Category: On the road

Monday we visited the Grand Canyon Village Historic District. As early as 1901  tourists started visiting the grand canyon, arriving on the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams, AZ. During the following decade Grand Canyon Village expanded around the railway Station. We had fun exploring the historical buildings. Many of the buildings were designed by Mary Colter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday and today we explored the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Yesterday we travelled west on the free shuttle buses as far as Hermit’s Rest. Today we travelled east by car as far as Desert View. We stopped at every site along the way in both directions. We did walk a bit but it is very difficult in the high elevation. We had sunny weather both days but today is a bit windy.

It’s ridiculous how many photos I took, it was hard to narrow it down to a manageable quantity for the blog. But the views are so spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw some better views of the Colorado River today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My new favorite historical person is Mary Colter. She was an architect in the early 1900s and designed a number of structures in Grand Canyon. Some are shown below and others I plan to visit during the rest of our stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at the Tusayan Ruins, the remains of an 800 year old Pueblo Indian Village.

 

 

 

 

And the elk are still visiting frequently.

We woke up this morning to 15 degrees (brrr!!). The water pump had frozen up so we had no running water while we got ready to leave. But no permanent damage. We brushed our teeth and flushed with drinking water 🙂

Left Bryce Canyon and drove to Grand Canyon.  On the way we drove through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

 

 

 

Part of our trip was on route 89. A section of route 89 in Arizona was closed in 2013 due to a landslide. It has been repaired and just re-opened recently. Don’t know if this is the location of the landslide that closed the road but certainly would not have liked being in the vicinity if rocks started sliding.

 

 

Arrived in Grand Canyon Park early afternoon.

 

 

Staying in Trailer Village Campground.

 

 

 

Walked over to the South Rim (a short walk from the campground) and got our first good look at the canyon.

 

 

 

A herd of elk roams around the campground regularly. We are finally getting to see some wildlife!

 

 

We arrived in Bryce Canyon City yesterday.

 

 

 

We are staying at a campground just outside the park named Ruby’s Inn RV Park.  It is part of a large complex (hotel, store, campground) that started as a small inn in the early 1900s where visitors came to see Bryce Canyon. The inn was established by Rueben (aka Ruby) and Minnie Syrett who grew up in the area. There are not many other campers here.

 

 

Today we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. The park is smaller than many others, located on a high plateau (note the elevations on the signs below) , and has spectacular views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned a new word a few months ago. The rock formations in formed by erosion in many locations in the southwest are called ‘hoodoos’. There are loads of beautiful hoodoos in Bryce Canyon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were some warning signs posted.

 

 

 

We saw an area where a forest fire had occurred a few years ago. It does not seem that much a grown back yet.

 

 

And we got a taste of the cold and snow we missed in Massachusetts this winter. It was in the 30s all day and there was plenty of snow and wind. Luckily the sun was warm and we did not need to shovel any snow.

Today we left Portland, Oregon heading toward The Grand Canyon (we have reservations in Trailer Village starting Friday for a week).  We travelled down the Columbia River Gorge (aka “The Gorge”) on route 84 toward Eastern Oregon and eventually Idaho.

 

 

Good-bye Mount Hood (as seen in rear-view mirror)

 

 

Some sights along the way

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we arrived in Idaho

 

 

My daughter Kathy, a graduate student at Portland State University, has spring break this week and we decided to change plans and drive to Oregon to visit with her for a few days. We picked her up in Portland and headed out the Boardman, OR on the Columbia River. We are staying in a beautiful little park, Boardman Marina & RV Park (note Kathy’s tent next to the fence).

 

 

 

 

It rained most of the day yesterday so went to visit Kennewick, WA – had lunch at Ice Harbor Brewing Company.

 

 

Weather was nice enough at the end of the day to give us a beautiful sunset.

 

 

Sun is out today and I took a long walk in the park.

 

 

 

Enjoying life!!

This post is a bit late but just wanted to keep things in chronological order.

Last week we visited Sky Valley Resort in Desert Hot Springs, CA. Their claim to fame is natural hot springs and they offer numerous swimming pools and spas with naturally heated clear mineral rich water.

It was really more of a mobile home park with a very small number of RV sites. The first site they gave us was on a busy corner next to a construction area. But we asked for a better site and they accommodated. The site we ended up with was pretty nice but it was still a mobile home park and not really a campground.

We visited Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve just a few miles down the road from the ‘campground’. We had a nice nature walk and what we discovered was that the reason there are hot springs in that location is that it is smack on top of the San Andreas fault. The hot water in the swimming pools and spas are is coming up through a giant crack in the earth. We looked at a map and figured if California sunk into the ocean while we were there that we were on the surviving side 🙂

Back to Joshua Tree National Park today. We took a hike on ‘Split Rock’ trail, a 2 mile loop.  The picture below explains the name.

We hiked in the morning while it was still cool. It was starting to warm up by the time we finished. I cannot imagine what it must be like to visit in the summer.

We saw a few rocks that looked like other things.

 

 

 

I love seeing the plants in the desert. I think it’s because they are so different from what we have in New England.

 

 

 

 

And a critter.  We have seen very few animals during our national park visits so far. Hopefully we’ll see more in the future.

 

All in all a good hike and a very nice day!

This morning there  was fog in the campground and on the river. Quite unusual and very pretty.

This afternoon we headed out in the kayaks. Went further we have before. Saw some sights.

Burros visiting a house nearby. I suppose they just wander around hoping for a handout. It is illegal to feed them but I think lots of people ignore that rule.

A sunken boat.

And lots of beautiful scenery.

On one of our kayak trips Bill saw some hummingbird feeders hung in people’s yards. So yesterday he dug out our feeders, filled them, and hung them outside on our cabana. Almost immediately a tiny friend came to visit and there has been one or two there almost all the time since. The pics below are from inside the motorhome through the windshield.