Wonderful Wednesday At The Grand Canyon

Woke this morning to the sounds of small running feet and happy child chatter. Turns out that during the night a family with 6 kids moved in beside us! MMG spent the breakfast hour staring out the window and reporting to me as the family emerged one at a time from the TT. Was beginning to look like the clown car at the circus.

Thankfully, the kids are all well behaved and fun to visit with. They range in age from 2 to 11. The young mother doesn't look nearly as worn out as she should. Ah, youth!

We watched this young guy for 10 minutes or so as he climbed up and down and around the tree, wondering what his Mom would think if she knew......

He made a safe landing.

Then it was off to the rim of the canyon to enjoy the sights. One of the most anticipated was seeing again the California Condors which have been "transplanted" to this area. One of the Earth's rarest animals, these magnificent birds have been making a comeback, from 26 in the mid-eighties to around 325 now. You can get all the details here and here.

We lucked into a trio resting and sunning on a rock outcropping below the rim near the Bright Angel Hotel. The unnumbered one is a juvenile about 6 months old.

The Trio.

Number 27 showing off about 2/3s of his 9 1/2 foot wingspan.

Number 23. Loveliness personified, eh?

For the rest of the day we roamed the canyon rim just marveling in the vastness and beauty of this unique place. It's frustrating trying to capture the grandeur of the Grand canyon, but here are a few attempts:

Where that trail disappears over the edge is about 3 miles away.

Showing off her "big lens". Those rapids are about 3 miles away. Of course they are BIG rapids, too!

And all the sights are not in the canyon:

Hopi House Trading Post. Built circa 1932. Still in use.

Use whatever materials you have. Petrified wood in the rim wall!

And here are a few for Granddaughter Mary:

Lizard 1.

Butterflies.

Lizard 2.

Mule Deer.

Elk.

Wishing you all the Best!

MMG and DDG

Marvelous Miracle -- Grand Canyon Village joins the 20th Century

While MMG and I really enjoyed the drive from Lake Powell to the Grand Canyon, the high point of the day was to find that GCV now has cell towers!! They are well hidden, but unlike every previous visit here where we were forced to use pay phones and pay $.25 per minute to access the internet at the resort hotels or drive to a small town just outside the park to get a wifi signal, we now can use our cell phones, and thus access the 'Net with the Verizon air card, nearly anywhere in the Park.

For the map fans, the drive today was south from Lake Powell on US 89 to AZ 64/US 180, then west into the Grand Canyon National Park! 146 miles, 21.6 gals., 6.7 mpg. Mileage hurt by altitude increase from Lake Powell's 4100 to the Grand Canyon Village's 7000.

The trip started with a climb to about 6000 feet, then a quick 1000 foot drop along the side of a cliff to the plateau through which the Colorado River flows, starting what will be the Grand Canyon.

The following video illustrates the problem with trying to photograph the scenery out here. It was made from a pullout about half way down the cliff. The plateau floor stretches out there for more than 50 miles. The dark line out in the distance is the Colorado River Gorge. The nearest mountains are over twenty miles away. If you can see the road in the near distance with the toy trucks on it, your seeing over 5 miles out and down.




Once down on the flat and headed south, we went through many miles of real desert, some of which would rival, if not exceed, the famous Painted Desert, in terms of colors and contrasts. We'll get some pictures of it for you when we retrace that part of our route next week on our way to Bryce Canyon NP.

After we got the moho settled in and hooked up, we went out to see the eastern end of the Canyon.

Here are a few pictures of what we saw. Keep in mind the bottom of the canyon is about a mile down and the other side of the canyon is more than 11 miles away........ Remember to click on the photos to get a larger version!

MMG insisted on this! That's the famous Desert View Watchtower in the background. Click on the link to read more. It started out as an artist's concept of an Anasazi watchtower built in 1932, but has taken on a fame and history of it's own.


Looking in the Canyon east from the Watchtower. The green ribbon winding through the center is the Colorado River more than 2 miles away -- about 1 mile straight out, then 1 mile down!


Study of colors and shadows. 11 miles across the way is the North Rim of the Canyon.

A couple of pictures looking west about 25 miles down the Canyon as it fades into the sunset.

Speaking of fading into the sunset, it's bedtime here.

Our love to you all.

MMG and DDG

Pelicanlady Rides the Waves

Today we scratched one off of MMG's list by taking a 3 hour boat trip around a small part of lake Powell.

Because the Lake, even the small part that we saw, is so huge, it makes meaningful pictures nearly impossible. Therefore, look on these pictures as an exercise in colors and textures, which the Lake provides in limitless profusion. Please note that the white band above the waterline in these pictures varies in width from 50 to 90 feet. It is the result of salts leaching into the sandstone when the water level in the Lake was higher.

Photographer at work!


Arch for Robert!




From the water to the Butte.

That Butte is about 1500 feet high.



Guess Who!

Factoid for the day: While both Mesas and Buttes are formations that are flat on top and rise sharply from their surroundings, a Mesa is wider than it is tall, while a Butte is taller than it is wide!

On to the Grand Canyon tomorrow!

MMG and DDG

Moving Monday

Durango, CO to Lake Powell, AZ. 276 miles, 33.0 gals., 8.3 MPG. Map couldn't be easier. US 160 west through CO, into AZ, across the Navajo Nation to AZ 98 northwest to Lake Powell. The improved fuel mileage can be attributed to the fact that we started the day at an elevation near 7000 feet and ended at about 4300 feet.

These pictures of the high point of the day will mean more to the Aiken Nesbitts than others because they have sampled the wares of this Kayenta, AZ gourmet mecca......

The Blue Coffee Pot Restaurant

The specialty of the house.....

The Locally World Famous Stew and Frybread Lunch --YUM, YUM

We really had planned lunch here so MMG could have some of her favorite lamb stew, but on Monday the stew is beef, so it was only a 90% successful stop. If you are thinking that Frybread looks a lot like a State Fair Elephant Ear, you'd be right, but Navajo Frybread has a history. Read about it here.

I can't tell you how relieved I was to learn that an average serving (one whole one) has only 770 calories and 29 grams of fat -- a veritable health food!

The daily scenery photos were a bust. I think the reason is that the camera was focusing on the bug carcasses on the windshield rather than the features and the colors of the mostly desert we were traversing. Rather than posting out of focus pictures, we'll get some better ones tomorrow.

As we were headed into town (Page, AZ) to get a Wally World fix, I pulled through the Shell station to check out the diesel availability and accessibility we spotted this life's lesson: No matter how expensive or powerful your boat is or how famous you are as a racing boat driver, you can still get a flat tire!

Here's what it looks like in the water:

Now that can cause some serious go-fast boat envy!

We can tell that "the season" is nearly upon us. In the grocery store we were surrounded by a bus full of oriental guests and at the Glen Canyon Dam reception center there were two more bus fulls of their countrymenpersons.

Here in the campground we are surrounded by rental RVs and the strains of French, German, and Spanish permeate the air.

We are really glad to see our foreign visitors in great numbers -- they can help pay for all this stuff!

Oh! I almost forgot to share that we saw our first Mule Deer and Prairie Dogs today! We must really be "out West"!

Stay Well.

MMG and DDG

Flashback!

Remember the wooden Xylophone from Old Town in Albuquerque?

I found a video of a part of the performance and I know you would want to see and hear it, so here it is:




Sorry there's not more........

MMG and DDG

Lazy Sunday in Colorado

Just hung around the coach this morning reading the Sunday paper and enjoying a late breakfast.

Then we packed a picnic lunch and went here:

Anasazi Heritage Center banners. Sleeping Ute Mountain in the background.

The AHC is not run by the National park Service, but by the Bureau of Land Management and if this is an example, the BLM should run all the parks.

The exhibits are all first rate and the descriptions a lot less PC and perhaps more accurate.

There is a 1/2 mile walk to an ancient pueblo and kiva and you can see why the Anasazi chose this location. Here's the view to the east:

By the time we perused the exhibits and checked out the ruins, we were ready to head home and call it a day.

Tomorrow -- onward to Lake Powell.

More then.

MMG and DDG

MMG and DDG Get High! Oh, My!

Our trip today was short, about 50 miles north on US 550 to Durango, CO.

Our main purpose in Coming to Durango was to take a ride around the San Juan Skyway to view again the spectacular scenery. Rather than invent the wheel again, I'm going to ask you follow this link to get a description of the Skyway, then I'll post pictures of what we actually saw along the way.

Because there is a snow storm predicted at the higher elevations later today and tonight, we parked the moho in the campground and hit the road immediately.

That Black one in the left center is us! Remember to click on the pictures to see an enlargement.

Durango is situated at an elevation of about 6500 feet and we will be going over Molas Pass at 10,910 feet, so we have quite a climb ahead of us. During the drive we will be passing a number of mountaintops with elevations well over 13,000 feet and a few over 14,000 feet. What is different about this drive is that instead of being down in the valley looking up, we'll be driving way up where we can get a good look at the mountaintops.

Rather than loading you down with the details of what's in each picture, let's just relax and take a look at the scenery:

Austrian Alps? Switzerland? Nope, view on the road to the Telluride airport.

Looking down instead of up. Silverton, CO, in the valley.

Beauty everywhere, even in the rearview mirror!

It's not all mountain peaks. This is a still "live" hot soda spring still running and growing.

It works like this:



On the way down from the mountains, we had a pleasant surprise. These Elk where waiting to pose for MMG!


And then they helped MMG add to her world famous huge collection of animal butts!


As we finally got back to the flatlands, the sky turned reddish orange and within minutes we were in the midst of a dust/sand/dirt/grit storm!

No, not fog! That's the sand/dirt/dust/grit storm.

Apparently, the reason for the storm was that a weather pattern change caused a strong wind to blow in from the southwest, right across miles and miles of desert where it picked up all this "stuff' and is carrying it east!

As of 9 PM local time, the wind has died down and the weather guru on TV says the "stuff" should be cleared by tomorrow.

If at any time you want the original big file of any of the pictures, just drop a line and I'll send it right to you.

Long day. Time to rest.

MMG and DDG