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.

Sedona, AZ

As we mentioned before, we decided to stay in Camp Verde because it was conveniently located near a number of things we wanted to see and do. Sedona, AZ, is only about 30 miles from Camp Verde, and it was one of the places we wanted to visit. We made a day trip to Sedona from where we were staying in Flagstaff back in 2007, and we decided we wanted to see more this time.

Sedona is primarily a tourist town, and known for its beautiful scenery of red rocks. It is also somewhat of an artist community and has numerous studios and galleries. The next photo shows the uptown section of Sedona, which is the historic section and which is the area where many of the shops are located.

 

Sedona was founded in 1902 when the first post office was established, but it wasn't incorporated as a city until 1988. The first postmaster got to pick the name of the town, so he named it for his wife, Sedona Miller Schnebly. Sedona was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry who grew up in Missouri.

We learned about the Sedona Trolley from our online research. The Sedona Trolley has two tours - the Sedona Highlights Tour and the Seven Canyons Scenic Tour. Each tour is 55 minutes long and departs from the uptown section on the hour. You can take either of the tours, or you can take both tours back to back or at different times during the day. The tours are $12 each or $22 for both. We decided to take both. We happened to arrive about 20 minutes before the Seven Canyons Tour, so that's the one we started with.

Seven Canyons is a group of box canyons northwest of Sedona in the Coconino Forest. The trolley heads out scenic Dry Creek Road.

The trolley makes a couple of stops for photos along the way. The photo below shows Margery and the trolley.

 

The next photo shows both of us with some of the red rock scenery in the background.

Red rocks are everywhere you look. The next photo was taken at one of our stops in one of the box canyons.

Since we were taking both tours back to back, we just stayed on the trolley for the second tour, which heads on down south of Sedona. The trolley drives through Tlaqueplaque (TLA-keh-PAH-keh), which is a high-end shopping plaza featuring arts and crafts. Tlaquepaque is styled to look like a Mexican village.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a Catholic chapel that was commissioned by sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude, is the major stop for the Sedona Highlights Tour. Though operated by the Catholic Church there are no masses held there, but the chapel is open to the public for prayer and meditation (and sightseeing). The chapel, which was built on the side of a mesa, was completed in 1956.

 

On the path up to the chapel there is a good view of the rock formation known as the Two Sisters and Madonna and Christ Child (left). This formation reportedly inspired Marguerite Staude to choose this site for the chapel.

 

Also along the path was a crevice with a prickly pear cactus and wildflowers.

There was a small, attractive garden near the chapel...

...and a container garden near the door.

The cross, said to have been inspired by main support beams of the Empire State Building, is the main theme of the architecture both outside and in. The chapel faces southwest, so if you go in the evening, the setting sun shines in through the window.

Below the chapel is a very large, 44,000 square foot house complete with observatory. There is an extensive lawn with gardens, ponds and waterfalls, as well as two indoor pools - one for people to swim in and one for koi. The indoor koi pond reportedly cost $1 million, and the entire house cost $24 million. The large formation beyond the house is Cathedral Rock.

 

You would think such a big, fancy house would belong to a celebrity or sports star, but it doesn't. It belongs to a man from Romania who holds numerous European and U. S. parents for medical devices. including the laser scapel.

Speaking of celebrities, many of them have had homes and vacation homes in Sedona including Walt Disney, Donald O'Connor (actor, dancer), Orson Welles (actor, producer, director) and Lucille Ball. The house in the photo below once belonged to Lucille Ball. There is a cutout of her by the railing under the arch in the center of the photo.

On the way back to town, we passed another very well-known rock formation. Snoopy is lying on his back with his nose and feet in the air.

Our trolley driver mentioned a little sandwich shop called Sedona Memories as we passed it on both tours. She said they had very good, very large sandwiches. It wasn't very far out of our way back to the car, so we stopped for something to eat.

The sandwiches were indeed very large, so we split one. It had turkey, cheese, romaine, sprouts, sunflower seeds, avocado and cranberry sauce. It was yummy, but it was hard to get your mouth around.

After lunch and after walking around and looking in several shops, we took the long way back to the motor home so we could see some more of the Red Rocks of Sedona. We drove up to Airport Mesa where there is a small, general-aviation airport and a scenic overlook. The dome to the left in the next photo is Thunder Mountain, which is also known as Capitol Butte. Walt Disney gave it the name Thunder Mountain because of all the lightening strikes there. He named roller coasters at his theme parks after the mountain. The cylindrical formation to the far right is Coffeepot. The resemblance is a little hard to see from Airport Mesa, but from ground level, it looks just like the profile of a coffeepot.

We took some back roads lined with red rock formations, and we eventually connected with highway 89A back to Camp Verde via the Walmart in Cottonwood. We have one more thing we want to see before we leave Camp Verde, and we'll tell you about it in our next post.

Verde Canyon Railroad

One of the things we like to do is take rides on vintage trains. We have ridden on the 1880 Train in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Grand Canyon Railway, the Durango & Silverton Railroad in Colorado, the Pikes Peak Cog Railway also in Colorado, and the Copper King Express in Montana just last year. The Copper King Express started passenger service in 2006, but was never able to turn a profit. Therefore, they decided to concentrate on hauling freight and made the last passenger run on Nov. 29, 2009.

When our online research turned up the Verde Canyon Railroad that departed from nearby Clarkdale, we thought it sounded interesting and decided to give it a try. There are daily, four-hour, 40-mile round-trip excursions up the canyon to Perkinsville.

The railroad was originally started in 1912 as the Verde Valley Railroad which was a 38-mile branch line from Clarkdale to Drake, AZ, to serve the cement-making operations in Clarkdale and the copper mines in Jerome. You can see Jerome over on the side Cleopatra Hill from various locations in Clarkdale.

Dave Durbano purchased the railroad in 1989-90 and began passenger excursions from Clarkdale to the abandoned town of Perkinsville. Unlike the Copper King Express that traveled through a blighted, mostly industrial area, most of the Verde Canyon route is lined by national forests and wilderness areas.

The train departs at 1:00 PM, and they ask passengers to arrive an hour early. We had plenty of time to kill, and since it was lunch time, we checked out the snack bar. They had a variety of snacks and sandwiches, and we decided to share a southwest turkey panini. It had pepper-jack cheese, spinach and cilantro, and it was delish.

 

In addition to standard coach seating, Verde Canyon Railroad has first-class seating and luxury accommodations in the caboose. We are usually somewhat budget conscious, but this time we opted for first-class seating. First-class cars are set up with couches and high-back upholstered chairs that looked roomier and so much more comfortable than the Pullman seating in coach. Not only that, but first class included a champagne or sparkling cider toast to start the excursion, complimentary bottled water, and hot and cold appetizers along the way. The photo below shows the roomy, comfortable seating in first class.

 

As the excursion started out, we passed the site of the copper smelter. The smelter covered 200 acres and had over 30 buildings. The smelter closed in 1950 and was torn down, but mountains of slag remain along the track. The slag was molten when it was dumped, and corrugated iron panels held the slag back so it didn't slide onto the tracks. Much of the corrugated iron has rusted away, but he slag has solidified so it stays put.

Interestingly, a company has recently purchased the slag pile and will haul it away over the next 20 years or so to reprocess it. The slag has copper, zinc, silver and gold left in it from the original smelting operation, and modern methods make it economically feasible to recover these left over metals.

After passing the slag pile, the track begins to follow the Verde River. The train ambles along at a relaxing 10 or 12 miles an hour, so there's plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. At the beginning of the route, the river valley was still relatively flat.

A little farther along as the altitude increases, the canyon gets deeper.

 

Appetizers were served shortly after we left the station. We had chicken wings, sandwiches, a vegetable platter, crackers and three or four types of cheese, Caesar salad and bite-size brownies for desert. After we had some snacks, we went out onto one of the open cars.

Each guest is assigned to an enclosed car, but there is an open car with benches for every one or two closed cars. Riders can go out onto the open cars for a better view of the passing scenery. Each open car also has an attendant who is an expert on local history and the wildlife. The next photo shows how the open cars (darker color) are placed among the closed cars.

We passed the nest of the bald eagles who are year-round residents. The eaglets have left the nest by now, but we later saw one of them on a distant ledge. A number of migratory eagles join the year-round residents in winter. There were a couple of ospreys flying high overhead, a couple of small elk, and one black bear ambling along the river bank. Unfortunately, we didn't get any wildlife photos.

Still farther up the canyon, the red sandstone becomes more apparent. The red color comes from a small percentage of iron in the rock. In the next photo you can see uplifted red sandstone to the right with black volcanic basalt to the left. The basalt is topped with a layer of red sandstone, and there is a layer of light-colored limestone on top of that.

Speaking of rocks, our attendant identified many of the named rock formations for us. These were a lot easier to photograph than the wildlife since they were a lot bigger and they didn't move. The first one was Hole in the Wall.

Then there was Lincoln's Profile - complete with a tree for hair.

The next one is Turtle Rock.

There were more, but the last one we'll show is the Guardian Angel. You can see the flowing robes, the long hair, and it even looks like she is carrying a shield.

There are numerous Native American cave and cliff dwellings and pueblos in this area of Arizona. In addition to the larger, better known ruins, there were several along the train route, including the one below right before we got to the turn-around point in Perkinsville.

Perkinsville is a small, abandoned town named after the Perkins Ranch that has been located there for a century. Except for one home occupied by a Perkins descendant, about all that remains at Perkinsville are old, unused railroad buildings.

 

Scenes from the 1962 movie How the West Was Won were filmed in Perkinsville. The station appeared in the move.

At Perkinsville, the train stops, the locomotives uncouple and run down the siding to the other end of the train for the return trip. Notice the bald eagle paint job.

The FP7 locomotives being used for passenger service (#1510 and #1512) were built in 1953 by the Electro-Motive Division of GM for a railroad in Alaska. After service in Alaska, the locomotives were put on display in California for a while, then were used in Wyoming. Verde Canyon Railroad purchased the locomotives in 1995 and restored and updated them.

We saw the black bear we mentioned earlier on the return trip back to Clarkdale, but other than that, the ride back was fairly uneventful. We spent part of the time inside enjoying our cushy seats, and part of the time outside. Even though it's the same scenery as on the way up the valley, it looks a little different on the way back because not only are you viewing the scenery from the other direction, the sun also is at a different angle.

We really enjoyed the Verde Canyon Railroad. Not only was it a scenic ride, but we liked the comfortable, roomy seats, we liked being able to move from inside to out at will, and we liked the appetizers.

Our next sightseeing outing will be to Sedona, so stay tuned.