Four Corners

Have you ever been in four states at once? I have! Which ones?

Off to Albuquerque

Early yesterday morning we started home by going west to the 4 corners monument then through Navajo lands to Canyon de Chelly. Once we were in Canyon de Chelly we hired an Indian guide and a permit to drive our vehicle into the canyon and off we went for a four hour adventure in the Land Rover. The bottom of the canyon is sand from the washing away of the sandstone and Bill had a lot of fun driving!

We then headed to Gallop, NM and decided to continue on and then spent the night in Albuquerque at the campground we like there. For some strange reason we could not get onto the Blogger to post the pictures.

Mesa Verde Pictures

Here are pictured of the dwellings we visited. The upper was our morning tour and the bottom was our afternoon tour.

Mesa Verde National Park

Today was a day of adventure as we visited the Puebloan Ruins in Mesa Verde National Park.

In the morning we climbed down to Cliff Palace and visited the ruins , partially shown in the top picture. The climb out was more strenuous than we expected. but all did it without difficulty.

This afternoon we visited Balcony House and had to climb up on a double ladder of 32 steps then another few ladders of six feet, squeeze through a narrow slot in the wall and finally crawl, scoot, or any method that worked through a tunnel about 18 inches wide and 36 inches wide.

Once in the area, the ranger gave us an interesting talk about what they think happened to these ancient people and then we had to climb out - more ladders, and then a narrow ledge of rough rock steps with a wire handrail to the final ladder. About 5 in our group elected now to try this adventure but the rest of us did quite well. Must admit my left knee is complaining tonight.

A final excellant dinner was the finale of this caravan and we have now said goodbye to the group and we will depart early in the AM for our trip home.

Traveled to Dolores, Colorado

We departed on the last leg of our caravan this morning and traveled to Dolores, Colorado and encountered more green pastureland and farming that we had seen in Utah. This arch is called Wilson's Arch and was along the highway.

This afternoon we visited an Anasazi Heritage Center which was an interesting museaum and also the site of an ancient indian village - the ruins are pictured here. The yellow flowers are the rabbit brush which we think is the cause of Bill's allergies flairing up the past few days and causing stuffiness for many others in the group.

This evening we ate at the Naked Moose - 14 went and we had learned about it from Rennie and Marian - it was good!

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands was my least favorite National Park - perhaps if we had visited it first, then it would have been unique and special. The best thing was looking down on the roads we 4-wheeled on yesterday - especially seeing the switchbacks. Tomorrow we head to Dolores, Colorado - which will be our last stop on the Caravan. I felt tired today and glad we depart at 9am tomorrow and not 8am as we did today!

Does this rock need a shove?

One big balancing rock and one Hummer - can we easily change the landscape? Had lots of fun posing this picture but no contact was actually made - wanted to leave the balancing act for others to enjoy!

4 Wheeling in Moab

We started off our 4 wheeling trip along the Colorado River and worked ourselves up into an area above the potash mining operations.
Along the way we managed to find 4 geocaches,
Eventually we made it to the Musselman Arch - the only one you can actually cross and cross we did! Not too many get this opportunity and we wanted to do it before it someday falls. It was about 6-8 feet wide in the center.
How about calling this road - The Road Least Traveled? The switchbacks up this mountain were fun and rather spectacular!
Tonight we went for a dinner and moonlight cruise on the Colorado which was also a laser and music show and then nature added its own excitement with an slmost full moon and then rain!
The only negative of the day was a phone call from Nick Munson telling us that Candy was diagnosed wiith a lymphoma. They too have a motorhome and have made lots of fun trips in recent years. Our prayers are certainly with them at this time.

Arches National Park

Today wevisited Arches National Park which is just outside Moab, Utah. We had a fun time exploring and also hiking. The rock formations were most interesting!

Arrived in Moab, Utah

Traveled to Moab, Utah today through some spectacular scenery and then had most of the afternoon free and we did laundry, explored town, and restocked at the grocery store. Our "Team 2" cooked us a spaghetti dinner and it was wonderful.
The first picture is the view out our front windshield of the coach. They have pull-in sites here - so you can enjoy the view! There is a "doggie park" three sites down from us and the dogs are enjoying being able to romp and chase balls. We even had Smokey over there this afternoon - not that he enjoyed being there. The 3rd picture is the view out the passenger side of the coach and across the street.

A Day in Boulder - Utah!

We have shown you lots of pictures of spectacular rock formations and we had our share of those today but thought you might like to see some pretty flowers growing in this arid region.

We started our day with breakfast in a Western style restaurant then visited an Anastasia Indian Museum. After this fun morning we traveled about 12 miles down a striking canyon and hiked into a sloted canyon. The temperature inside the canyon was much cooler than the outside. We found what we believed to be an Indian religious offering inside the canyon. We didn't know what it meant but obviously someone had gone to some trouble to create it. We found corn shucks on the floor of the canyon and wouldn't be surprised if animals had dragged the corn away from the offering for food.

Capitol Reef National Park

This one of our newer National Parks and this area was settled by Mormons from Salt Lake City where there was a water supply. The name comes from the rock formation that looks like the dome of thee Capitol and the 100 mile long uplifting of the rocks forming a reef.

The old Homestead had home baked bread and pies - please note who is first in line for his own personal pie! Later in the day we went Geocaching and you might see two men sitting on a rock high on the hill (Gramps wearing his white cowboy hat) - the gals stayed at the bottom to watch!

German Visitors

Have you ever seen a bus like this? We saw our first one last year. The front of the bus carries 26 people and there are bus like seats. When they are in a campground the curb side opens up and becomes a mess hall and then there is access to all the bunks - guess it is like getting into a coffin! No bathrooms so they create a constant line at the bathrooms.

Singing Aound the Campfire

Last night we had a western steak dinner followed by some singing around the campfire! We had lots of fun but it got so cold we had to go get our jackets to stay warm!

Saturday - Traveling to Torrey, Utah

Today's trip from Bryce Canyon to Torrey, Utah was through more spectacular scenery along Utah's Senic Route 12. It was a challenge for the drivers - 10 % grades in two short sections and many 8% grades, twisting roads, deep fall-offs, and no guard rails!

Sunrise at Bryce Canyon

Ed Dalton and Bill Miller braved the 39 degree pre-dawn to watch the sunrise this morning.