Saturday, September 17, 2011 Lorraine’s report
Hello from Jacob Lake RV Park on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I’m writing tonight because tomorrow, Sunday, we will be headed out of here to another spot. We have sure seen a lot of different, but kinda the same National Parks; each unique in their own way but all of them spectacular!!
Last Sunday found me cleaning the rig before we headed out to not even a mile away to look at the petroglyphs on a rock cliff, pretty neat to see how close they were to a main road, and not even protected, and not ruined by the public and their tagging.
From there we went on a long drive into the back country; through the La Salle National Forest. The couple in the rig next to us had just come back from that ride and said we should take this drive first south then north of Moab, it gave you a different view of the area. It surely did; we were over 7800 feet, up and down narrow windy roads with amazing views; well worth the trip.
Monday found us packing up the rig and head out of Moab to Cortez, CO to the Ute Mountain RV Park eleven miles out of Cortez, in Towaoc. This was a very nice park, quiet, not your park by a freeway, railroad track, or airport. It had grass for Misty without burrs and it gave you a discount when you got your players card; it had 50 amp, water and sewer and we could get TV and internet, all important things to us.
We set up the rig and Chuck had to wash the bugs off the windshield. We then headed into the Super Wal-Mart in Cortez for supplies. We spent a quiet evening home watching TV.
Tuesday was more chores around the house before we headed out to see Mesa Verde National Park. This park had a lot of cliff dwellings. We hiked down to one of the major villages, Spruce Tree House which is the 3rd largest of the cliff dwellings after Cliff Palace and Long House at this park. It was built between A. D. 1200 and 1276 by the Anasazi Indian Tribe. It has 114 rooms and 8 kivas (kee-vahs), which are community meeting rooms, built into a natural cave that is 216 feet long by 89 feet deep. They think it was home to 100 people.
It was amazing to see such old ruins, in fairly good shape, manned by the Park Rangers, talking about the ruins. I found the entrance to go into the lower rooms to be incredibly small and narrow; the straight down ladder was daunting to me and I didn’t attempt to go down. There was plenty to see above ground. And the walk down, about 700 feet, was okay, but coming back up in the heat was harder for me, especially at the altitude of over 7000 feet.
After that we took the driving tour of the rest of the area, stopping at the overlooks, the pit houses, and the Cliff Palace. It was a long day, but well worth our time.
There was thunder, lightening and rain all night long and Wednesday morning we woke up to the hard rain continuing. Chuck spent the morning checking out stuff for our schedule and I puttered around the rig. About noon we headed into Cortez to go to the museums there.
The 1st museum in town wasn’t much; I can’t even remember its name. We then drove out to the Anasazi Heritage Center about 10 miles out of Cortez, north. Now this was a wonderful museum; we watched two short movies on this area and the peoples and spent a lot of time going through all the exhibits. There was an amazing amount of artifacts to see.
By the time we were through, we were told it was just a short ways to see one of the Anasazi villages, so off we go. We were able to find our way down this terribly bumpy, unpaved road; it reminded me of some of the old unpaved roads back home in Ketchikan.
We found the Lowery Pueblo empty of people and cars and extremely quiet; in fact you could hear the wind blowing. Lowery Pueblo is over a thousand years old and is on the Trail of the Ancients Scenic Byway. The Ancestral Puebloan People occupied this pueblo for over 165 years and struggled to survive in this arid landscape. They farmed corn, beans and squash and supplemented their diet with small game. Theirs was a hard life.
There were thunder and lightening storms all night long again when we returned home, so we stayed in.
Thursday morning Chuck was out walking Misty, when someone called to him. He didn’t recognize this person. It was his brother, Brad and his girl friend, Dolly. They had arrived at the Casino/Hotel/RV Park we are in around midnight after a long drive from St. Peters, Mo. I hurried and got ready and we went to eat breakfast at the Ute Mtn. Casino Restaurant.
From there we took them up to Mesa Verde to see all those wonderful sights. We stopped at Spruce Tree and they hiked down to the ruins. We drove the whole same route we had just done, and enjoyed it all again showing them all we had learned. They said they liked it all.
We got back, took Misty out and headed over to see Four Corners, where Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet. When we headed out, it looked like we would hit thunder/lightening and rain, and we did. But by the time we got there, it had stopped long enough to go through the shops and have our pictures taken. We finished just before the storms hit again, and the shop keepers were packing up their wares.
We got back to Ute Mountain in time to eat dinner at the restaurant. We had time to play a bit before and after dinner. Chuck and I left seed $ but Brad was pretty lucky. He played a short time after they got in the night before and won a jackpot, then got lucky while we were waiting to eat, and so did Dolly, she also won.
Friday we packed up the rig and left a bit earlier than we usually do. Brad and Dolly headed out early. They had more places they wanted to see and since they are driving a car, they were able to do so. They went into Monument Valley, took a tour on Lake Powell and arrived at Jacob Lake Lodge to meet us for dinner.
We plugged on and made it to Jacob Lake, the Kaibab Campe RVillage in this national park. We had rain, wind and really narrow rough crooked roads to contend with. Chuck said on the way up, he looked over at me and I had my eyes closed and I was hanging on for dear life.
This park is over 7900 feet above sea level, and Friday night I used O2 all night, I just couldn’t catch my breath and I was really feeling it. This park is only an hour away from the north rim of the Grand Canyon, and it doesn’t have an address, since it is inside this national park.
We unhooked at the campground for this national park and the car wouldn’t start, so Chuck got out the jumper cables, got the car going and we took off to find this RV Park. We found it, went back for the rig, came back and set up. We only have 30 amp and water, no TV but can get internet and some phone service. Last night the temperature was down to 46 degrees, and Chuck had to turn on the heater for me.
While we were driving out, Chuck and I saw a gray squirrel with a long, white bushy tail. These squirrels are unique to this area, and are a pretty rare thing to see.
Today, Saturday, we went over to meet Brad and Dolly after they got back from going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to see the sun rise. Brad said on their early drive up they saw bunches of Deer.
We both headed up driving our cars, since Brad had booked a room for them at the Grand Canyon Lodge that overlooked the canyon and had a balcony. The climb up was over 8900 feet.
We enjoyed a very nice lunch with them at the restaurant overlooking the canyon. We shopped, went to the tavern to have a drink in honor of Alicia’s 50th birthday; Alicia is Craig’s wife, another of Chuck’s brothers; the party was today. And then it came time to say our ‘Byes”, it was sad to see them go their way, while we went ours.
Thank you Brad and Dolly for driving so far to meet us and spend some quality time together. We appreciate you doing that!
This Thursday will be Chuck and my 39th wedding anniversary. Thank you Chuck for so many wonderful new memories, ticks off the bucket list, this great trip and all you do for us…I love you….
Lorraine
9/17/11 Chuck’s report
This week will be Lorraine and my 39th anniversary. We have had our share of ups and downs, same as most folks, but the last 4 years we’ve been together almost 24/7 and had a great time and seen lots of our great country. Thanks for being there and sharing your life with me. Happy Anniversary honey, I LOVE YOU.
Another busy week for us, I’ll probably add lots of pictures again so maybe I’ll keep the written report shorter than normal.
Last Sunday we were still in Moab, UT. We decided to take a Sunday drive, up in the mountains. But first we drove over to see the Petroglyphs that were about 1/2 mile from our campground. These were right next to the road, just pulled over and there they were, pretty interesting. Of course, there was some graffiti there, being that accessible but I was please to see most of the area was intact.
Next we headed up to drive the mountain, not sure what we were going to see. All we knew was it was a loop of about 60 miles and the scenery was supposed to be nice. The drive brought us up to about 8500’, with trees up there! Most of the drive was through the top of the mountain but towards the last part we had a good view of the valley, very nice. Then we drove down into the valley and followed the Colorado River for awhile too. All in all, a nice drive, lots of nice rock formations and the drive along the river was nice. There were lots of folks rafting the river too, looked like some pretty good rapids for them.
I have been in touch with my brother, Brad, and he was going to be in the four corners area so with both of us changing our plans a bit, we made arrangements to meet in Cortez, CO. We had picked out a campground in the area but further research showed an Indian Casino with a nicer campground, at least what we could see on line. So Monday morning we hooked up and took off. Just a bit out of town, to the South, we ran into road construction, stop and wait for the pilot car type. As we were being escorted through the area, Lorraine noticed a big, nicely formed arch right along the road, probably the closest we had been to a big one like this. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop so all we could do was take a picture out the window as we drove by, darn.
The drive down was nice, lots of scenery and plenty of rock formations again. We are really starting to like this area. We decided to check out the RV park at the casino first and once we got there, decided it was good enough so we got set up and I washed the bugs off the front of the coach then we took off to explore the town. We found the other campground that we were considering and definitely made the right choice this time, yea. Town was nice, had a nice downtown and a Super Wal-Mart on the East side of town.
Next morning we got caught up on “stuff”, Lorraine did laundry and such, then we took off to see the Cliff Dwelling in nearby Mesa Verde National Park. We drove over there, watching the altitude on our GPS and everything was ok, that is until we started up the mountain. It wasn’t long until we were above 8000’ and climbing. We stopped at the very well done visitor’s center, went through their tour and information. They have guided tours through some of the Cliff Dwelling but they advised us that it would be very strenuous and shouldn’t not be attempted by folks who were having trouble catching their breath at this altitude, that would be us. So we decided to take the self-guided car tour and stop by the less strenuous visit at Spruce Tree House Cliff Dwelling.
Boy what a time we had, we loved it. Imagine driving along a sort of flat topped Mesa, lots of sage bush and Juniper scrub brush type trees. You couldn’t even tell there were deep valleys just a bit away until you were right upon them. We parked the car and toured the information about Spruce Tree and then walked down the very steep walkway. They said it was only 100’ change in elevation and about 1/8 mile walk to the dwellings. I agree that was the route down but boy did it change on the way up, I think it was over a mile up and at least 1000’ up, ha. But the ruins were just short of spectacular, well beyond our expectations of what we were going to see.
Once back to the car, we continued with our driving tour and stopped at many overlooks to see many more dwellings. They said that over this area was one of the most populated in the area for about 75 years, then everyone left. No one is sure why they left, drought is suspected but they never returned. The dwellings were mostly undiscovered for hundreds of years and are now being cleaned up, shored up as needed and preserved as close to original as possible. What a sight to see, if you ever get the chance, make this one of your stops and see these Cliff Dwellings, we certainly weren’t disappointed.
Brad was due in on Thursday afternoon some time, we talked via cell phones a couple of times and he was on the way. So Wednesday we took off to visit another museum we had read about. This had to be one of the best we’ve been to, not too busy and lots of information, very well laid out. We spent a couple of hours there and had to leave because we were going to visit some ruins about 30 miles out of town and we wanted to make sure we weren’t too hurried.
The ruins we went to were just out in the open although the park service has put a cover over them to help preserve them. It really wasn’t to spectacular, I think we both would have rather stayed at the museum longer instead but you just never know. We had to return to the coach to check on Misty and then there was a big thunderstorm that blew up and it rained hard so we stayed close by. We did finally make it over to the casino but neither of us had any luck so we called it a night.
Thursday morning I was outside about 7 when a couple of folks walked by the coach next to us. I waved and went back inside and they came right over to our coach. I was mixing Misty’s food and didn’t pay too much attention but as they were sort of hanging around, I looked out the window and was surprised to see it was my brother and his girlfriend, Dolly. They had driven straight through from Missouri, about a 19 hour drive, to get there in time to tour Mesa Verde National Park based on what we had told them on the phone. What a good surprise for us, they wanted to make sure to catch us before we started off on some sort of adventure and to see if we wanted to return to Mesa Verde with them. We, of course, said we would love to go back so as soon as we got ready we took off for basically the same tour we had made two day ago. This time we got to play tour guides and therefore we didn’t stop at some of the, shall we say, more uninteresting stops.
All of us enjoyed our day together, after Mesa Verde and the Cliff Dwellings, we stopped by to check on Misty then drove out to the Four Corner’s monument. This is really just a large cement area with a large plaque in the center, signifying where the four states come together, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico all share a common spot, the only place in the US where four states touch. It was a really a pretty cheesy affair but one of the reasons we wanted to be here so another bucket list item marked off. We had thought about continuing on another 60 some odd miles to see Monument Valley but it was getting late and another afternoon thunderstorm was brewing to the West so we decided to put it off until our next visit.
We went over to the casino, where Brad and Dolly were staying at the hotel, for dinner and another attempt on the slots. Brad had some good luck, Dolly was a winner but no joy for either Lorraine or I, once again I have to say we left some seed money there. Wish I could harvest sometimes rather just just leave seed, maybe next time. But thanks to Brad, he did buy our breakfast and dinner and told us to thank to casino, not him, ha. Thanks Brad, glad you won and thanks for all the lunches and dinners you bought us.
Friday Brad and Dolly got an early start in their car, headed out to Jacob Lake. They were able to stop by and see Monument Valley and Powell Lake while we slowly made our way here. They had reservations just up the road from our campground and once we got here and set up we called them and they were still a couple of hours out. Once again we had trouble with the car not wanting to start, this time there seemed to be plenty of juice in the battery, it acted like it wasn’t getting any fuel. I hear that is a common problem up here with cars that were towed, seems they don’t know they are in a higher altitude and the computer doesn’t adjust for it. But once we got it started, it’s been running fine since.
We met Brad and Dolly for dinner at the restaurant where they are staying, the only place in “town”. Jacob Lake doesn’t show up on our GPSs, the campground we are at doesn’t exist according the the GPS either. The addresses for these are just cross roads, no street address plus our campground is inside a park.
This morning Brad and Dolly wanted to head to the Grand Canyon, North Rim and be there by sun rise. It’s about 35 miles away so they left around 5 am, way too early for us. They got back and we met them at the restaurant but decided to eat at the Grand Canyon Lodge, they said it was right at the rim of the Canyon and very nice. So off we went to the Lodge, they were spending the night there with a room that opened right to the rim and we were returning to our coach. Brad and Dolly had already walked the short walkway out to the lookout point so this time Brad walked it with me, he being the tour guide for me. Lorraine decided not to attempt the walk out, over 1/2 mile with a couple steep inclines and narrow pathways with no guardrails to keep you from falling. Dolly, having already made this walk, stayed back with Lorraine and they managed to hit the gift shop.
Lorraine and I have been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and didn’t know what to expect from our trip to the North Rim. It was a good view of a large hole in the ground but there are more vantage view areas on the South Rim and I think we could see more colors due to the location of the sun, behind us when at the South Rim and showing off the rocks much better. There is only one access point to the Canyon here from the North side, nice enough but I understand why there are much fewer folks coming here vs. the South side. But we are glad we made it and once again, another item in the bucket list marked off.
Lorraine and I have both had a couple of breathing problem experiences while up here, glad we had the oxygen with us. Lucky for them, neither Brad or Dolly have had problems they said. We said our so longs to them at the lodge before we returned to the coach. They are going back to Page and then on to the South Rim tomorrow while we are going to be headed NW to Bryce Canyon back in Utah. I found the campground we were planning on staying had an internet special, stay one night and get 1/2 off the second night if you make reservations. So I called and told them to sign us up and we will see them tomorrow. Because we will be traveling on Sunday, a somewhat rare occurrence for us, we wrote our blog on Saturday night and I’ll get it posted, if I have good enough service here, that is.
The weather has been really nice this week, even though we’ve had thunderstorms brew up almost every evening. At least I haven’t heard of any fires resulting from the lightening and everyone says they can use the rain. We had high temperatures during the day vary depending on where we were, 80s in Cortez and 70s up here in the high country, sunny every day.
Ok, enough of this, I’ll get some pictures added and try to get this posted.
Petroglyphs about 1/2 from us in Moab.
The one of the right shows a sleigh being pulled by reindeer, and yes, they say it’s over 2500 years old.
Overlooking the Moab valley from the mountains.
This arch is just out of town and right next to the highway.
Mesa Verde National Park and the Cliff Dwellings.
Inside the visitor’s center.
Spruce Tree House Cliff Dwellings.
More views during our car tour.
More dwellings across the canyon.
Pictures of more Petroglyphs. The one on the right looks like holy figures.
The one on the left look like some religious ceremony, the one on the right look like space aliens.
Family portrait??
The ruins out of town in the middle of nowhere.
Four Corner Monument.
Dolly on the left, Brad on the right being in 4 states at the same time.
On the road to Jacob Lake, very nice area to drive through.
Here is the Grand Canyon National Park, North rim.
Dolly, Brad and Lorraine on left, Chuck and Lorraine on right.
Dolly and Brad on left, Chuck and “little” brother Brad on right.
Ok, another week gone by. Hope you had a good one too, we sure did. Thanks for making arrangement to meet with us, Brad and Dolly, we sure enjoyed our time with you two.
Thanks Chuck
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