We left Coos Bay on October 15th - first destination Grants Pass for an RVing Women weekend. The weather was great and we had fun partaking of the usual food, fun and games. The RV park owners cooked for us on Sunday and provided pastries Saturday morning. Everything was scrumptious. We managed to get 9 holes of golf in too - a great weekend.
On Monday we headed for Las Vegas with our friends, Tully and LInda. It took us two days to get there. The second afternoon we went through a terrible hailstorm in the high desert near Baker. It pitted the front of the trailer but didn't do any other damage. It was pretty scary driving for those few minutes. That night we had some bad thunderstorms, but the weather for the rest of our trip was absolutely beautiful.
We stayed at a Thousand Trails Park in Vegas. It was actually in Henderson and by the time we left, 5 days later, we were getting pretty good at getting around. We went to see "Love" the Cirque du Soleil show featuring Beatles' music. It was very good and like all their shows - there was so much going on it was hard to take it all in. Linda and Tully left on Friday while we stayed until Monday so we could pick up Janet's niece, Laura, who was flying in on Sunday. After we picked her up we headed for New York, New York so she could ride the rollder coaster. She said afterwards it was the scariest coaster she had ever been on. We were glad we stayed on the ground!
On the way to New York, New York
Jancy worrying about Laura
Could that be Laura in the front?
The next morning we headed for Utah. Our first park was Zion. All of the parks in Utah are beautiful. We were able to take the tram for this one and get off at each stop for photos. We had to drive through the other parks ourselves and park each time we wanted photos. The tram really made it easy. We were glad we saw Zion first. It is different because you are in the canyons looking up. Both Bryce and the Grand Canyon had us looking down into the canyons. It's a different perspective and tends to be more spectacular. If we had seen Bryce first we think we might have been disappointed in Zion.
After Zion we drove to Kanab, Utah which is very centrally located to Zion, Bryce and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Janet and I had both been to the South Rim, but none of us had ever been to the North Rim so we called to make sure they were still open and then decided to go there. The concessions were closed, but the park itself was open for visitors. The canyon was spectacular and because it was so late in the year (Oct 27th) it wasn't real busy.
By the time we left the Canyon it was getting dark. We were crossing free range land and suddenly, out of the dark, we encountered a small herd of steers crossing the road. I couldn't stop in time and we ended up hitting one of them. It kept on going and several people said it probably was pretty sore, but lived. The truck was damaged in the left front quarter panel and lights but no one was hurt and the truck was driveable. We were lucky to get the lights fixed in Kanab and get on our way after only one day of delay. We got the truck in for repairs the week after Thanksgiving and she is good as new.
The day after we got the truck back, we went to Bryce Canyon. This was our only other day of less than sunny weather. As we got to the higher elevations in the canyon we experienced some snow and hail. At the lower levels we had some rain but it was still spectacularly beautiful.
Court of the Patriarchs
In addition to be centrally located to a number of parks, Kanab, Utah has some sights of its own including the Best Friends Animal Shelter. They usually have several hundred animals in residence at any time. It's a beautiful facility. They can take care of any domestic animal you might think of and employ lots of people plus have a large staff of volunteers.
They own 3000 acres, some of which were used in episodes of the Lone Ranger back in the day. You can see the masked man and Tonto riding down the dirt roads if you look closely at the dust swirls.
And then there was the Hitch N Post RV Park. This is an older park, right in the middle of Kanab. We got a kick out of some of the decorations like the rare Utah White Bee hive and the unmarked grave covered with steer skulls.
From Kanab we were headed for Monument Valley and Arches National Park. We drove through Monument Valley without stopping. This area was used in lots of old westerns featuring John Wayne among others.
This is one of my favorite photos from the trip. Jancy took it.
We think this is called Hat Rock.
What we found out at Arches National Park is you have to hike to see many of the Arches. Laura and I hiked up to see Delicate Arch. The sign said it was .5 mile with a 200 foot increase in elevation. It seemed more like 400 feet and even then, we weren't right at it. This particular arch is on the Utah license plates and a postage stamp though those show it from the opposite side. It has had other names over the years and we think "Cowboy Chaps" is the most appropriate. We started to hike to one other arch that people said was an easy hike - when we got to the hill we turned back. So of 400 or so arches in the park, we only saw a handful but that was actually sufficient.
Delicate Arch
The Three Gossips
When we left Arches we had to start booking to get Laura home to Baxter Springs, KS. It was now November 2nd and we had to get her home in time to go to work on the 6th. What we found out, is that many of the RV parks in this part of the world close on October 31st or November 1st. We were all set to go stay in a KOA park in Amarosa, CO that, according to all the literature, was still open. When we finally got there, there was a big sign - "Closed for the Season". What??!!! So we called the local Wal-Mart and found that they allowed overnight parking. Yeah!!! Many, but not all, of the Wal-Marts do. We also found out many casinos allow overnight parking. We'll have to remember that one for the future. So, now we had to call and make sure the parks we were reading about were open. We found one in Dodge City, Kansas and stayed there on the 3rd. The next day we pulled into Baxter Springs and parked on the street because the backyard turned out to be too sloped for our rig. That worked out fine.
We had a nice visit with family there, visited a nearby casino and made a donation, and started for home on our westbound journey on Nov 6th.
Sisters Jeanne and Janet
Triplets in our Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Tee Shirts
Our route west was mostly about getting back to southern California and visiting friends on the way up the coast. Since we knew the park was open, we headed back to Dodge, Kansas and decided to spend an extra day there so we could visit Boot Hill and the museum. As it turned out, this is not the famous Boot Hill - that one is in Tombstone. But they have done a very nice job with the museum here. This was where Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp and other famous lawmen tamed the town. There is a Long Branch Saloon, but there never was a real Matt Dillon. They also had a very nice museum dedicated to the Plains Indians - well worth seeing.
Boot Hill here was a minor cemetery. No famouss people here and it wasn't used for that many years. This(on the right) is what it really looks like now.
The shops were all open and several of them sold merchandise. We went in the Long Branch, but we just got a bottle of water and a diet soda - whimps that we are. We could have gotten beers but chose not to. In the summer months they have a lot of entertainment here including mock gunfights, etc.
The next few days we concentrated on getting farther south and moving west. We heard there was bad weather with high winds expected in the northern part of New Mexico so we headed south. This took us to Interstate 8 and Tucson. We decided to drive through the eastern Saguaro Cactus Park. We saw a few of the cacti on the way there, but Janet thought most of them were gone in open land so this was a good way to see these real symbols of the western desert.
When we left the park we turned to our trusty GPS device to get us to the next RV park. We have named her Tabitha Tom Tom and that girl does have a crazy sense of humor. She guided us through the city center of Tucson at 5:00 P.M. It was a bit terrifying to be driving this big rig through downtown Tucson at the height of rush hour but she did get us back on the Interstate (eventually) and what we found out is there are lots of Saguaro Cactus all over that part of the state. It was dark when we got to our RV park but the next morning as we were packing up to leave, we discovered that they had some beautiful examples of Saguaro right in the park. We could have saved ourselves the drive through the National Park (pulling the rig behind us on the one way loop) and just viewed the cacti as we journeyed west. Live and learn....
We eventually got back into California and made our way to Lakeside. I thought this was going to be a little town but it is actually a major suburb of San Diego. We thought we would go to Sea World while we in this area, but our road weary psyches turned us towards home instead. We did have the opportunity to get together with Janet's nephew, Gavin and his gal, Christine for a lovely dinner. It was very good to finally meet her and to visit with the two of them and see how life is unfolding.
Our next stop was Morro Bay. We hadn't been in this area since we moved to Coos Bay 12 years ago. It was fun to see some of our old haunts in Morro Bay and Cambria. We even drove out to Hearst Castle just to go in the Visitor Center and get a hat pin for our newest collection. Some things were the same but many things about both towns had changed a lot.
We got together with our friend, Terry Reeves, several times - for brunch and kayaking in Morro Bay and dinner at the Madonna Inn. June had never been in there and one of the must sees is the men's bathroom. A nice fellow kept watch for us and she got to see the famous urinal which, when you stand in the correct place, starts a waterfall for the flush. It is quite something.
Before leaving Morro Bay we also got to have breakfast with another friend, John Porter. He is a sweety and it was really nice to see him again.
Our last planned stop was Aptos to see friends John and Rick. They are in the process of fixing up a house they just bought and hopefully will be able to move in early next year. We saw their home, which will be stunning when it is ready, and went out to a nice dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Sadly, we neglected to take a photo of this get together. We'll have to do it next time guys!
From Aptos it took us two more days to get home. Originally we planned on getting home November 23rd but, since we cut short a couple of planned activities like Sea World and the Monterey Aquarium, we actually got home on Thursday, November 18th. We were gone 5 full weeks. It was a wondeful trip but too long to be away from home. Our future adventures will be shorter - most likely just the three day weekends we do with RVing Women.
As it turned out, it was very good fortune for us that we did get home early. It snowed in Coos Bay on Novemeber 23rd! Locals say it has never snowed that early before. We got about 2 inches of wet snow - the most we have had in one event in the 12 years we have lived here. We are very glad that we didn't have to drive through that. It melted by late afternoon (except for the various snowmen that popped up all over town) and we were able to get the rig down to Porter's for its winter servicing. We picked her up on the 24th and got her safely tucked in to her storage spot. Our next RV adventure will be in March 2011. See you then...
