit, Louis Boucher is the person for whom Hermit Trail and Hermit's Rest are named.

From Hermit's Rest, the shuttle bus only makes three stops on the return trip to Grand Canyon Village where we parked, and it only takes about half an hour to get back.

Next, we explored the Grand Canyon eastward to Desert View. Look for our next post.

Grand Canyon Part I: Bright Angel Trail

The morning after we visited Petrified Forest National Park, we took off to the west on I-40. Then we turned right in Flagstaff, and headed north to the Grand Canyon where we had reservations in Trailer Village Campground inside the park.

Trailer Village has full hook-ups including 50 amp electric. The sites and roads are gravel. As you can imagine, the campsites are well used so they are pretty dusty. We put out our patio mat to minimize tracking dirt into the motor home. The sites are also surprisingly wide for a national park. The photo below shows our site in Trailer Village.

 

The campground is pretty quiet, even during the day. At night, it is eerily quiet - there is no traffic noise and no trains.

Although we've investigated staying in national parks before, this is the first time we've ever actually done it. The campgrounds in most national parks are older and have only a few sites suitable for our 37 foot motor home. Additionally, most national parks have no hook-ups. You normally have to reserve a site in a national park well in advance, and the big-rig sites are very hard to get. In addition, many of the national parks have a lot of trees, which isn't good for our satellite internet. But Trailer Village doesn't have many trees and it has full hook-ups (including cable). Also, since we there were early in the season, we were able to get reservations only a few months in advance.

We went to Grand Canyon National Park back in 2007. We picked up our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael, at the airport in Phoenix and drove to Flagstaff where we all stayed at the KOA. We, of course, stayed in the motor home, and Lora and J. Michael stayed in one of the KOA Kamper Kabins.

We took the train from Williams to the canyon, which we highly recommend. You can read about it it in our June 2007 Grand Canyon and Flagstaff Area post. Then we drove up from Flagstaff in the car to spend a second day at the canyon. Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time was a real thrill and sharing it with Lora and J. Michael was a lot of fun.

This time, however, since we stayed right in the park and since we stayed longer, we had a more leisurely visit and could take more time to get to know the park a lot better. Also, since Margery's successful knee surgery, we were able to do a lot more walking, including hiking a short way down into the canyon.

By the time we got set up, it was mid-afternoon so we relaxed a while before dinner. Then we went to the canyon rim to see the sunset - something we couldn't easily do while staying in Flagstaff.

We decided to go to Yavapai Point, mostly because it was close to Trailer Village. Yavapai Point turned out to be an excellent choice because it has quite a bit of parking - many of the overlooks get pretty crowded around sunset. Also, because Yavapai Point juts out into the canyon, you can see the red light of the sunset shining on the rocks in the canyon looking to the east...



...and you can see the sun setting over the canyon looking to the west.

We also wanted to see a sunrise. However, Arizona does not observe daylight savings time. That coupled with the fact that we were there about a month before the Summer Solstice meant sunrise was a little after 5:00 AM, so we never made it for a sunrise.

The next morning (well after sunrise), we went to the Bright Angel Trailhead located near Grand Canyon Village. Bright Angel Trail is one of the more popular trails down into the canyon because it is not quite as steep as some of the other trails. It is also the trail used for mule rides down into the canyon. You can take a 7-hour round trip to Plateau Point 1,300 feet above the Colorado River. Plateau Point is the smooth, greenish patch toward the left in the photo below, and the wiggly tan line is the trail running out to the end.

You can also take an overnight mule trip to Phantom Ranch, which is at the bottom of the canyon and across the river. The telephoto shot below shows Phantom Ranch.

The scenery on the way down the trail was amazing. Walking into the canyon, even for only a short distance, made us feel like we were really experiencing the canyon. It was a lot better than standing at the top just looking over a railing.

 

The next photo is another view from Bright Angel Trail.

We could see a rider with pack mules ascending the trail in the distance. There are no roads to Phantom Ranch. Everything must be packed in on mules and trash must be packed out.



A little farther along, we could look down and see more mules and riders on the switch-backs way below us.

 

On down the trail, there is a tunnel through the rock.

 

On the other side of the tunnel, we saw more mules coming up the trail.

 

We went a little farther, then turned around and headed back up toward the rim. Shortly after we went back through the tunnel, another group of riders passed us. Mules have the right of way, and we had to stand aside and wait for them to pass. Fortunately, the trail was plenty wide in this area.

As we climbed back up the trail, we could see the pack mules that passed us earlier on the trail above us.

 

After we got back to the top, we hopped on the shuttle bus that goes out to Hermit's Rest. We'll tell you about that in our next post.

Painted Desert

As we said in our last post, Petrified Forest National Park also contains an area of the southern portion of the Painted desert. We started our tour through Petrified Forest National Park at the southern entrance where most of the petrified wood is located. As we drove through the national park, we saw the amount of petrified wood decrease and the colors of the Painted Desert become more obvious.

Blue Mesa is located about midway through the park. Although there is some petrified wood in this area, it seems to be more a part of the Painted Desert than the Petrified Forest because of the striking coloration of the landscape.

There is a three-mile loop road that climbs to the top of Blue Mesa and a one-mile hiking trail that goes down into the sculpted hills on the eastern side of the mesa. The two photos below are near the trailhead at Blue Mesa.

The next photo is looking down the trail. To give an idea of scale, there is a person in a red shirt on the trail toward the left side of the photo.

 

As we said, there is some petrified wood at Blue Mesa, but not that much. The gully in the photo below has collected quite a bit of it.

 

The next two photos give an idea of the colors at Blue Mesa - blue, gray, pink, mauve, tan, and white.

 

After we completed the one-mile loop trail, we had to climb back up to the top of the mesa. In this photo you can also get a sense of the gravel-like texture of the rock. It is very crumbly.

A short way up the road from Blue Mesa is Puerco Pueblo. The pueblo is named for the nearby, seasonal Puerco River. Puerco Pueblo was a 100-room structure built around 1250 AD that may have housed nearly 100 people. The next photo shows the stones outlining where the pueblo once stood.

 

There are numerous petroglyphs in the vicinity of the pueblo. The one below was interesting, It looks like a large bird (stork?) carrying a baby in its bill. So storks ARE the ones who bring babies...it's written in stone. :-)

 

The next petroglyph seems more sophisticated than anything else we've seen. The birds above the geometric designs appear to have sun shining on their backs. The geometric design looks like something that could be woven into a Native American rug.

 

From the pueblo, the park road crosses over I-40, then makes six-mile arc on the north side of I-40 before it ends back at the interstate. It is this section of the park where you can get magnificent views of the Painted Desert. In this area north of I-40, there is much more red color.

 

 

 

There are several overlooks in the northern part of the park and a few hiking trails. After stopping at several of the overlooks, we got on I-40 and headed back to the motor home. From Holbrook, we continued on our way west.

Petrified Forest

We left Albuquerque and drove east on I-40 to Holbrook, AZ, where we stayed at OK RV Park. All the sites at OK RV are extra-long pull-throughs. Unfortunately, the sites are very narrow; and, although the utility pedestals are not shared, you are back to back with your neighbor. The good thing is, because the sites are so long, the RVs are parked in a staggered fashion, and you are not directly opposite another RV on either side. The photo below shows our site at OK RV.



The entire campground is sand and gravel and is a little dusty, but that is to be expected when you're in the desert. There are full hook-ups and Wi-fi. We opted to pay the $5 a night extra charge for 50 amp because it was 90 degrees. We didn't want to have to turn off the air to run the microwave.

The reason we stopped in Holbrook was to visit Petrified Forest National Park, which is located along both sides of I-40 about 15 miles east of Holbrook. The national park is located at the southern end of the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert stretches from eastern end of the Grand Canyon in an arc down to the Petrified Forest - a distance of over 150 miles. The southern end of the Painted Desert is incorporated into the Petrified Forest National Park.

You can access Petrified Forest National Park from I-40 to at the northern end, or you can access the park from the south by taking U. S. 180 east from Holbrook. A 28-mile long road connects the north and south entrances of the park. We decided to start at the southern end because that's where the highest concentration of petrified wood is located.

The park has visitor centers at both ends. The southern visitor center is located just inside the entrance near an area called Rainbow Forest. In the visitor center, we watched the video about the history of the park and about how petrified wood is formed. Then we walked the Big Log Trail, which starts behind the visitor center.



Petrified Forest National Park contains one of the largest, most colorful collections of petrified wood in the world. Unfortunately, tons of petrified wood have been taken by souvenir hunters and even more has been destroyed by those seeking the crystals and semi-precious gems sometimes found within the petrified wood. They used to dynamite the logs just to see if there might be crystals inside.

The Petrified Forest was named a national monument in 1906, but it didn't become a national park until 1962. Making the Petrified Forest a national park provided more protection, but it is estimated about one ton of petrified wood is carried out of the park by visitors every month in spite of stiff penalties and in spite of the fact petrified wood that has been legally harvested from private property is readily available for sale all around the area.

Petrified wood is formed when trees are submerged in water then buried in layers of sediment rich in volcanic ash. The volcanic ash is high in silica, which is key to transforming the wood to stone. The silica and other minerals infused themselves into the wood and began to form crystals within the cell structure, much like the way fossils were formed. The silica displaced the cellulose that originally made up the wood. The colors in the petrified wood come mainly from various iron compounds. The photo below shows the rich colors in some of the petrified wood.

 

Here is another example.

 

Most of the petrified wood is from an extinct variety of conifer that grew up to 200 feet tall. The southern end of the park has some of the most colorful petrified wood. It also has some of the biggest logs.

The next photo shows a log called Old Faithful. At over 9 feet in diameter, it is the largest log in the park.

The detail of the wood grain and bark of some of the logs is amazing. You can also see knots where there used to be branches.

 

 

Also in the vicinity of the southern visitor center is a trail Agate House, which is an Indian pueblo. Along the trail, which is about two miles round trip, we came across a colorful collared lizard.

Agate House was built from chunks of petrified wood sealed in place with mud mortar. Archeologists believe Agate House was originally an eight-room pueblo built about 1000 years ago. The pueblo was partially reconstructed in the 1930s.

From Agate House, we drove north through the park. The landscape, which is part of the Chinle Formation, is comprised mostly of compressed, sandy gravel. We began to see more of the multi-colored terrain of the painted desert. Petrified wood continued to dot the landscape, but it isn't as prevalent as it is in the southern part of the park.

Notice the petrified log balanced on the top of the dune to the left in the photo below.

 

In spite of the inhospitable-looking terrain, there were a few wildflowers blooming.

As we proceeded north on the park road, the amount of petrified wood continued to be less and less obvious, and the colors of the Painted Desert became more dominant. We'll tell you more about the northern part of Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert in out next post.

After dropping Lora and J. Michael off at the airport, we left Las Vegas and headed northwest on I-15 toward Utah. The barren desert of Nevada gave way to the rugged, diverse beauty of the Virgin Mountains as we crossed over the northwest corner of Arizona.

After passing through Arizona, we crossed into Utah. Then after dipping back down into Arizona we crossed back into Utah a second time. The scenery in southern Utah is fantastic! Not only does Utah seem to have more than their fair share of national parks and national monuments, but just the scenery along the roads is beautiful as well. After crossing into Utah the secont time, we were greeted by pink, white, and salmon-colored cliffs along one side of the highway. This is where Margery started involuntarily saying "Oh, wow!" every time we went around a bend or up over a hill. A little later, the road went up beautiful Kanab Canyon just south of Glendale, UT.

North of Glendale, the canyon opened up to a wide, pleasant valley lined with well-irrigated hay fields and pastures. We saw cattle, horses, and even several elk grazing. So far, Utah is one of our favorite states.

Bauer's Canyon RV Ranch in Glendale, UT would be our home base for the next few days. Glendale is about 1/2 hour from Zion National Park and about an hour from Bryce Canyon National Park. Bauer's Canyon Ranch RV Park is located in a canyon along the East Branch of the Virgin River. The parking pads and interior roads are mostly dirt, but we were pleased to see there was lush grass between sites. There were sprinklers and hoses around the campground that kept the trees and grass well watered. Most of the sites are pull-throughs. Overall, the campground is quite nice in spite of the fact that sites are a little close together.

The next morning we set off for Zion National Park. We entered Zion from the east entrance. On Bauer's website, they had provided directions to their campground for RV owners that, although would involve more travel time, it would alleviate the frustrations of elevation climbs and switchbacks on the road through Zion. We would also avoid having to pay the $15 RV escort fee through the 1.1 mile-long tunnel on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway. The tunnel was the longest in the U. S. when it was completed in 1930. Although stopping in the tunnel is no longer permitted, there are several openings that reveal vistas of the neighboring peaks. RVs are permitted to drive through the tunnel provided they are less then 13' 1" high. The RVs are not actually escorted, but opposing traffic is stopped to allow the oversized vehicle to drive down the middle of the tunnel where there is maximum clearance. After driving through Zion in our car, we can see why Bauer's provided the alternate route.

In 1847, Brigham Young led a band of Mormon pioneers westward establishing settlements around present day Salt Lake City, UT. Within a few years, Mormon settlers were sent to the southern part of the territory to grow cotton. In 1863, Isaac Behunin built the first cabin in Zion Canyon. Zion means sanctuary and the settlers felt safe and protected within the high canyon walls. However, catastrophic flooding of the Virgin River and poor soil made settlements in this area a risky venture.

In the early 1900s, the scenic qualities of Zion Canyon were recognized as a potential for tourism; and in 1909, the canyon was designated as a national monument. Zion was made a national park in 1919.

Zion Canyon follows the Virgin River and has steep cliffs and rugged sandstone formations. Most of the formations have names suggestive of the Mormon heritage of the canyon such as Great White Throne, Court of the Patriarchs, Sentinel, and Angels' Landing. Unlike the Grand Canyon, which is usually viewed from the rim, Zion is viewed from the canyon floor. There is a 6-mile long scenic road up the canyon; but because Zion is such a popular park, the canyon road is closed to private vehicles from about the beginning of April to the end of October. Shuttles run about every 6 minutes from the visitor center and stop at various scenic spots and trailheads. After looking around the visitor center and viewing the orientation video at the Zion Human History Museum, we hopped on the shuttle and headed up the canyon. The first scenic stop is the Court of the Patriarchs. Here, there are three peaks named Abraham (left), Isaac (center), and Jacob. Jacob is the white peak in the rear on the right. The fourth peak in front of Jacob is Mount Moroni, named for a Book of Mormon prophet and angel.

We continued up the canyon stopping to take pictures. At one of the stops, we took a short hike up to the first of three sets of Emerald Pools, so named for the green algae that tints the water at various times of the year. Margery made the 1.2 mile walk using her trusty trekking poles. Although it was a steep climb, the descent is actually more difficult for her because it puts more stress on her knees.

The pools are fed from overhead waterfalls that are actually seeps from the rock layers. Water trickles down through the porous sandstone until it hits a somewhat impervious layer. It then travels along that layer until it finds an exit creating a spring or a seep.

After reaching the upper end of the shuttle route, we made the return trip to the visitor center to pick up the car and return to the campground. We left the park the same way we entered - by the eastern entrance, which is about 9 miles from the visitor center. Many visitors to Zion enter by the more popular Springdale entrance and never see East Zion. This section of the park which lies along the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway is, in our opinion, better in some ways than the more popular Zion Canyon section of the park. While the canyon is rugged with 2000+ ft. high cliffs and monoliths, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway passes through Navajo sandstone slickrock. The colors and textures of this area of Zion are very striking. In most parts of the U. S., we are used to seeing sandstone in parallel layers alternating with silt, clay, or shale having been deposited at the bottom of some ancient sea, lake, or river. The layers may have been tilted by some past upthrust, but they are parallel. In the southwest, the Navajo sandstone is from ancient desert sand dunes. Consequently, in Navajo sandstone, the layers of texture which come from different hardnesses of the stone and the colors which come from different minerals are at many different angles. The sand was deposited at the side of a dune at one angle; then the wind changed direction, eroded some of the original sand, and began piling new sand at a different angle. The weight of layer upon layer and the infiltration of minerals eventually hardened the sand into stone. The photo below shows some of the interesting colors and textures found in the rock in East Zion.

Take time to browse through Photo Album 020: Zion, Bryce, and the North Rim for more photos of Zion National Park.

Our next destination in southern Utah was Bryce Canyon National Park. As is typical for Utah, we found the road to the park to be quite scenic. Route 12 to Bryce passes through Red Canyon. Red Canyon has red-orange sandstone formations similar to Bryce, but on a smaller scale. It's sort of a preview of Bryce.

After the beautiful drive through Red Canyon, we arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce is not really a canyon, but a series of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters carved from the eastern edge of a plateau. Bryce is famous for its geological formations called hoodoos. Hoodoos are spires of rock that are created by the erosion process. The rock at Bryce is primarily soft, crumbly limestone. Frost wedging (freezing and expansion of water that has seeped into the rock) and occasional monsoon-type summer thunderstorms are the chief agents of erosion at Bryce. The hoodoos are constantly breaking down while new ones are being formed. The northern end of Bryce has more hoodoos...

...while the southern end has more expansive vistas.

Here are Paul and Margery at one of the Bryce overlooks.

Photo Album 020: Zion, Bryce, and the North Rim has more photos of and information about Bryce Canyon National Park.

After we left Bryce, we drove east on Utah Route 12 to take in more scenery. This route travels down a valley past the bottom side of some of the Bryce formations. It also skirts past the northern edge of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Dixie National Forest. Although it was late in the day and we didn't have time to explore further, we did enjoy the scenery as we drove through. There were several formations similar to the one shown in the photo below that reminded us of Greek temples.

The next day, we drove northwest of Glendale to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Cedar Breaks is a semi-circular amphitheater about 2000 ft. deep and 3 miles across. It is similar in appearance to Bryce Canyon with its pink and white formations of Clarion limestone.

The name Cedar Breaks comes from early pioneers who came to this area. They mistook the junipers that are plentiful in this area for cedars. The term "break" was used for any abrupt change in topography.

Unfortunately, many of the spruce trees on the plateau at Cedar Breaks and in the surrounding Dixie National Forest have died as a result of attacks by the spruce bark beetle. When beetles attack healthy trees, the trees respond by producing an excess amount of sap that plugs the holes the beetles make in the bark and kills the beetles. However, years of fire supression may have inadvertently encouraged a root fungus that weakened the trees. Recent drought has further weakened the trees to the point where the beetles reached epidemic levels. Since most of the spruce trees have now died, the beetle population has also declined. Some of the beetle-killed trees outside the national park are being salvaged by logging. A few spruces survive and a few new ones have begun to sprout, but it will take years for the forest to recover. Because the National Park Service is mandated by Congress to preserve the natural process and since the beetle attack was a natural process, it has been allowed to run its course.

One thing we noticed at Cedar Breaks and at other national parks and monuments is a changed attitude about fire. Forest fires were once viewed as bad and were supressed for many years at any cost. This has lead to an unnatural accumulation of undergrowth, downed trees, etc. which actually make fires worse when they do occur. Suppression of fire has also thrown nature out of balance in other ways such as in the case of the spruce bark beetles. Fire is now seen as an agent of renewal and is only suppressed under certain circumstances such as when it threatens structures, safety, or when it threatens to get too far outside forest boundaries.

After several days in Glendale, UT, we moved south to Jacob Lake, AZ to Kaibab Camper Village. Kaibab Camper Village is located in the relatively dense pine forest of the Kaibab Plateau. The campground management gave us a site where other RVers had been successful at getting a satellite signal and, sure enough, we were also able to shoot up through the trees and get a signal from both the internet and the TV satellites. Hooray!

Although the sites were a little close for us (as usual), we enjoyed our time in the pines at Kaibab Camper Village. There were a surprising number of big rigs there. They were probably people like us who wanted to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but didn't want to go without hook-ups in the Grand Canyon National Park Campground or who couldn't find a site big enough in the park. Although the Kaibab Camper Village has full hook-ups, campers are discouraged from using water because it is scarce on the plateau. In fact, this campground had to truck in all of their water. There was no road noise here - we were in the middle of nowhere. No cell service either. Oh, well. Now we were roughing it. :)

We got up the next morning and started out on the 44-mile drive across the Kaibab Plateau to the North Rim. The plateau is primarily conifer forest dotted with meadows. Once inside the national park, we took the 20 mile scenic drive to Cape Royal. We stopped at the overlooks along the way. One thing we liked about the North Rim is that it seems to be more intimate than the South Rim. At the South Rim, there are a few formations, but they are mostly below you. For the most part, the view is very distant. At the North Rim, there are more ridges and formations closer to the rim. These formations lead the eye into the view and seem to give a better impression of depth.

There are fewer people at the North Rim, but there are also fewer facilities and overlooks. Therefore, it doesn't really seem less crowded as advertised. Also, the overlooks themselves are smaller because they frequently extend right out into the canyon. Although this puts you right at the edge, we frequently had to wait to get an unobstructed view. An interesting phenomenon was that the majority of visitors to the North Rim were Americans. In contrast, we were absolutely floored by the number of visitors to the South Rim who spoke French, German, Russian, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. English-speaking Americans were definitely in the minority at the South Rim.

We also drove to the Grand Canyon Lodge where there is a 1/2 mile walk to the overlook at Bright Angel Point. Margery had made the walk to the overlook at Cape Royal, so she decided to rest her knees and let Paul make this one by himself. The trail to Bright Angel Point is paved, but it is narrow and steep at some points. It also has a steep drop-off along one side most of the way. All along the trail you can hear parents telling their kids "pay attention," "take my hand," "stay back from the edge," "don't walk backwards," "pick up your feet," etc. The photo below shows the view from Bright Angel Point. Directly across the canyon is Grand Canyon Village where we were about a week and a half ago.

This photo looks back up Bright Angel Canyon to the north from the trail to Bright Angel Point. Bright Angel Canyon follows an active fault line that runs across the canyon all the way to Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim. Hikers on Bright Angel Trail can sometimes feel slight tremors caused by movement of the fault.

Margery was particularly disappointed that we didn't see the much-heard about Kaibab squirrel during our visit to the North Rim which is the only place they live. However, we did see a coyote, albeit more of the back end as we drove out at the end of the day. :)

More photos of the North Rim can be seen in Photo Album 020: Zion, Bryce, and the North Rim.

After visiting the North Rim, we moved on to Page, AZ, which is at Glen Canyon Dam. We stayed at Page-Lake Powell Campground and RV Park. Page-Lake Powell Campground has nice, wide, gravel sites and full hook-ups (including cable at extra cost). Between sites there were small trees, which helped a little with the heat (it was 100+ degrees).

Although we only planned to stay in Page one night, it was less than a 2-hour drive from Jacob Lake so we arrived early enough in the day to take a short, scenic drive to an overlook of Glen Canyon Dam.

This is downstream of the dam overlook. Notice the rafters in the river.

Construction was started in 1956 and the dam was completed in 1966. It took 17 years for Lake Powell behind the dam to fill completely for the first time.

When construction of the dam started in 1956, the town of Page, AZ did not exist. Page began as a small community of construction workers on Manson Mesa above the construction site. By 1974, the Bureau of Reclamation (which was responsible for the construction of the dam) decided to allow Page to stand on its own. Today, Page is a town of about 8,000 people. Page, AZ was named for John C. Page, who had been a Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.

From Page, we will be traveling back up into Utah. We're coming up on our first year of full-timing and although we have tried to pace ourselves, it is really difficult to not plan like vacationers. Thus, we feel a little like "If It's Tuesday It Must Be Belgium." We have not given ourselves enough time in Utah, and we will need to return to fullly enjoy its beauty. The nuances of the colors and patterns of the hills change as the sun passes over them throughout the day. The scenery is never the same!

We decided to leave Bluewater Lake a day early. We were headed to Flagstaff, AZ, four hours away, where we planned to camp with our daughter, Lora, and son by marriage, J. Michael. The Saturn needed a good cleaning, and we had to remove and store the mobility scooter and our folding bikes. The extra day provided us time to do that and reconnoiter the area. We checked in at the Flagstaff KOA shortly after noon. We got a little earlier start than we had planned and Arizona doesn't change to daylight savings time so we gained an hour. That gave us plenty of time to get everything done before we were to drive to the Phoenix airport to pick up Lora and J. Michael.

A lot of people swear by KOA, apparently because they have a reputation for nice, clean restrooms and showers; but we never use campground restrooms or showers so we're not big KOA fans. Our experience is that their sites are too close together, and they are usually at the top of the rate scale for the area. This KOA certainly was no different. The sites were only about 16' -18' wide and and were mostly dirt. Actually, the sites were mostly fine dust. Our dog, Molly, got filthy and with all the wind, so did our motor home. The cost was over $33 a night, even with the KOA Kamper Kard discount and without the additional $3 a night charge for cable. Our neighbor's picnic table was right under our slide-out window. Fortunately there was a ban on charcoal fires due to drought and high winds because the KOA-provided charcoal grill was so close to our motor home the charcoal lighter would have blistered our paint. Unfortunately, we had to set up close to our neighbor's grill because it was the only place we could position the motor home and still reach all the hookups, miss the electrical box with the slides, and have room to get out the door. This KOA has made an effort to leave a few shrubs between sites to help with privacy. Unfortunately, because the sites are so narrow, that means you tend to get poked in the butt by branches when you try to get into your outside storage compartments. There was a fair amount of traffic noise from US 89 and there were a lot of distant train whistles.

The campground does, however, have a nice balance of shaded and open sites and they have planted some flowers here and there to help beautify the place. We like open sites because of our satellite internet dish, but a lot of people prefer shade. The road leading from the office to the main camping area is lined with fairly large trees. Unfortunately, there are quite a few that are very close to the road. Most of these trees have large pieces of bark missing in an area about 3' from the ground and again at about 10 to 12' from the ground where unsuspecting RVs have strayed too close. We're happy to say, we did not leave our mark. :)

We went with KOA this time so that Lora and J. Michael could stay in one of their cabins. We could have put them up in the motor home, but being full-timers we have little space left to store luggage for week-long company. Besides, they are relative newlyweds, and we were afraid accommodations with parents in the motor home would be a little too close for comfort. So we thought the KOA Kamper Kabin would be a way for everyone to have their own space and privacy and still be close by to share morning coffee and meals. The office staff at KOA was very accommodating in giving us a site near their cabin that had an unobstructed view of the southern sky for our dish. They also accommodated us arriving a day early.

The 2 1/2 hour drive to Phoenix to pick up Lora and J. Michael at the airport was so interesting as we went from 7,000' pine forests around Flagstaff, through high desert, and down to the Sonoran Desert around Phoenix. Most of the stately Saguaro Cactus had little white flowers clustered at the ends of their arms. After returning to the KOA, Lora and J. Michael checked in to the Kamper Kabin, took a nap, then we all enjoyed a leisurely dinner.

We were all anxious to see the Grand Canyon, but we thought it would be better to have a less strenuous day after Lora and J. Michael's travel day. Additionally, they had just moved the previous week and the 3-hour time change was an adjustment so we decided to take a leisurely drive to Sedona, AZ. Sedona is an artsy community in the Red Rock Country of Arizona. This is a view of the Oak Creek Canyon in the Coconino National Forest on the way to Sedona.

The main street of Sedona is lined with eclectic shops selling anything from western wear to jewelry to tee-shirts to psychic readings. It's not difficult to see why Sedona is a popular tourist destination. The views from almost anywhere in town are fantastic!

On the way back to Flagstaff we stopped by Montezuma's Castle National Monument. Montezuma's Castle is a five-story, 20-room cliff dwelling in the Verde Valley about 40 miles south of Flagstaff just off I17. Early settlers assumed the dwellings were built by the Aztecs and gave it the name Montezuma's Castle. The name stuck even though it was later determined the dwellings were built by the Sinagua people. The Verde Valley had been occupied for thousands of years by hunter-gatherers. The Sinagua, who were sophisticated farmers, moved into the valley around 1125 and built the cliff dwellings around 1150. The dwellings were occupied until the early 1400s. Today the dwellings are somewhat deteriorated by time, weather, and vandals. They have been stabilized, but can only be viewed from the valley floor.

A short distance away is Castle A, as it was named by archaeologists. Because it was built closer to the base of the cliff, it was more exposed to the weather and to vandals and today only a few original foundation bricks remain. However, in its day it was a six-story building with about 45 rooms.

On Friday we drove from Flagstaff to Williams, AZ, to board the train for the Grand Canyon National Park. The train is operated by the Grand Canyon Railway, which provides two regularly scheduled round trips a day between Williams and Grand Canyon Village. Back in 1901 the Grand Canyon Railway (then a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) built a rail line from Williams to the South Rim of the canyon as a means to lure tourists. The three-hour train ride quickly became more popular than the six-hour stage coach ride. However, as use of the automobile grew in the '40s and '50s, the train fell from favor. In 1968 passenger service was discontinued although the train continued to haul freight for several more years. Then the rails lay unused until Max and Thelma Biegert bought the rail line in the late 1980s and began restoration. The Williams Train Depot was reopened on Sept. 17, 1989 - exactly 88 years to the day after the first passenger train traveled from Williams to the Grand Canyon. Max and Thelma retired this year and sold the railroad to Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which is the concessionaire for the Grand Canyon and many other National Parks.

The train provides a fun, relaxing way to travel to the Grand Canyon. There is a staged gun fight before the passengers board the train. Here the "bad guy" has been shot and is about to make a soft landing.

The gun fight characters later stroll aisles of the train after it is underway chatting with the passengers. A singer in cowboy garb also goes from car to car singing old western songs. It was a lot of fun, and we really recommend the train as a way to have a relaxing trip to the canyon.

We made the short walk up the hill from the train station past the El Tovar Hotel for our first glimpse of the canyon.

Words simply can't describe the Grand Canyon. Pictures can't do it justice. It is just so vast that it is beyond words and pictures. You have to see it in person. See Photo Album 19: Grand Canyon and the Flagstaff Area for pictures of the train ride and our attempt to capture the majesty of the canyon in photographs.

We opted for a 1 1/2 hour guided bus tour of a portion of the Hermits Rest Loop, which is just to the west of Grand Canyon Village. This particular tour was only available to Grand Canyon Railway passengers. As first-time visitors, we thought it would be a good way to get oriented. The tour was very informative, and we thought it was well worth our while. Here are Lora and J. Michael at one of the stops along the bus tour.

Here is Paul posing for a photo at the rim of the canyon. Step back a little more...a little more...

Help! Just kidding. Paul is really squatting on a ledge that is about 15' wide and about 4' below the one he is pretending to hang on to. The camera angle makes it look like there is nothing there.

One thing that becomes very evident is how deceiving distances are. Your mind knows that canyon is about a mile deep, but when you look down into the canyon and the tour guide tells you what look like shrubs about half-way down the canyon are really 70' tall cottonwood trees, it really surprises you. The photo below shows Indian Garden. The green ribbon in the center of the photo are the 70' cottonwoods along the famed Bright Angel Trail. Bright Angel Plateau with the trail showing up as the light tan line is visible beyond Indian Garden. The edge of the plateau in the upper left is the turnaround point for the one-day mule trip, which means it is a half-day's ride. The trail to the bottom follows the trees and goes off to the right of the plateau. The mule trip to the bottom takes a full day down and a full day back with an overnight stop at Phantom Ranch.

On our way back from the Grand Canyon we all agreed we wanted to experience more of the canyon so we decided to travel back by car. We left bright and early two days later and stopped in Tusayan, which is just outside the south entrance to the park, to see "Grand Canyon Movie" at the National Geographic Society Visitor Center IMAX Theater. This is the most watched IMAX movie of all time having been viewed by almost 40 million people. The movie starts with the Anasazi (Ancestral Puebloans or Ancient Ones), who were early inhabitants of the canyon area. It then moves into more recent history with Spanish discovery in 1540. It details the exploration of the canyon by John Wesley Powell in 1869. John Wesley Powell was a 35-year old Civil War veteran who lost his right arm in the battle of Shiloh. Powell, who was also a professor of natural history, and nine companions explored the uncharted and dangerous canyon in 4 small, wooden boats. Three of Powell's companions, in fear for their lives in the dangerous rapids, left the group to climbed out of the Canyon on foot. They were never heard from again. It is assumed they were killed by Indians.

Learning a little about Powell from the movie really piqued Margery's interest in him. She is currently working her way through the 573 page A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell by Donald Worster. How interesting to learn that in the spring of 1857, he stayed on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh before beginning his exploration down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers where he learned about the geological history that had made the North American continent what it was.

From the IMAX movie, we went to the rim of the canyon and explored the area to the east of Grand Canyon Village as well as Kolb Studio at the Village. The Kolb brothers operated a photographic studio at the south rim of the canyon from 1904 to 1976. In 1990 the building was restored and today operates as a book store, museum, and art gallery. The studio is located near the trailhead of Bright Angel Trail, which descends down into the canyon. Paul and Lora took a short hike down the trail. We saw this mule party a ways below heading back up the trail. Mules have the right of way on the trail and hikers must pass by on the outside next to the drop-off.

In the day between our two treks to the Grand Canyon we stayed a little closer to our home base. Sunset Crater National Monument is about 15 miles north of Flagstaff. It is at the beginning of a 34 mile scenic loop that ends up at Wupatki National Monument, which is the site of numerous pueblo ruins. Sunset Volcano is a 1000' high black cinder cone tinged with yellows and oranges. The volcano erupted sometime between 1046 and 1071 spewing ash, cinders, and lava over a wide area. Below is a view of the Bonito Lava Flow in front of Sunset Crater Volcano.

Even though over 700 years has elapsed since the last volcanic activity, there is surprisingly little vegetation on either the lava flows or the cinder cones. Weather usually breaks down the lava and cinders to turn them into soil, but the low amount of rainfall in this region has slowed the breakdown and thus the plant growth. The area is in the San Francisco Volcanic Field (named for St. Francis and not connected to San Francisco, CA) and is dotted with numerous cinder cones and several lava flows. Although the cinders begin to thin out quite a bit as you get closer to Wupatki National Monument, their black evidence can be seen essentially the entire 34 mile scenic drive,

At Wupatki National Monument we visited two of the seven pueblo ruins that are open to the public. The first was Wukoli Pueblo, which is the best preserved dwelling in the park. Two or three families lived in this pueblo which was occupied from about 1120 to 1210.

The second site we visited was Wupatki Pueblo, which is the largest pueblo in the park. This dwelling had approximately 100 rooms at its peak and rose multiple stories. It also had a circular ceremonial or meeting room and a ball court.

Now, we don't really like big cities, we don't like a lot of glitz, and we don't gamble; but our curiosity got the better of us and since Las Vegas is kind of on the way to our next area to explore in Utah, we planned to spend a couple of nights in Vegas. We wanted to see the lights, see the exotic hotels, and take in a buffet or two.

Lora and J. Michael had arranged their schedule to fly back to Pittsburgh from Las Vegas. We made reservations for us at the Circus Circus KOA and for them at the motel section of Circus Circus. Again, KOA usually isn't our cup of tea, but we needed a campground with reasonably priced motel rooms nearby. The Las Vegas Circus Circus KOA is basically a paved parking lot with side-by-side hook-ups. There's not much shade and not much grass, but it is conveniently located at the north end of The Strip and it does have both a hotel and a motel. But at over $50 a night for a campsite (with a KOA Kamper Klub discount and without the extra charge for Wi-Fi), it leaves a lot to be desired.

The route from Flagstaff to Las Vegas takes you right across Hoover Dam. We had heard about restrictions crossing the dam with large vehicles such as trucks and RVs after 9/11. Although RVs are currently permitted to cross, they may be subject to search. Since, as full-timers, our motor home is well packed and since we didn't know the extent of the search or the length of the backup, we opted for the half-hour longer route through Laughlin, NV. Besides, there are also construction delays at the dam because they are buiding a bridge 1/4 mile downstream to eliminate most of the traffic across the dam and eliminate terror threats to the dam. Completion of the bridge is scheduled for 2008.

After we all got settled, we drove The Strip while it was still daylight and again later at night and marveled at the lavish hotels. The Luxor Hotel is built in the shape of a black pyramid with a huge sphynx in front. Caesar's Palace looks like Roman architecture with a reproduction of the Collesium out front. Paris Las Vegas has a large replica of the Eiffel Tower.

New York, New York looks like the New York skyline with a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. At night, The Strip lights up like no other place you've ever seen. The older hotels and casinos have most of the neon, although even the McDonalds have elaborate neon signs. Many of the newer hotels rely on their design to be noticed and have somewhat more subtle lighting. Most of the newer hotels do, however, have a jumbotron out front previewing their shows and advertising their casinos.

As far as we can tell, the hotels (even the large, expensive ones on The Strip) all have free, self-park garages. They want to make it easy for the general public to stop by and maybe spend a little time in the casino or attend a show. Some even have free shows outside to draw people in. Treasure Island has a pirate show and the Bellagio has lighted fountains that are choreographed to music. There is a 1000' long, eight-acre lake in front of the Bellagio with fountains that can propel water up to 50' high. The fountains twirl, sway, pulse, rise, and fall to the music.

During the afternoons, the shows are every half hour. At night, the shows are every 15 minutes. We were there in the evening and stayed for four shows. The shows are relatively short (about 4 minutes) and by the time each show was over and we found a new vantage point, it was almost time for the next show. Each show had different music and different fountain choreography. There are at least 20 or 30 different music selections including classical, pop, broadway, and Christmas. It was agreed by all that it was one of our favorite parts of Las Vegas.

There are food bargains to be had in Las Vegas if you look for them. The new, large hotels on The Strip are quite expensive, but the smaller hotels and casinos (which are still very nice) off The Strip or downtown have much lower prices, especially if you stick to the coffee shop, grill, or cafe instead of the main dining room. For example, at Kitty's Grill in the El Cortez Hotel downtown you can have an 8 oz. prime rib for $7.95 (12 oz. for $9.95) or surf and turf (7 oz. NY strip steak and 12 to 15 decent-size broiled shrimp on a skewer) for $12.95. All dinners include soup or salad (the blue cheese dressing is excellent), vegetable, and potato. The food is good, especially for the price, and ambiance is not bad (linen napkins, but no table cloths - this is the grill, not the dining room). We also had a great breakfast buffet for $5.99 at Sam's Town, which is off The Strip on Boulder Highway. The hotel is beautiful with a large atruim/lobby, although not as extravagant as those on The Strip, and is very well maintained. The food at the buffet was excellent with all the usual breakfast items (scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, cereal, rolls, muffins, etc.) plus freshly-carved ham and made-to-order omelets. They also had lunch and dinner buffets, but we didn't make it back to try them.

On the one full day that we had in Las Vagas we backtracked 30 miles to Hoover Dam. There is a tour of the dam that easily accommodated Margery's scooter.

The tour includes a movie about the history and construction of the dam and an elevator ride 500' down into the rock of the canyon wall to see one of the two 30' diameter water intake pipes that carry up to 90,000 gallons of water a second...

...and the eight huge generators on the Nevada side of the dam (the Arizona side has nine). The smaller, horizontal generator in the foreground is one of two generators (one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side) that power the dam facilities, the Visitor Center, and the power plant itself.

In the 1800s and early 1900s the Colorado River often flooded low-lying farm land and communities as it surged with water from snow melt in the spring. In the late summer and fall it often slowed to a trickle too small to be useful for irrigation. The river needed to be controlled; but before that could happen, there needed to be agreement on how the water could be equitably divided. In 1922, the Colorado River Compact was signed by the 7 states served by the river. Then in 1928, Congress passed the Boulder Canyon Project Act authorizing construction of the dam. Although the act called it the Boulder Canyon Project and the dam was initially called Boulder Dam, the dam is actually located in Black Canyon. In the end, Black Canyon was chosen because it is narrower than Boulder Canyon and it had less silt to be removed to get down to bed rock. Construction began in 1931 with the building of diversion tunnels for the Colorado River. The first concrete was poured in June, 1933. The dam was completed in 1935 - two years ahead of schedule and well under budget. Not only did the dam make it possible to provide water and electricity for much of the southwest, it provided thousands of jobs during the Depression.

Here are some interesting facts about Hoover Dam. It is 726.4' high from bedrock to the top and contains 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete weighing 6.6 million tons. There was such a great mass of concrete that a large chiller was used to circulate cool water through the concrete to cool it as it cured. The dam is 1244' wide at the top, 45' thick at the top (width of roadway and sidewalks) and 660' thick at the base. Some of the equipment used to build the dam was too large to transport so it had to be built on-site. Of the thousands of people that took part in the construction, 96 lost their lives. Contrary to popular myth, none is buried in the dam. There are 17 total commercial generating units plus 2 service units to supply power for the facility itself with a total capacity of 2080 megawatts. Lake Mead, which is behind the dam, is currently 53' below its normal level for this time of year because of ongoing drought. Therefore, the power plant can not be operated at full capacity at this time. The photo below shows Lake Mead with one of the water intake towers in the foreground. The white "bathtub ring" shows the normal water level.

See Photo Album 19: Grand Canyon and the Flagstaff Area for more photos of Hoover Dam. We are disappointed that not many readers are taking advantage of the photo albums. In addition to the pictures, there is other information included that is not in the weblog. If you are having trouble accessing the photo albums in a timely fashion, please let us know. We'll see what we can do to speed up the time.

The time for Lora and J. Michael to return home arrived all too soon. We got them to the airport, then returned to the motor home to finish packing and hitch up the toad just in time for the 11:00 AM checkout time. We were headed for Zion and Bryce National Parks in southern Utah.

So many things to see, we opted for Mount Rushmore for our first day of exploration. Based on the recommendation from the host at the visitor's information center in Mitchell, we chose the scenic approach up Iron Mountain Road because we would pass through tunnels that would frame the faces.
It looked good in person, but it was hard to get a picture between all the traffic coming and going.

As a whole, experiencing Mount Rushmore was, unfortunately, less than satisfactory. Each face is approximately 60 feet from chin to top of the head (about six stories). However, we could never get close enough to grasp the magnitude of the sculpture. What we saw in person looked like what you saw in a picture. I guess I needed a real person next to a face to get a handle on its size.

Interesting Fact: Mount Rushmore was named after a New York lawyer, Charles E. Rushmore, who was in the Black Hills in 1885 researching mining claims for area mining companies. When he asked his guide the name of the singular feature, he reportedly got the answer that immortalized his name on the landscape. "Never had none. But hereafter we'll call'er Rushmore, by Jingo!" Just goes to show ya....never be afraid to ask a question...you could go down in history!

The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, chose the mountain because it faced southeast toward the morning sun, and the natural lighting throughout the day makes for a fascinating view of these four presidents who represent 150 years of American history including the birth, growth, preservation, and development of this country.

Interesting Fact: Ninety percent of Rushmore was "carved" using dynamite.

A walk along The Presidential Trail is the closest you can get to the sculptures. By scooter, I was only able to go so far but here is an interesting picture Paul captured from the Trail.

A "surprise" we discovered as we left Mount Rushmore, was the ability to see the sculpture from the backside.

If you would like to read more about Mount Rushmore, here is a link to the official parks website:
National Park Service: Mount Rushmore.

Sightseeing via the motor home is the best. Molly is enjoying spending the day in her "den" (the bedroom) where the air conditioning and closed blinds keep her comfortable and oblivious to what's going on outside...of course, her deafness works in our favor now, too. :)

Ordering the motor home with a combined washer/dryer was something Paul thought would be valuable. I was indifferent...but not any more! We do about a load of wash every other day and we are easily able to keep up with that chore.

Running your life "from the road" has some hurdles which must be overcome, but one of us thinks that adds to the spice of life. The other? Well, let's just say it took him a year to adapt to our new environment/routine when we first moved to the North Hills. :) We were locked out of our checking account and it will be a week before our mail catches up with us with a new password. Learning the "rules" while trying to get a prescription filled with a new insurance company has been interesting, too. However, it's fun to strategize the problem solving (for one of us, anyway) and certainly doesn't make for any dull days. :)