On The Way To the Grand Canyon North Rim

This week we were on our way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon when we were pleasantly surprised by a glorious display of aspens in peak fall color!

Way back in February, when I was making plans and reservations for our summer travels, I decided that this was the year we would try to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. In past years, a visit there just never worked out. Whenever we were near, it was either too early or too late in the season. 

This area was burned in a wildfire in 2006, Aspens are the first to regrow.

I checked out Recreation.gov and was delighted to see we could get a spot for our 35' motor home at the North Rim Campground in fall. Some of the national park campgrounds have smaller size limits. 

Although the drive from Monument Valley to the Rim was only about 250 miles, we decided to stop for a night at Jacobs Lake, a Forest Service campground 44 miles from the rim.  This was because we could not get another night at Gouldings, and because we needed to stop for groceries in Page AZ on the way.

I had been anxiously checking the weather forcast every day during the weeks before our reservations. Two weeks ago, it was in the 80s and sunny at the Rim. One week ago, it was in the low 70s but still sunny and not too cold overnight. By the time our October 2 arrival date showed up in the five day forecast, the temperatures had dropped to the 60s and rain was predicted. 

But the weather can always change, and we had reservations. As we drove to Jacobs Lake we had just a sprinkle here and there. It did rain quite a bit overnight, but we were lucky to have only misty rain on the 44 mile drive to the rim Tuesday morning. 

We were planning on seeing the Grand Canyon. I never thought about the possibility of seeing miles of aspens that literally glowed. I'm not sure if the overcast sky contributed to their brilliance, but the wet air seemed to make the greens brighter and the black charred trees darker.

Once we had passed the fire-damaged area, more mature aspen mixed in with the older conifers. It appeared that some had already started to drop their golden leaves.

Just one more picture!  They were just so amazing and a wonderful surprise on a gloomy day.

We were at the campground (and settled in) before noon. It had started to rain, so we opted for an indoor activity and headed for the Visitors Center and Lodge.

I knew the Grand Canyon was there, but as my daughter said about skiing in fog, "the view was like the inside of a marshmallow".

We will be here for four days, so I am optimistic that we will have better weather another day.

A few of the people sitting around in the lodge were not so lucky. They were on a tour and were only there for one day.

We were back in the Alfa by mid-afternoon, and were happy to be warm and dry when it began to thunder and pour heavily for a while. I'm always glad we are not in a tent at times like that!

Hopefully, we will have some canyon pictures to share in the next post.

Rainy Alaskan Weather

Glennallen to Valdez:  119 miles

The road between Glennallen and Valdez was not bad. 

The day started with partially cloudy skies. That means it was also partially blue and sunny.

We stopped to take pictures at Bridal Veil Falls. 

See those small spots of red at the bottom?

I was told they were a group of local teenagers on a river rafting adventure, by one of the other people taking pictures from the road.

This is the Lowe river where they were rafting, and the road we were driving. 

The sheer rock walls are also amazing. We think the river-side wall was natural, but we could see the tool marks where the road-side wall was carved away.

Road construction can be unbelievable.

The  foothills of the distant mountains are a lush green. Snow still clings to some of the higher places. The closer we went toward the coast, the lower the cloud cover came. The entire landscape reminded me of scenes out of the Lord of the Rings movies. I think they were filmed on New Zealand's South Island.

This is one of several melting glaciers we saw. I wonder how long it will last.

This was another.

We took our time traveling north through British Columbia because I really hoped to get past the usual rainy weather typical of June in Alaska. We have seen a lot of overcast skies, but not much daytime rain. Until we arrived in Valdez.  When I expressed dismay about the rain, the owner of the park we are at said "Welcome to the coast."

Even the dandelions kept their flowers closed.

I checked the national weather forecast and it predicts either chance of rain or rain likely for the next four days. Ugg!  I hope we can find some interesting indoor activities, and that there will be enough breaks in the fog to be able to see the surrounding mountains.

On the other hand, we are both happy it is not HOT! I'd much rather be in an Alaskan rain shower than a killer heat wave like much of the country suffered last week. 

Something in-between would be nice.  

Wednesday in Valdez 

I was very happy it was not raining Wednesday. 

I wouldn't describe the day as sunny, but it was dry. 

We can see both of these mountains from the dining table in the Alfa. It is quite interesting to see the clouds play around the peaks.

Craig said he really likes the rough velvet texture of the vegetation.

Knowing the break in the rain might not last,  we decided to do a couple of outdoor things. In a tourist brochure I had picked up there was mention of a Fish Hatchery, an oil pumping station, and the location of "Old Valdez" all on the same road, about seven miles out of town.

There wasn't much to see at the hatchery because there were no fish. Everyone, even the eagles are waiting for the fish. The "run" could start any day, and when it does, apparently the waters are alive with salmon wanting to go upriver to spawn.

The only thing at the hatchery that seemed to be set up was this weir:

Located at the mouth of the river it forces the salmon into a channel that guides them to the hatchery. There they are forcibly spawned and the resulting offspring are raised and released back into the ocean. 

When I took this picture, I knew I would call it "Waiting for the fish." I talked to this guy's wife, and she told me she knew they had come too early, but he wanted to get a good spot. There were only a few older RVs parked along the road and they all had Alaska license plates.

Look! Almost sunny!

Not far from the hatchery the road ended at the entry to the oil pumping station. But we did not venture in to explore because we were warned off by the "Do Not Trespass" and "FBI warning." It was not a tourist attraction.

We stopped at the Old Valdez site, and read a few of the posters. There is really nothing much to see. The town was destroyed in the big Alaskan earthquake in 1964. Some of the remaining buildings were moved a few miles away to the present location. 










Then we went back to town, bought some donuts and relaxed in the Alfa for the rest of the day. 

Just living. 
Waiting for the fish. 

Louisbourg, Nova Scotia

Before I get into my usual "what we did..." I have to include a picture of this interesting rig we saw in the campground:

I wonder how they get in? 

On Tuesday we woke to a raging rain storm, so just stayed in bed almost all morning.  It continued to rain most of the day, but we didn't really mind. We both have books we are enjoying.

It was sunny again on Wednesday, so we went to Louisbourg, another of the "must see" places in northeastern Nova Scotia.  In the early period of Canadian History there was a fishing town and then a fort there, that changed hands between the French and English several times before it was eventually abandoned. 

In the 1960's, all that was left were a series of stone foundations, but because it had been an important location, there was recorded documentation of who, when, and what had been there. At that time, due to the closing of the local mines, there were many unemployed but skilled workmen who needed jobs. 

The Canadian government sponsored a retraining program that taught carpentry and stonework to the miners. Using the techniques of the 1700s they reconstructed the fort and part of the town.

Wool lady

It is now a National Historic site, and is staffed by costumed docents playing the parts of residents and soldiers.

As we walked from building to building, home to home, the residents told us a bit about their lives and their history.

This was a very large kitchen in the spacious harbor master's home. The cook told us about the foods and how they were prepared. No potatoes or tomatoes were eaten because they thought they were poisonous. Almost everything except fish and a few garden vegetables had to be shipped from France or England, depending on who was in control at the time.

Three to a bed, twenty four to a room, a soldier's lot was not so good, but we were told that for most it was a better life than they had had before on the streets of Paris.

The men pooled their rations and cooked them together in a communal pot. Fish head soup was often the base.

One of the events for a small extra cost, was a tasting of the rum typical of the time. We were taken in a group to an upper tavern room where we learned about the rum trade, and the importance it had in the lives of the troops.

We tasted both the strong rum that a soldier would drink and a rum-punch that was consumed by the officers' wives in the afternoon.

By the end of the day we were a bit hungry because I didn't bring our usual lunch. The tavern restaurant was closing for the day, but we were able to get bread and soup next door. It was very authentic. I asked for some ice for my water, and was reminded that there was no ice for the common folk in the 1700s!

We enjoyed the day very much. We are so lucky to be able to go to so many of these places on our own time. 

Friday we hit the road again and head toward Halifax. We were lucky to get a spot for this weekend because it is Halifax's birthday. (Probably of the city rather than of the 2nd Earl of Halifax, for whom the city is named.) The park we are staying at normally gives a Passport America discount, but not on holiday weekends. I have reserved for our usual four day stop. I hope they have decent WiFi!

Lots to Write About Today

I have really been in a Blogger Slump for some time. It has seemed that I just didn't have anything to write about. No disasters nor spectacular events. We have been just "living" our RV dream life. Seeing new places and enjoying new things at a slow and easy pace. I am constantly reminded of how big and diverse our country is. We haven't gotten to know the towns nor the people very well, but we have discovered more of the wonders of the park lands and beaches. If home is where we park it, then all of the USA is our home.

Speaking of "homes" as of today we are members of the SKP Jojoba Hills Resort in Aguanga, California. We have been on the wait list for a few months, and have passed on two other "lot offers" but decided when they called us with this one to say "yes". So now we will have a "home base" where we will spend some months each winter and be close to where our daughter lives. 

I have no desire to buy or live in another house at this time. Becoming members of the Jojoba Cooperative is a perfect solution. No property taxes, no need to worry about it when we are not there, and no humongous financial investment. Since we put our lot in the rental pool, the lot will be cared for while we are gone. So nice.

 "We are ... Seeing the USA" has a great collection of pictures of Jojoba. I found it while Googling Jojoba, and now have a new, wonderful blog to follow! 

We will not be going back to California until next fall. We still consider ourselves full timers. We have several years' worth of places to go to and things to see. But, it is nice to know we have a place waiting for us. 

2+ YEARS: On April 1, it will be two years since the sale of our house in the Santa Cruz Mountains closed and we became free of homeowner responsibilities and expenses! When people ask me how long we have been full timing, I say two and a half, because we lived in the Alfa for more than six months while the house was on the market. 


Rain: The weather has been variable while we have been at Gulf Shores. Heavy rain, light rain, partly cloudy, sunny, rain... etc.  We have gotten out a few days, and stayed cozy and dry at home on others.

Last week on the stormiest day, we went to see the movie "Zootopia". It was delightful. I'm sure everyone will enjoy the cuteness, but older kids and adults will see the anti-profiling message.

Inspired by the name of the movie, we decided to visit the small local zoo in Gulf Shores on one of the sunny days. 

Small is an accurate description. Feeding the goats was a highlight!

The peacock did give us a bit of a show. To bad that rope was in front of him.

I liked the tortoise.

But as zoos go, it was quite old fashioned in that the animals had pens and cages, not simulated habitats. 

Only the pacing tigers seemed to mind.














More Rain:
We had a quiet Easter Sunday at the Alfa. Well, not exactly "quiet" because the waves of hard rain kept pounding down from the skies. I felt bad for the many families of campers around us who were at the park for a vacation weekend. I guess that is one of the advantages of being on this journey full-time. A few rainy days don't ruin our plans. They just delay our outdoor activities by a day or two.

On another, non-rainy day, we went to explore a bit of history just down the road from Gulf Shores.

Fort Morgan is a "Coastal Defense Fort" built after the war of 1812. It sits at the mouth of the Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. 

The fort was the site of a major battle during the Civil War, was manned during the Spanish-American War, and used as a training base during World War I. 

It was an interesting piece of history and a nice day trip.

To wrap up this post, I just have to end with this picture:

Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park

Memories are sometimes made when everything does not go perfectly. On Thursday, although the skies were a bit overcast, we drove over to see the Old Faithful geyser. By the time we got to the visitors center, it was raining intermittently. We checked the predicted eruption times (plus or minus 10 minutes) that are posted by the rangers in the Visitors Center. It was not raining at the beginning of this window, so armed with an umbrella we joined the growing crowd on the viewing benches. 

About 1/4 of the viewing benches at the Old Faithful Geyser

Shortly after we sat down it started to rain. No, it started to pour! We asked each other: "why, when we have three more weeks at the park, are we sitting in a driving rain waiting for the eruption of a geyser we knew erupts several times each day?" We had no good answer, but we stayed and the eruption eventually happened, after we started to call it "Old Unfaithful".

Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the wrong direction for us to have a good view. 

It was a day we will probably never forget. At least neither of us caught a cold!









One thing I can say about Yellowstone National Park is that it is BIG. Even if one stays in a park campground, many of the various features are miles apart. 

On Saturday, the weather forecast for the Mammoth Hot Springs area in the northwest corner of the park looked a little better than that for the middle or southern areas.  That being a 20% chance of showers vs. 40% chance of rain, so we headed in that direction.

The relatively long drive, which included a five mile stretch of unpaved construction with one-way traffic and delays, was well worth the opportunity to see the remarkable hydrothermal features found there. We took a lot of pictures, and it was very hard to cull them down to our favorite few:

I usually write about the pictures I post, but these speak for themselves.

On the drive back we stopped at this hot pool. There was a pull out and parking lot, but no other thermals around. 

It is an excellent example of a breakout hot spring. The water flows down a hill and into the river on the other side of the road.

Finally, I probably shouldn't waste band width on this picture, but it does show that after 6:30 PM it is possible to find a place to park!

Considering it doesn't get dark until close to 10 pm, going after dinner might be a good idea.

A Mile and a Half that felt like Five

We avoided Arches National Park for the holiday weekend in part because of the crowds (we saw a mile-long line of cars waiting to get into the park) and because the weather was blustery and threatening rain.

On Tuesday morning the sun was bright and the sky clear, so we again headed out to hike a few miles to see another of the famous rock formations in the park. 

The park brochure describes the 3 mile round trip hike, to and from the Delicate Arch as "moderate". Well, I think it was quite strenuous, at least for a fat old lady like me! 

The little people-shaped spots up on the slip-rock are in fact people, on the trail ahead of us. The sun was shining and most of the path climbed steadily upward.  Huff n' Puff!

But the views were beautiful and all the people on the trail were happy.

I rested often, and exchanged encouraging words with another couple who were climbing at about the same rate as we were. Craig waited patiently for me. 

Shade was at a premium, and we stopped next to any small juniper that was offering any.

This wall was located almost at the top, and the cool space at its base was a welcome rest stop before making the final push.

And then we were there.  An image of the Delicate Arch is used on the Utah license plates, and I have seen pictures of it many times.

Sometimes I wonder about the distances given in the park information brochures. This might have been a mile and a half as the crow flies, but it sure felt like at least five miles to me. 

Two more views of the arch:

There were lots of people there, but we were patient and got a couple of shots without strangers posing under it.

After enjoying the views and resting for a while, it was time to make the return trip. You probably know that it was much easier going downhill!

We were well on our way down when we noticed storm clouds in what seemed to be the distant sky. 

We've seen similar clouds and experienced brief storms several times in the recent days. A few drops, no big deal.

But not this time. It started to rain quite suddenly, and quickly turned to a downpour. As we hurried toward the parking area, we were surrounded by loud rumbles of thunder. We saw lightning, but fortunately it was far enough away to be no danger. 

Surprisingly, as we hurried into the driving rain, there were a few hardy hikers going UP the trail. We arrived back at the Jeep soaked to the skin on one side, and almost dry on the other. We ate our lunch, and decided to call it a day. By the time we got back to the Alfa, the sun was out.

I crashed and took a short rest.

Tomorrow we will go back to see a couple of other places.  

That is one of the wonderful things about full-timing, being able to go back and see more. The RV park is emptying out today, as many other campers have to go back to work.

Not Us!