The Surprising Verde Valley, Arizona

We've already been camped here at the Zane Grey RV Park, in Camp Verde, for five days and it's been a beautiful five days. Here's some of what we've seen...

The hillside town of Jerome - former mining town, redlight district and ghost town now filled with shops and galleries.
The Mongollon Rim escarpment which, more or less, is a one edged canyon. We drove 30 min. on a bumpy, gravel road to get there.
Quail Country Quilt Show - reminded me a lot of Janet's Guild Quilt show but a bit smaller.
The beautiful red rock spires surrounding Sedona including a sunset view. There were two wedding parties at the river taking photos and one had a Native American flute player that added just the right musical atmosphere.
The planets orbiting Jupiter, the Ring Nebula, and a star cluster through the telescopes at Lowell observatory. It was a beautiful new-moon evening and we could easily see the Milky Way without even needing the telescopes.
Montezuma’s Castle and Well. Considering the fact that Montezuma never left Mexico, there are a lot of things here named for him. Early explorers mistakenly assumed the ruins they found were left by him, but they were actually much earlier inhabitants of this land.
Tuzigoot ruins of a 1000 year old town - rebuilt by the WPA in the 30's along with a beautiful little museum also built by the WPA.
Beautiful vistas and views in every direction along the beautiful Arizona horizon.

We also kayaked in one of the small-ish Dead Horse Ranch Lagoons as well as biked to get a closer view of Sedona's Cathedral Rock.  

Yesterday, we took a day off from driving around. Ellyn learned to play "Hand and Foot" cardgame with two of the women  from the RV park. We really like this small shady RV park - it's very relaxing and the people are very nice. Perhaps, we'll get a chance to visit, here, again in the spring.

6 Months of RVing - by the Numbers

We consider the start of our Full-Time RV living to be April 14th when we left Debbi's and Peter's driveway in Bethel, CT for Ellyn's brother's and sister-in-law's curb in Vienna, VA. We choose that date because it's the date our home was supposed to "close" on but it didn't actually close until the 17th. Now, in celebration of our first six months of RV living, here's a summary of our travel by the numbers:

RV Miles: 13,076

Car Miles: 6,707

States Traveled: 31

States Camped: 28

Nights in RV: 173

Last date we saw measurable rain: August 25th (almost 2 months ago)

Pounds Ellyn has lost: none (but none gained either)

Longest bike ride: 12 miles (in hot steamy weather with Ken & Martha)

Highest altitude: 11,796ft (Rocky Mountain National Park)

Lowest altitude: 8ft below sea level (est. between San Diego and Arizona)

Highest gas price: $3.18 (California last month)

Lowest gas price: $1.83 (Virginia in April)

National Parks & National Historic Sites: at least 9

Friends visited: at least 22

Family visited: at least 20

F&F met-up with on travels: 4 (Logan & Maureen, Dave & Marie)

Campgrounds: 61

Most Expensive Camping: $85/night (Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta - included admission)

Least Expensive Camping: $9.50/night

Average Camping: $33

Number of incredible experiences & memories: Far too many to count!!!

Driving to Beautiful Verde Valley, AZ

We arrived last night at Zane Grey RV Park in Camp Verde, AZ. For the first time in a while, we are surrounded by trees and there is a lovely creek on the campgrounds property.

Our drive here from Albuquerque had a few diversions. We stopped in a really nice, friendly campground in Holbrook, AZ for two nights and spent a day in the incredible Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP). The PFNP is more like two parks in one - the northern half is the Painted Desert whereas the southern half has many areas with petrified logs. Also included in the park, were ruins of the original inhabitants more than a millennium ago as well as outstanding petroglyphs. So, there was really a lot to see and photograph. We'll add lots of photos to this post as the photos will save me a thousand words of typing.

As we headed toward Flagstaff, we stopped at Meteor Crater. You sci-fi movie fans may remember that the ending of the movie "Starman" was filmed there. It's the size of 20 football fields and is where a 150 foot meteor struck the earth millions of years ago. The museum had very interesting meteor and crater exhibits.

A smaller item we saw in the garden, a the crater, was a lizard that appeared to change colors as we watched move from the plant to a rock. In the parking lot, we met the transport driver of a Seattle hydroplane. The driver of the hydroplane, he was hauling, is Kayleigh Perkins who, in Aug, was the first woman to be the unlimited light Seafair champion!

We then drove on through Flagstaff to our current campground in Camp Verde - about 30 minutes from Sedona. We plan to spend a week, here, relaxing and touring the area. First task is to grocery shop after we send out this post.

Playing Catch-up Again

Ok, let's see, where are we now. Oh, yeah, back in Arizona after a week in New Mexico. The balloon fiesta in Albuquerque was fantastic. We sure are glad we parked right on the park grounds because the traffic trying to get into the facility in the early morning was backed up for miles, according to the local news stations. Also, the early morning events started at 5:45 AM. Ouch. But we did not shirk them and we are so glad we did not.

The morning started out with the Dawn Patrol, a group of balloons which would launch before dawn to "prove" the wind direction and speed before the mass ascension. This was more than just balloons in the dark, because they would do some "all burn" and "flicker burn" maneuvers  to light up the morning sky. It was quite colorful.

At 7:00 AM the rest of the balloons would begin inflating and launching into the sky as soon as they were ready. By this time the sky was light and by the time the last balloons lifted off, the sun would be bright over the Sierra Madre mountains. The best thing about these balloon launches was that the public was able to mix and mingle with the balloons and launch crews right on the field as they wished. It was quite something to see these huge balloons inflate, rise over you head, and then rise into the morning air. Each time one lifted off there would be a cheer from the crowd right around it.

The first morning we saw the mass ascension, it was just the special shapes balloons. The other balloons were at another site to the northwest of the field. After the special shapes were all launched, they clear the field and set up targets for the other balloons, which then flew into the filed, dropped markers into the targets, and tried to retrieve envelopes form tall poles. This was the "keygrab" competition and it was quite something to watch. It is amazing show the pilots can actually do some fine controlled maneuvering of the balloons. It would get really interesting when there were several balloons really close together over the field jockeying for position and "kissing" each other to get to the targets and poles.

The after noons would be relaxed and the balloon crews would do maintenance and rest up. Then in the evening, they would get back onto the field and inflate, but not fly. They would then do a "Glodeo" in which they would light their burners all at once or in a flickering pattern to make everyone "oooo" and "aaaah". It was very colorful. The evening would then be topped off with a fireworks show.

On the second full day there, we got up early to see the dawn patrol (5:45 AM!) and then to watch the mass ascension of all of the balloons, both special shapes and the “regular” balloons. I set up the video camera and shot 90 minutes of the activity. Then I put it all on

Mass Ascension

my computer and compressed it to run in 2 minutes. It is pretty cool and you can see it here on YouTube. We had 3 days of great fun, until the last evening, when the winds decided to kick up and they had to cancel the balloons. They still did the fireworks, so all was not lost. The last morning, they were supposed to do another mass ascension as a farewell but the winds were still too high. We were so glad we did not wait until the last day to see that.

Good-bye Pacific - Hello Desert

Yikes - we're behind, again.

Our stay in Orange County, CA was great (don't we say that every time?). One treat was that Orangeland Campground had citrus trees throughout the park. They even had fruit picker tools to borrow so we helped ourselves to some of the ripe oranges. Since they were too juicy to eat, we juiced them. We still have a dozen or so in the fridge.

I had a great visit with Ellyn's longtime friend, Henry, who was her first boyfriend (at 15) and she's been dear friends with him now for 42 years! We went to Yom Kippur services at his Conservative Synagogue which were very, very nice for Kol Nidre and a bit more dull for YK morning. Ellyn got to also go out to lunch with Henry in Laguna Beach.

At Henry's suggestion, the two of us spent an afternoon on Balboa Island and taking the itsy-bitsy ferry to Laguna Beach. The ferry is similar to the Essex Ferry in CT. It was an incredibly beautiful day and it was great riding our bikes along the beach, walking on the pier.

Another treat in Orange County was meeting up with our friends Marie and Dave for dinner. Also at the dinner was Dave's sister and partner (who we had met in WDW last Jan) as well as an IBM colleague of Ellyn's that she hadn't seen in years. It was a great dinner at the Disneyland Hotel's Steakhouse 55.

Next, we headed to San Diego where Geoff's Brother Wes and family live. It was great hanging out with them at their house. The youngest niece is now graduated from high school and the great-niece is now a very active and precocious 5 years old. An extra treat was that we saw the Navy's Blue Angels fly over the house as they were doing a nearby Air Show.

On Sunday, we had a great kayak paddle in Mission Bay nearby the RV park and in the afternoon, Wes, Pat and little Trinity came to join us in Mission Bay Park. It was a beautiful day. I have read that San Diego has the best weather in the world and our few days there seemed to bear that out. We also flew our kites but the wind was a bit variable so we didn't do that for long.

Yesterday, we said good-bye to the Pacific and started driving east to Arizona. Our drive was great - not much traffic and we passed interesting views of rocky hills and valleys and then into the desert where we passed through blowing dust and saw a real tumbleweed tumbling. Geoff made an unannounced stop in Dateland, AZ to get a Date Shake. Ellyn was too full from eating pumpkin seeds in the RV.

This morning we headed further east to leave the RV at BEAUTIFUL Gilbert Ray Campground near Saguaro National Park. Then, we drove about an hour more east in the car to go the INCREDIBLE Kartchner Cavern. We've been to 8 or maybe more caverns around the country and this one was unique. It was discovered only 35 years about by two college students. They kept it a secret and finally told the landowners (the Kartchner Family) about it four years later. They decided that it should be made a State Park so it could be protected. It took a total of 14 years, after it was discovered, before it was made public, and then another 10 years until it was opened in 1999. The discoverers and the state did research on problems other caves had had to put as many protections in place to preserve the cave features and atmosphere such as dim lights and triple door chambers to maintain the humidity. The utmost care was taken in the building the wheelchair accessible pathway and entrance. So, as far as I could tell, there weren't any broken off stalagmites or stalactites and there were incredible "straws" (one 21 feet from floor to ceiling) and columns (one dubbed Kubla Khan is 60 ft tall!). The tour was a delight so kudos to the discoverers, the Kartchner family as well as the State of Arizona!

Our plans for tomorrow are to tour the Saguaro National Park in the morning - maybe even get up for sunrise over the mountains. Then to drive some more towards Albuquerque where we plan to be on Thursday to go to the Balloon Fiesta over the weekend.

Our kids make us so proud!

There they are! All three of them completed their first 1/2 marathon. Logan, Maureen and Brian have been training hard for weeks for this and, on Saturday, September 26th, they ran the "Wicked 1/2 Marathon" in Boston, MA. It was a fantastic achievement and Ellyn and I are both very proud of them. Our boys have not looked better since they were just little tykes. Maureen has been Logan's inspiration for more then 7 years now for his slim-down and Brian has been playing Ultimate Frizbee for several years but recently started on Weight Watchers and training for this run and has lost most of another person. They are all inspirations to Ellyn and I, we love them very much, and I hope I have not embrassed them too badly.

Cut-up, Wine, and Exit South

(Note: Ellyn and I did not confer and both wrote on the same subject. Hers is below. There is some duplication, but mine has pictures)

After Yosemite, we were back to Pacifica for 6 more days to Rosh Hashanah and to look after Ellyn’s sister Laura, who is recovering from surgery. Ellyn made us all a New Year’s meal which could not be beat and her Father and Liz also joined us. First, they stopped by the RV for a look see and to enjoy some hors d'oeuvres, and then to their house for the main course. Ellyn and attended services on Shabbat Evening (Erev Rosh Hashanah) at B’nai Israel Judea in San Francisco. We were attracted there because Ellyn found out that a friend of hers from her camp days is the Cantor there. The Friday evening service was really nice and we enjoyed it a lot. We also went to the Saturday morning Rosh Hashanah service there and, although it was also nice, it was very long (3 1/2+ hours!). We had to tear out of there and get some food right after it was over. Too bad but we were glad we hung around Friday night to schmooze a bit. One surprise was that when we arrived Friday evening, a gentleman at the door overheard us say we were from Alabama and he said “Not Dothan, Alabama?” and we said “Yes!”. It turns out he knows one of the most prominent families in that congregation. We only caught his first name, “Zef”. 

After Pacifica, we headed up to wine country, Napa Valley. We had reservations for two days at the Napa Valley Expo Fairgrounds at the RV Park on the grounds. It was very nice, not at all like other fairgrounds we have stayed at, but paved slabs to park on and nice grass and other landscaping touches. We were supposed to meet our friends Brian and Nina, who were going to show us around and be able to talk “wine” lingo with our friends up there who are in the wine business. However, the day we traveled up there, Nina had an accident at her workplace and had broken her nose and dislocated her shoulder. Ouch! Travel the next day was out of the question, but we still had a nice time visiting Joel and Jenlea, who own property with grape vines on it, which they hire someone to tend to and harvest, and Tom and Beverly Porter, who own the  Porter Family Vineyards, which was featured on an episode of “Dirty Jobs” when they had a wine cave dug on their property. We got a nice tour of the winery and cave and got to sample some of their wines. We also toured around the area and saw some very beautiful grape-growing country. It was a fun day!

Now we are on our way Southward. Yesterday we were in Capitola, CA north of Monterey at the New Brighton Beach State Park and then today we drove into Monterey to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They had some nice displays featuring Sea Horses, Jellyfish, and Kelp. We also enjoyed watching them feed their Sea Otters. We even saw some wild ones frolicking and feeding in the bay as we ate our lunch. Afterward, we went to the end of a pier near where we parked the RV and saw about 1000 seal (sea lions?) sunning themselves on the rocks of the breakwater.

Then we took a leisurely 3 hour drive down California Route 1 to Morro Bay where we are parked for the night. Tomorrow we head into L.A. to visit with friends there and attend Yom Kippur services.

Lotsa California

Yikes! We've fallen behind on the blog, again. Here's a quick summary of the weeks since Yosemite.

We returned to Pacifica - just South of San Francisco, where Ellyn's sister and husband live. Ellyn had lots of fun hanging out with Laura while Laura recovered from surgery. We went to Rosh Hashona services at B'nai Israel - Judea in San Francisco where Ellyn's Camp Swig friend, David Morgenstern, is now the cantorial soloist. The services were great and David's voice was a joy. It was also great to see David's sister, brother and father. We had Rosh Hashonah dinner at Laura's and Jay's with Ellyn's father and his wife also joining us.

While in the Bay Area - we had fun seeing: Lorna, Brian & Nina, Wendy as well as Ellyn's family.

Our next destination was Napa where we visited the incredible "dream home" of Joel and Jenlea as well as the Porter Family Vineyard owned by Geoff's former IBM boss, Tom and his wife, Beverly. Their son gave us the winery tour and we had a delightful wine tasting in their wine cave that had been featured on "Dirty Jobs." It was a nice reunion with old IBM friends and a beautiful day in the Napa Valley.

Yesterday, we headed toward Monterey and were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful New Brighton Beach State Park. The beach was great to walk on and we were suprised to see dolphins just offshore. We had a great campfire using our newpurchased enviro-logs. Ellyn found these at Home Depot and they solved several of the drawbacks we had with using regular wood - smoke getting in our eyes, restrictions on carrying a supply of wood due to insect risks, and concern about the "carbon footprint" of smokey fires. The enviro-logs burned very wood-like and are the same cost as a bundle of wood. Now we have a box of them in the car ready to use whenever we get the urge to have a campfire.

It's time for bed now - I'll finish about Monterey and the thrilling ride down the coast of CA in my next post sometime soon.

Yosemite National Park

Ellyn and I have arrived back where it all started. We spent our honeymoon here in a Curry Village cabin. We took a look today and it may be #220. Sadly, due to some rockslides, it is now roped off and all of the cabins may be demolished.

We got here on Thursday afternoon and pulled into what we thought was our parking site because of the way I read the list at the gate. However, we found out the next morning we had to move. Fortunately, we did not have to pull up many stakes because there are no services here. Just keep stuff from falling all over and pull in the slides. In addition to no services, we have very tenuous cell phone voice coverage and no data. Plus too many trees to get a satellite signal. So, a lot of hobby work and reading.

Today we did finally find one of the free internet signals in the valley and I was able to upload some pictures to Flickr. We also saw some climbers on El Capitan and water coming over Bridal Veil Falls. We have done some bike riding around the valley and toured by car a bit today. We are trying to decide if we will go to the high country tomorrow or not. It is getting late here and we should get back to the RV. More later…

Well, we confirmed, based on a picture that I took of Ellyn from a window, and trees and a rock, that this is the cabin we stayed in on our honeymoon in 1978. It looks like they eliminated the problem we had with the kerosene heater by installing natural gas.

This was one of our longest times with no electrical power other than our generator and batteries. Unlike in Charlotte earlier, we were more reluctant to run the generator here. However, the 6V golf cart batteries worked wonderfully and kept their power very well, even when running the inverter for our laptops. When we did run the generator, the new charger performed flawlessly and the exhaust up-stack we bought before we went to Charlotte helped keep the noise and exhaust out of our neighbor’s campsite. As I was pulling out of the campsite, one of our neighbors stopped me and asked about the stack and where he could get one. He said it really made the generator quieter, although I think it really just helps with the exhaust, as the generator is pretty well sound insulated under the coach.

I loved taking pictures in the valley. There is not a bad picture you can take. I was able to concentrate on working on composition and lighting because the subjects are perfect. I have also had a little fun in post-processing, using the IBM Perfect Photo program, and doing some experimenting with dodging and contrast.

Summer 2009 Trip Map

Here is a map of our trip across the US from Bethel , CT to Pacifica, CA in the summer of 2009. I have tried to get pictures at each place we camp but sometimes that does not happen. So I have included other pictures taken in the area of friends or scenery.

Place the mouse pointer over any picture on the map to see the name of the location, and click to see a larger version of the picture or a link to information about the location.

From Sea to Shining Sea

Yay! We made it to the campground just south of San Francisco in Pacifica, CA and our site overlooks the Pacific Ocean. We've now made it across the whole country from sea-to-sea having left Danbury at the end of July. California has a special place in our hearts. Ellyn lived here from '57 to '60, '65 to '69 and '73 to '78. Geoff was stationed in California while he was in the Navy and then sent by IBM to here for one year in '77 to '78 when the two of us met and married. We'll be seeing lots of family and friends, here, as well as lots of beautiful places.

Despite Pacifica being known for its fog and overcast, it's a beautiful sunny day, today. We're resting a bit this afternoon before we meet Ellyn's sister, Laura and husband, Jay, for dinner.

We'll post photos of Pacifica and our visit to the Bay Area in a later post. First, here's some from ofur first stop in CA which was Truckee where we stayed in Granite Flat Campground right on the Truckee River which was only about 10miles from incredibly beautiful Lake Tahoe. We spent two days there and had fun biking in a couple locations and taking short hikes. We had our first sighting of the huge California trees.

Here's some photos:

This is a huge tree...you have to look very closely to see markings on the photo pointing to 5ft 3in. ellyn standing next to it....not sure how many times larger the tree is but no doubt that it's tall.



The two of us at an overlook of Lake Tahoe.



Our RV backed onto the beautiful Truckee River which is the only outlet from Lake Tahoe.



Photos of each of us as we walked around the various Lake Tahoe paths.

Make Mine 14 AWG

Although the Great Wall of China can not really be seen from space, there is a man-made object in Northern Utah which can. It is the Kennecott Copper Mine near Herriman, UT. As we approached from the east, I commented on the hills we could see as being the “largest landfill project” I had ever seen. I did not realize they were tailing piles from the mine until Ellyn said they were from the copper mine. I was astonished. (I would have been less so if I had studied up on where we were going but I like to be surprised)

So 20 miles or so later, we arrived at the entry gate and paid our $5.00 entry fee and the drove the 8 miles and 873 ft. up to the visitor center. We looked around at the exhibits in the center to learn as much as we could about mining, refining, and smelting copper. An amazing by-product of the process is a large enough quantity of gold and silver to pay for the operation. Wow! They have been mining this particular vein of copper for 110 years and have plans for possibly mining it from underground after surface mining is no longer feasible, in another 5 or 10 years.

Like the Grand Canyon, the scale is almost impossible to grasp by looking into the pit, except for the machinery moving around in there. It can be deceiving until one of the dump trucks comes close enough to see how large they are, like when they are near a recognizable object, such as a pickup truck. Then the mind starts to boggle. (photo on left: In left lane, the tiny dot of a vehicle is a pickup truck followed by a "small" mine dump truck. In the right lane is the "large" mine dump truck. As you can see, it could carry many of the pick-up trucks! Now, that's huge!) As we were getting out of our RV, we noticed a car nearby with people pointing and taking pictures of us. So we walked over to talk to them. It turned out they were tourists from Israel. They were going to meet some friends and go to Yellowstone, Brice, Zion, and some of the other western parks. It was funny that they thought our little RV was big enough to take pictures. With the car in tow it is 50 ft. but they had just looked at 100 foot long dump trucks and 30 billion cubic feet of hole. I guess this was just too real to pass up.

Arches until our arches have fallen arches

Arches National Park near Moab, UT. What more can I say? A picture is worth a thousand words so here are 12,000. Click on a picture to see it in as much glory as your computer screen resolution will allow. Go!

         

From left to right, top to bottom, Visitor Center Sign, the campground at sunrise, some cool buttes, Skyline arch, Geoff at Broken arch, Sand Dune arch, Turret arch, North and South Window arches, Ellyn in North Window arch, Delicate arch, Factory Row (named as such by Geoff), Laughing Dolphin (again by Geoff), the valley floor.

Colorado!!!

There's lots of good things to say about our trip to Colorado.

We had a great time visiting long time friends from when we worked at IBM and lived here from '82 to '86 plus lots of tourist time. It was so nice to pick up where we left off and to catch up with everybody!

Geoff has posted some photos on flickr - the link is to the left.

Here's a summary....

• A great dinner in an airplane (really!) restaurant with Amy and her family.
• A bike ride surrounded by red rocks spires in Colorado Springs followed by sips from the nearby springs.
• A Walnut Brewery lunch, near the Pearl Street Mall, with Yuma Circle neighbors John & Jamie. Plus a quick chat with one of Logan's and Brian's first pals, Nick. who is newly engaged and in the midst of planning a New Year's Eve Wedding.
  
• A relaxing visit with Andy who is the only person to have attended our wedding as well as the Bris of both Logan and Brian. We also met his delightful daughter, Sarah, who is an Art student in San Francisco.
• A visit to Margaret's and Dennis' 15th floor condo that overlooks Denver & the Rockies' stadium. Had fun dining with them in a nearby sports bar/cafe while the game was playing and the Rockie's comeback from being down 3-6 to win 14-11 delighted everybody.
  
• A great dinner with Diane and David. Jamie, Diane and I were charter members of a book club that they still belong to more than 25 years later! Ellyn received a nice list of recommended reading from Diane! :-)
• A tea-riffic tour of Celestial Seasons with yummy tea tastings!
  
• Really enjoyed two days in Rocky Mountain National Park with breathtaking views. After huffing in the high altitudes, I'm more appreciative of the oxygen we have at lower altitudes!
  
• Enjoyed a bike ride along Boulder Creek Path and, today, a bike ride along the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon.
  
• Had a most relaxing swim in the enormous and renowned Glenwood Hot Springs pool. Of course, we couldn't help but remember back Brian's first swim, there, at the age of 3 months.
  

In a few minutes, we'll be leaving Glenwood Springs for Utah's Arches National Park. We'll be in the SF Bay Area in less than a week!