It's a Wrap!

In closing.....

There are always funny things that happen on trips and always issues you could have done without.

Some of the funny:

1. Thinking the smoke we saw in Yellowstone was a fire.  There were many areas we had driven through on the way to the campground that were recovering from the wildfires in recent years.  Oh how we laughed at ourselves when we realized it was steam and smoke from the multitudes of underground geysers and cauldrons!

2.  In the Grand Canyon we had no hookups so there was no furnace to heat the trailer.  We piled on the blankets and a quilt and stayed really cozy in our bed at night with the 3 dogs.  On Monday morning, the 25th, Jim asked me " dena, do have enough cover?" And I sleepily said yes, barely awake enough to hear him.  Then he said. "Are you sure you are warm enough?" 

Again I said uh-huh, without opening my eyes or turning over.  Then he said "look over here". When I turned over, he had no cover at all and I had a huge mound of blankets, etc for me and the dogs!  It was 6 in the morning and after laughing our butts off at the sight, we were both awake for the day.

3. When we made the reservation for the Black Hill campground, she informed us it was Sturgis week, but that the folks who camp in her park are always very polite and observant of the quiet hours.  Also, that the town of Sturgis is about 90 minutes from her.  Sounded like there would be no problem avoiding the melee of the Sturgis rally.  Well.....a good 150 miles out, there were multitudes of bikers!  They clearly owned every little town within probably that 150 mile radius.  To be on the safe side we decided to go ahead and fill up the tank with diesel before getting to the camp site area.  At every station we tried, there were easily 40 to 50 bikers crammed in and just sitting on their bikes and hanging out.  We went into the town of Custer about 8 in the evening that night and finally got fuel.  The bikers were probably busy eating and drinking by then. Lol!

4.   Those of you who know me rather well, know that I like to be prepared for anything.  I was expecting COLD weather! Even packed ear muffs and gloves.  Hahaha!  Never used those and only wore my jacket once.  Other times, a hoodie was all we needed and Jim wore shorts the whole time, pulling on his hoodie in the late afternoons.  Overall the highest temp was probably 72 and 41 for a low.  When it would warm into the high 50's, it felt warm to us.  Had some showers from time to time but only once did the showers interrupt our plans for the day.

5.  What seemed to become my obsession with photographing bison.  I have hundreds of shots!

The favorites:

In the final analysis, there is no way to choose a favorite.  Each place had its own personality and beauty.  We marveled at how different the landscape was on all the driving days.   Places we've never been or seen before.

The states: 

Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Arizona.

Total miles traveled:

4555

In the end, I'm not going to bore you with the road back home.  Lots of miles.  The truck aka "the beast" and the trailer performed great.  We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to see more of this great country and the chance to share a bit of it with all of you.  Thanks for following along.

We will be planning another adventure soon.  We are already making our list of potential destinations.  Stay tuned until next time. 

August 24 and 25

The battery charged really well and we were able to do our drive to the other viewing areas today. Below are some of the shots.  Such a gorgeous day and beautiful memories made of the Grand Canyon.

Angel's window.  See the folks on top?  There is a viewing area there and I went out to snap more photos.

Bits of the Colorado river way, way below.

Monday, Aug 25

We feel like we have seen what we came to see and we are both ready to head home.  Even though the battery is charged, it's rather a pain to be dry camping and only using the battery power for the fridge.  Otherwise, we can't even use our lights, only lanterns.  Time to get back home, so after breakfast, we hitched up and headed out.  What a wonderful trip this has been!

Some shots of the countryside along the drive today on the road to Albuquerque.  Still so gorgeous! 

The Vermillion Cliffs area

The Navajo Bridge with the Colorado River below.

August 23

Up at 5:30 am to join the pilgrimage of folks with their cameras to photograph the sunrise on the canyon at bright angel point.  Only time this trip I put on my heavier jacket. We got accustomed to the cooler weather back in the black hills.  

A mule ride this afternoon down into the canyon!  Fun, bumpy ride down about 2000 feet and then back up.  I had a really good, calm mule named Woodrow, after Woodrow Call.  Beautiful vistas from a whole different perspective.

Kitty, the trail boss.

A tunnel at the spot where we took a break and rested the mules before heading back up.

Me on my trusty mule, Woodrow.

Came back from the mule ride to find out that the trailer battery had gone down.  No, it didn't seem like we were using it that much but it is a real learning curve for dry camping rookies.  Long story short, the campground host is charging our battery right now and if it all works, we can re-install it and then plug the trailer back into the truck and turn back on the fridge.  The fridge cools with propane but needs electricity for the switch.  If worse comes to worse, we will have to head home early which would be such a shame.  We were so looking forward to a short road trip tomorrow to several other observation points which are supposed to be fabulous.  Poor Jim.  He's about worn out worrying about this today while I was out having fun.

Aug 22, north rim of the Grand Canyon

Welcome to Arizona!  The road goes on forever and the party never ends!

Very bad wreck on hwy 67 about 40 miles north of the Grand Canyon campground.   We are stopped in the roadway waiting for the medical heli.  A small RV rental flipped.  Man with bad head injury.  

Took about an hour to get the road open again.

The drive from there on to the Grand Canyon was just wonderful...beautiful meadows, pine forests and groves of aspens.  In another few weeks it will be bursting with spectacular color both here and at Zion.  Zion is covered in cottonwoods and I love how they look in the fall.  Reminds me of our trip to Santa Fe two years ago.  Need to go there again and eat some posole!  Yum!

57 degrees here today.  Went to the lodge and walked out to Angel's point for our first  look at the canyon.  So much larger than I had expected and we were only seeing a tiny piece of it.  Takes your breath away.

The campground here is really beautiful.  It is in a pine forest with plenty room between sites.  The camp host came right over to meet us when he noticed our texas plates.  He's from Beaumont.

Fancy dinner of grilled brats and red wine.  Lol!  Look at all the room in this campground!

And I almost missed the sunset!

Tomorrow at 12:30 I take a half day mule ride into the canyon.  Should be fun!

August 20 & 21

Bryce, chapter two and headed to Zion

Rain this morning but we went out and took photos anyway.  Had to skip a couple areas because it was raining too hard.  I'm not afraid of getting wet but I sure can't afford to have my camera get wet.  The good news is that it cleared in the afternoon and we went back out and took shots of the other two areas, sunrise point and inspiration point.

An eighty mile drive over to Zion National Park ended with me snapping away and exclaiming "wow!" at each turn.

We had thought that with the close proximity of the two parks, they might look somewhat similar.  We could not have been more wrong!  Each stands on it's own and cannot even be compared.  

The drive into Zion is probably my favorite part of it, but the huge cliffs that are each side of the winding road that goes down into the canyon are pretty spectacular!  In order to go "up canyon" as they call it, you ride a free shuttle and can get off and on at any of the stops.  There are no cars allowed in that area unless you are staying at the lodge which is one of the first shuttle stops.  The cliffs are some of the largest sandstone cliffs in the world.  There would be no place for parking all the cars of the tourists who want to view the cliffs, without ruining the magnificence of the area. The shuttles are ultra efficient and quite a pleasure to ride.  Almost no wait when we were ready to move on the next area.

Zion gave us a pretty sunset on our last night and a beautiful sunrise to send us off to the Grand Canyon.

August 19, Bryce Canyon

BRYCE CANYON!!!

We arrived yesterday early afternoon and once we were set up at the campsite, we went exploring.  So glad we did because we had a major rain storm last night and it has rained most of today.  Some of the photos were taken yesterday afternoon and others today in the drizzle of the morning.  Now we are stuck in the trailer writing the blog and surfing the internet.  After this post, I may get out some art supplies and scribble a bit.

No words can describe this beauty!  I have run out of expletives!

Love the look of castle spires these hoodoos produce in the above photo.

And others look like totem poles.

Yep, those are folks down there on that trail. We had planned to try that today but the rain changed that plan.

Rainbow point

Jim is thrilled that there are no bison here!  Lol!

Tomorrow we head over to Zion, about 80 miles away, for more oooh's and ahhh's!

This vacation has been so wonderful!  Too bad it will be over in 10 days.  But then I can start planning the next one.  Yay!

August 18. Day 16

Aug 18. Utah Lake state park To Bryce 

About a four hour drive from the state park to Bryce.  Beautiful scenery, as usual. We have realized today what a gorgeous state Utah is.  I'm running out of polite expletives to use.  Jim is so over hearing me say " wow" and "gosh" every other breath.  Lol!

On the way to Bryce Canyon, we passed through.....RED ROCK CANYON

We are staying at an amazing place!  Should be called "Rubyland"!  Developed in 1916 and still run by the original owners relatives.  They have a gift store, a grocery store, an inn, a service station, an auto repair, rodeo grounds, a gigantic and beautiful RV park, cabins, tee-pees...the list goes on and on.  The story of the original family is very interesting.  They were here before Bryce was designated a national monument.  If you are ever in this area, we highly recommend Ruby's!

Bryce rates it's very own post.  Stay tuned.