low_delta | Entries tagged with arizona utah 2015

Thursday morning we went to breakfast at the restaurant next door, then went off to Zion. We drove all the way in from the west side of the park, through the slickrock, through the tunnel, down the big switchbacks, to the visitor center. We caught a shuttle into the canyon. We got off at the first stop, thinking it would be the Court of the Patriarchs viewpoint, but there was nothing there. We walked down to the river anyway. Ten minutes later, the next bus stopped, and we soon got out at Court of the Patriarchs. Then a stop at the Lodge while we decided where to go next. We went all the way up to Temple of Sinawava. We took the mile-long walk up to the entrance to the Narrows. Then we rode back down to the Lodge where we had lunch in the nice restaurant.

After lunch we did the Emerald Pools hikes. It was mostly uphill, especially the climb to the Upper Pool. We were a little disappointed because the waterfall was off. Not much there but a pond. We had some sun in the morning, but by the time we started this walk it was overcast. We took the long way back from the top, and it soon got a little wet. A very light rain had started. It got a little heavier by the time we were done, but nothing serious.

We decided to head out of the park to a nearby ghost town, Grafton. The clerk at the motel pointed it out when she saw the name of the town where we're from. It was on a gravel and clay road, with the usual "impassable when wet" signs. We kept wondering where it was, but the road had no way out but back, so we knew it was somewhere down there. We made it to the cemetery. There were quite a few shallow, mounded graves, mostly with newer headstones. They were mostly from the late 1800's. We could hear thunder, and see rain clouds moving our way, so I opted to leave. In hindsight, we could have gone further down the road and taken a quick look at the town itself. It turns out we were very close, and I don't think the rain ever hit it. I guess they've restored a few buildings.

We drove back through the park toward our motel. Coming through the tunnel, there's the Canyon View trail to a vista point at the top of a canyon off the side of the main Zion Canyon. The walk was a little longer than I had remembered, and of course the light rain started again. But we made it, and it was a pretty interesting walk, even compared to the others.

And then back to the Thunderbird Lodge, where we had dinner in the restaurant, including some of their ho-made pie - apple pie with hot buttered rum sauce.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the Thunderbird again, packed up the car in the rain, and headed off to Zion. It was actually raining, rather than doing that sprinkly stuff like most of the day before. I was thinking we could don our raincoats and do a shortish hike, but then decided it probably wasn't worth it. It was cold, and a little windy. Just generally unpleasant. I took us up to Kolob Canyon. It's part of Zion National Park, but it's a smaller until, about 45 minutes away. I was hoping that even if it was still raining up there, we'd get to see something new. Nope. It was still raining, The temp was down to 37°, and it turned out the road was closed to due ice and snow.

So we decided to try Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. That was a two hour drive into the desert. We got down to St. George before the rain let up, but it followed us for over an hour. We went down through the Virgin River Gorge, across the corner of Arizona. Ten miles of amazing mountains and cliffs, and steep grades.

The weather was good down at Valley of Fire - 70°, and partly cloudy. We saw the famous Elephant Rock. When I got there, I wondered if that's all there was, but the park turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected. We were there for two or three hours, and only saw about half of it. We drove around, seeing a big petrified log, a viewpoint, a couple of picnic stops, and then stopped at a vista point. The colors of the rocks were amazing. We walked up a big sandstone hill. We drove on a little further to the end of the road. There was a mile-long hike that we decided to take after maxing out the laptop with photos, to clear space on our camera cards. A little way in, Cyn twisted her ankle, so she rested for a bit while I took a look around. Then we went back up to the car and left the park.

We went back up to St. George in UT. Had an adequate dinner at the Brick Oven pizza place next to our Ramada, then ignored the Jacuzzi tub.

The next day was the drive back down into Nevada, to Las Vegas. We wanted to see the strip and its denizens, since we had about half a day to kill. We had a little trouble getting there - I made a right off the freeway rather than a left - and then we hit the strip at the Bellagio and took it all the way up to the seedy part, with the little Elvis wedding chapels, pawn shops, "antique stores," and bail bond places. Our destination then was the Neon Boneyard, a repository for many of the vintage neon signs from the city over the decades. The next tour was sold out, so we decided to buy 2:00 tickets, and go back to the strip first.

We went back down the strip, and they were closing one lane just ahead of us, so it took forever to get anywhere, before we wised up and got off of it. We headed south and found some parking. We needed a restroom, so went into the nearby Monte Carlo casino/hotel/resort/whatever. We wandered through the casino and out into the sunshine. We walked for a while, before I discovered we had only an hour-fifteen to get back to our car for the fifteen minute drive back to the boneyard. That sounded like a bit of a rush, since we still needed to eat. We decided to hit the Hard Rock, and it took forever to get back up there. It turned out we had walked a mile, and had to go all the way back up a mile, wait for a table, wait for our food, eat, then try to find our way back to our car (the only way was to retrace our steps through the casino), all inside that 75 minutes. I think it was ten to two when we got back there. They were happy to take us to our tour already in progress at ten after two.

We were in a hurry to join the tour and forgot our sunglasses and sunscreen in the hot Las Vegas sun, but the tour was still pretty awesome. I love the old neon, even in rusted disrepair.

When the tour was over, we got in our car, took the quick way to the airport, with only a couple of wrong turns (the GPS doesn't give you enough warning to get into the correct lane for the exits), remembered to fill up the gas tank in the rental car (which added only a little hassle), and get to the airport in plenty of time. We got to sit with each other on the way back. It was 50° and rainy in Milwaukee, and we got home right at midnight.

Tuesday was Cyn's birthday. We got up early to get to Lower Antelope Canyon for our 8:30 tour. It turned out that they'd had rain the night before, which caused a flash flood in the canyon (floods in narrow canyons are always called flash floods because they enter the canyon all at once), and had to spend some time cleaning it up for the tourists. Later, I asked our guide about it, and he said they shovel sand down into the canyon, so we're not walking through deep puddles of water.

So we went off to Horseshoe Bend for an while. We came back a little over an hour later, and the place was packed. We then had to wait another hour for our rescheduled photo tour. Our guide took the four of us (another guide had six photographers) down the trail to the entrance to the canyon, where several large groups of people were waiting to get in. Not only is Antelope Canyon a busy place on a normal day, but an extra hour and a half's worth of tourists were backed up there. Our guide got us past three or four groups, since there were only four of us, but then we were in the midst of the crowds, and had a little trouble getting decent shots. And we didn't have much time to spend on them, since we had to keep moving to stay in between the regular tour groups. So what was supposed to be a leisurely stroll through the winding canyon, turned into a rush. Finally, about halfway through, the crowds thinned out, and the corridors were roomier, so we were able to slow down.

The photography was still a bit tough, though. It was a photography tour, and the other two photographers seemed to know what they were doing. I felt like a hack. Which I was. Cyn was an obvious amateur. I brought her along on the photo tour, since I wanted to go on the photo tour. But I didn't even prep her on how to use her tripod. Which doesn't work well for some things anyway. I wanted the photo tour, because you get more time in the canyon, and can bring along a tripod for some quality shots. About halfway through, my camera slid off my lap and into the sand (I forgot the strap wasn't around my neck). I got sand on the lens, which pretty much shut down any chance I had of getting good shots. I borrowed Cyn's camera a couple of times, but I was mostly relegated to viewing the canyon. Which wasn't all bad.

Afterward, we drove down to Antelope Point Marina. It costs $15 to get in, but it was covered by our National Parks Pass. The Marina is home to lots of huge houseboats. The little ones rent for a couple grand a day, and cost about half a million. The big ones... are outrageously expensive. Luxury furnishings, bigger than my house, etc. It's also home to the largest concrete-based floating restaurant in the world. We got some burgers to go, so we could make the 1:30 boat tour of the bottom of Antelope Canyon. There was a family from France, a family from Russia, a couple of Denmark, and we Americans, stuffing our faces with burgers. The cruise was nice. A little chilly on the water, and not much to see except canyon, but the canyon is nice and I learned a few things, so it was good.

We drove back to the B&B to freshen up, and then went to Dick's and Jewell's house. Dick is my great uncle. We sat and talked with them for a while, and then we went up the road to the Chinese buffet. We went back to their house, and Cyn recorded Dick telling some stories, before they gave us a slideshow of old pictures. They'd scanned all the slides, so I was able to download most of them onto a card to take home. Once I got home, I discovered I didn't actually have them. Grrr. So now I've got to figure out how to have them get them to me.

But slideshow! Do you remember those? Sitting in a hot dark room for an hour or more, while someone shows you all the pictures from the vacation to Florida or whatever? Brings back the memories. But it was mostly pretty cool. All kinds of photos of family members from the sixties and seventies.

Dick and Jewell were really appreciate of our visit. Really appreciative.

And then it was raining pretty hard. It let up by the time we actually left. It was one of the latest nights of the trip.

In the morning we were up pretty early again, to get the first tour of the day at Glen Canyon Dam. It was pretty cool. Hoover Dam gets all the exposure, since it's so close to Vegas, but this one is almost as big. Sixteen feet shorter, and I think the canyon is narrower. They lowered it by sixteen feet, from the original design, so as not to flood Rainbow Bridge. The tour guide, Paul, said when he was a kid, he used to run around inside the dam. The tours were self-guided, and he and his friends would go through any door that wasn't locked. Now everything is closely monitored by post-9/11 security. We didn't have to take our shoes off while going through security, but we weren't allowed to bring carry-on items. Anyway, my uncle was the maintenance manager at the dam for many years, so I asked Paul if he knew him. He said yes, and he Jewell since she was a schoolteacher, and he knew a couple of their kids.

After a look at the outside of the dam, and a walk out on the bridge, we left town. It was an hour and a quarter drive to Kanab, Utah, but we stopped a couple of times. First at the Toadstools. It was a half mile walk up to the toadstools. Then we went to Paria Canyon. It was a couple of miles down a gravel road. They had recently graded it, and fixed the washed-out sections, so it was an easy drive. We saw some beautiful painted canyons. I could believe all the colors of the layers - red, gold, chocolate brown, dark maroon, even green! We took a lot of pictures. There had been a small town there, in the late 1800's, and there were signs that gave info on the the settlers and their trials. There used to be some ghost town remnants, and then it was used in the sixties for a movie set. The old-style western buildings remained there for a long time, until vandals destroyed them. I guess one was rebuilt, but it was burned down too. Now, the only thing that remains is a cemetery. It's been cared for and updated. All the graves have new headstones. None are marked with names, but the sites are marked.

Then we drove to Kanab where we had lunch. Nice little place, the Rocking V. There was a nice gallery upstairs. It's just down the block from where they're building a big new hotel on the site of the old fashioned motel I stayed in the last time I was there. The Treasure Trail Motel. That was disappointing. But at least there's economic activity in the town. So we drove on to Bryce.

Bryce Canyon is spectacular. You've probably seen pictures. The sun was often out while we were there, so that was nice. The trail I wanted to take was closed for the winter, so we had to do a down & back, rather than a loop. It's a long, steep trail with lots of switchbacks, so that was tiring. Then we drove up the road, stopping at a couple more overlooks, until we got to the end of the road at the top of the park. 9100 feet. And it was cold. It dropped below 50°, for the first time on our trip. Earlier in the day in the desert, it was 70°.

We drove back to our motel in Mt. Carmel Junction. The Thunderbird Lodge is a Best Western, they way they used to be - independently owned, rooms in several buildings, with doors to the outside. The rooms have balconies or patios. A pool and hot tub, and a golf course. Attached gift shop and restaurant (home of the ho-made pies!). It's about a half hour from Zion and an hour from Bryce. I recommend it.

This was the middle two days. Part 3 coming up soon.

Saturday we flew into Phoenix. We arrived just before noon. We drove to Chandler to visit my cousin. Second cousin, once removed? Shirley is retired. After lunch she took us to the museum where she works (and is on the board). Pueblo Grande is the remains of a village that was abandoned around 1400. The people there build a great irrigation network. Shirley took us through the little museum and gave us the informative talks that she gives to tours. Then we walked outside to look at the walls. It was 100°, so we didn't take too long.

Afterward we went back to her house and looked at some pictures. Then I called my Aunt Barbara to tell her we were on our way. It turned out I had told her we would be there on Sunday. Fortunately, she wasn't (isn't) busy, so could still meet us. We didn't get to meet her son Jimmy and his wife Rachel, though, since he had plans for the evening.

We went to a Mexican restaurant and talked for a while. Aunt Barb is easy to talk with. We had a good time.

Then we drove north to a town called Camp Verde to stay for the night.

The next morning we went to a place called V-Bar-V Heritage Site. It used to be a ranch of that name. The owner had preserved a cliff wall with petroglyphs (images carved into the rock), and it's now a neat little site. We got there right at nine o'clock, but it didn't open until 9:30, so we went for a walk along a nearby creek.

Afterward, we drove to Jerome. Jerome was a mining town, perched on a mountainside. Sometime after the mining died out in the fifties, they turned to tourism, so it's several blocks of old-timey buildings, with shops and galleries. We had to drive all the way through town, to a parking lot, since there wasn't a single open parking place.

The lot was in front of a mine, with some big rusty towers, so of course we had to go over to take some pictures. It was also behind a chain link fence, so I stepped up onto a guard rail post to get a higher vantage. There wasn't enough room on top of the post to turn around, and rather than stepping down forward, wherefrom I'd have to climb back over the guard rail, I decided to jump down backwards. Bad move. The jump down was higher than the step up, due to my having to jump down past the curb. I picked up a lot of momentum on the way down, and went all the way to the ground. I managed to turn halfway, so I fell on my side rather than my back. My right hand hit first, then, as I kept going, my elbow. The pavement was made of gravel, which took a good gouge out of the side of my elbow. It stung. Fortunately, there was no other damage, to me, my clothes or my camera. I soaked up some blood with a tissue, and we walked to town. We went in the first shop we saw - a t-shirt shop - and Cyn asked the woman behind the counter if there was a drugstore or a place to buy band-aids. "No." But the woman went off to find us some. She came back with an alcohol wipe and some band-aids. The band-aid didn't stick due to the amount of hair on my arm, but she gave me a spare.

We went next door to eat, and by the time we were done, the band-aid was no longer sticking on one side. We went back to the car, and I pulled out my razor and shaved that part of the arm. The next band-aid remained on the rest of the day.

The main reason we went to Jerome was for Caduceus wines. The winery is located in Jerome, and they have a shop in the middle of town. Caduceus Winery is owned by Maynard Keenan (singer with Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer), along with Merkin Vineyards. Next door to the wine shop is the Puscifer shop, which carries all kinds of clothing and music related to the band. And there's a barbershop on the lower level. But, the wines... I must admit I was disappointed. We had a tasting flight of four (which was a little expensive for a tasting flight at the source). I only really liked one of them, and it was a bit different. Spicy. We bought a bottle, which was really expensive. Now we have to figure out what to do with it.

Anyway, we walked around Jerome for a while before hitting the road for Sedona. And stopping at a grocery store along the way, to pick up bandages.

A was a little surprised by Sedona. The red sandstone mountains that surround it were just like I expected, but the town itself was bigger than I expected. It's a sprawling suburban landscape. We went up by the airport for a view of the valley, then for a hike on the north side of town. As we left town, we came upon an overlook by a bridge. It was a beautiful look down the valley towards Sedona. Then the drive all the way up the valley to the north was just as beautiful all the way up. An amazing drive.

We stopped in Flagstaff for food. We decided to hit a sub shop for a fast meal, in hopes we could make the Grand Canyon by sunset. The sun was pretty much down by the time we left the restaurant. So we drove up and checked in at the Yavapai Lodge in the park near the south rim.

The next morning we got up and had some granola bars and fruit in the room. I think it was the only day we didn't have an actual breakfast. We went down to the visitor center and a couple of the overlooks for a view of the canyon. It's big! So big you don't really get a feel for it. After picking up some more food, going back to the room to eat it, change clothes and gather supplies, and a short bus ride, we embarked on a hike down into the canyon. Of course I forgot my camera. Fortunately, Cindy had hers, so I borrowed it a few times. It was almost a two hour hike. The sign said one to two hours, but we stopped for a lot of pictures. We went down just past Ooh Aah Point. Quite picturesque. There were dark blue clouds threatening us with rain, but we just felt sprinkles here and there. Though there was thunder.

Afterward, we drove over to the lodge at the west end of the park. That was a mistake. There's not enough parking over there - we should have stayed parked where we were and taken the shuttle. As we were walking over to the shuttle to take us out to the overlooks on the west side of the park, it started raining. And it was cold and windy. Maybe as low as 50°? Cindy started whimpering. I wasn't feeling that miserable, and still wanted to go out there, but then I realized that with the rain, there would be no view anyway. We rode the bus back to our car and headed east out of the park. So that was a little disappointing.

As we passed one of the eastern overlooks, I saw there was sun shining on part of the canyon (still with rain behind), so I had to stop. And then again at the next one. The next one was Moran point, named for the artist, so I had to stop there too. Not much sun left by that time, but the wet air and rock made for an interesting view. So much rich color.

And we saw a herd of elk relaxing by the road. We drove down out of the park. And through the desert towards Page. We stopped at a scenic view of a canyon below us. And another pullout on the mountainside before the highway went though a cut towards Page. We looked across the Colorado River Valley towards the rain clouds that came north from the Grand Canyon.

We went into Page and stopped at another overlook, where we could see the Glen Canyon Dam... and its namesake canyon. Lots of red rock. We were hoping some cell phone reception would happen, so we could GPS the location of our B&B, or at least call them and ask where they were. It turned out Cyn kinda vaguely remembered what the map looked like, and that the street kinda curved, so I took us to a place that matched that description and we found it.

Canyon Colors B&B was nice. Brenda and Manny were very helpful and Brenda's breakfasts were great. We went out to eat at a nice place, for Cindy's birthday dinner (though her birthday was the next day). We had a very good meal, and they put a candle in her tiramisu. And the waiter asked if we wanted them to sing a song for her. We were grateful that he gave us the opportunity to turn that down.

So there's the first three days of our trip.

We went to the southwest last week.

Phoenix, Pueblo Grande Museum
V-Bar-V Ranch petroglyphs, Jerome, Sedona
Grand Canyon
Page, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam
Utah desert - The Toadstools and Paria Canyon, Bryce Canyon
Zion National Park
Valley of Fire
Las Vegas

I had seen some of that before, and wanted to show Cindy.

We visited family in Phoenix and Page.

It was a long trip. Over a thousand miles. The weather was good sometimes, and not so good other times.

I'm kinda bummed out at the moment. Some of it was kind of a let-down, due to the weather. May isn't normally the rainy season, but it's been very wet down there this year. Rain isn't what you want when you're touring the desert ("road impassable when wet") and slot canyons. Especially when it's only fifty degrees. I'm also bummed because I lost some (electronic) photos I got from relatives. Now I have to figure out how to get them from them again. And now I'm home and it's chilly and wet again (it was warm here last week). And I've got too much stuff to do. And some other things.