Lower Antelope Canyon

This is our third visit to Antelope Canyon, located on Navajo land near Page, Arizona. There are two sections to Antelope Canyon, the Upper and the Lower. We have been through the Upper Canyon twice and the post about those visits can be found at the following link Upper Antelope Canyon.
This year we were able to go through the Lower Canyon which was quite different from the Upper. It's a longer, more strenuous hike with ladders going up and down throughout the canyon, some very narrow passageways and tricky footing in some spots.

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon which has been formed primarily by flash floods cutting through the Navajo sandstone. Because of the risk of flash flooding, guides are required to tour the canyon. In 1997 eleven tourists were killed in a flash flood going through the Lower Canyon and there is a monument to them the entrance to the canyon. Even though the rain was falling over seven miles away on that day, it quickly moved downstream and whipped through the canyon. More safety measures have been put into place since then but there is always the risk of injuries from a flash flood.

From the surface it's very difficult to tell what lies within the canyon. I think it's a bit like scuba diving in the sense that you don't know what's beneath the surface until you go down.
It doesn't take too much imagination to find images in many of the rocks, such as the face in the photo above and the woman in the photo below.

We took our tour mid-morning which is supposed to be one of the best times because of the lighting which is a bit softer than when the sun is directly overhead.

We had a wonderful time and will do it again one day.

Monument Valley

This was our third trip to Monument Valley since we began RVing seven years ago. The landscape is overwhelming in size and beauty. There are miles of buttes and mesas with occasional pinnacles of rock, and the colors change with the seasons and position of the sun. Much of the scenery is familiar since it's been a backdrop for so many movies and commercials. John Ford was the first to start making movies here and John Wayne starred in several of them. There's even a cabin labeled as John Wayne's behind the old Trading Post at Gouldings. The area known as Gouldings is like a little town in the middle of the Navajo Tribal Lands which has the Trading Post, museum, restaurant, RV park, gas station and several stores. It seems that Harry and Mike Goulding bought the land from the Navajos in the 1920's but we're unclear as to how it's still private land in the middle of tribal lands.

Above is the view from the Trading Post. Brian's Aunt Mary ran the hotel at the Trading Post in the mid 1950's, and her husband Martin Gambee was an artist who painted in Monument Valley. They were there at the same time as John Ford, and the family story is that when Martin had some medical problems Mr. Ford flew Martin to Flagstaff, AZ in his private plane. Another family story tells of how Martin may have been the first white man allowed to paint the Navajo people in the 1930's. When approached by a group of Navajo men Martin got into a conversation about how the Navajos had so little facial hair. They told him they pulled out all their facial hair with pliers and asked if he could handle that. Martin said yes, and after pulling a few hairs they decided he was a good guy. Several of Martin's paintings are hanging in the museum at the Trading Post.
The RV park has a nice view of the valley and I took the picture below on the day we arrived.

 The second day was incredibly windy and there were dust storm all day. Same view on that day below.

Pretty crazy, so we put off our sightseeing until the next day which was sunny and clear. Following are some photos from our drive.

This was taken of John Ford Point which has been featured in many movies, The Lone Ranger being the most recent we know.

It's difficult to show the scope of the landscape but the little blue car on the road will hopefully give an idea its immensity.

Brian took this shot of some man-made rock sculptures in front of the real thing.

And of course Tilly and Sue enjoying the day.

There is so much information about this area which is part of what is known as the Grand Circle. Most of the people we see are from foreign countries and it seems like such a shame that we don't see more of our fellow US citizens exploring this amazing area.  Here is one of many links where more about the Grand Circle can be found . . .  http://grandcircle.org  . . .

Colorado Flooding

We made our yearly stop in Lyons, Colorado, this year and were having a great time until the rains came. Meadow Park in Lyons has (had) 9 RV spaces and was about 30 yards from the St. Vrain River. We have always loved staying there. It's beautiful, generally very quiet, and we were able to take long daily walks along the river.

 

We had planned to leave on Thursday, Sept. 12 and fortunately had started picking things up in preparation for leaving. The rain was pretty continuous for a couple of days, and kept coming down. Wednesday afternoon Brian and I went to some of the usual places we go on our walk and were pretty amazed at the volume of water coming down the river. He took a picture of one of the bridges we usually walk over while I was standing on it. The river was much higher than we had ever seen it and we thought this picture showed how much water was flowing. At this point the water was probably still about 10 feet below the bridge.

 

 

I went to bed about 10:30 but woke up around 12:30. I could hear the river roaring and what sounded like thunder but was probably the sound of boulders crashing into each other. It was still raining hard and things just didn't seem right. I went out to the living room and Brian told me that 3 motorhomes had just left and maybe we needed to leave as well. At this point a Boulder County sheriff showed up and told us we had to evacuate. We packed everything up in the rain and dark and moved the Bus and car to higher ground at the entrance to Meadow Park. As we were evacuating I was wading through water that definitely shouldn't have been there. With memories of the Big Thompson Flood in 1976 and the devastation it caused, Brian said he thought we should keep moving and go into Longmont. Great idea. I drove the car and followed Brian and Tilly who were in the Bus. When we drove out of Lyons, water was running over the road pretty close to where we took the picture above. Very scary for me as I had visions of the car being swept away, but when I saw Brian take the Bus through I figured I could make it, and I did. We made it to the Longmont Walmart which we knew was on high ground around 3:00 AM and finally felt safe.

The next day we saw the following picture of the bridge I had been standing on. So hard to believe it.

 

 

We have been in touch with the camp hosts at Meadow Park who made it out as well, and they confirmed what we already knew - the park is gone. As far as we know our fellow campers made it out ok and some even joined us at Camp Walmart.

Once we were at Walmart we had to settle in for a few days because the roads around us were closed. We had a window of opportunity on Saturday and made it to our next stop, Colorado City which is just south of Pueblo. Evidence of flooding could be seen along our drive. The whole experience was mind boggling to say the least.  

 

The news has shown many pictures of the devastation in Lyons and the surrounding area, and it's hard to have much to add to that. We feel extremely fortunate to have gotten out when we did and made it safely to Longmont. Others have not been so fortunate. It will take months, if not years, to recover from this flood.

 

 

 

Canada

Our first stop after crossing the border into Canada was Niagara Falls. We kept hearing that the falls were more impressive from the Canadian side and we would have to agree since there is a much better view of them from there. Very spectacular.

We found the area by the falls to be a bit too much like Las Vegas for our liking. We wanted to see the falls at night when they were lit up but it was too crazy even to find a place to park. Too many people, too many signs, too many neon lights and so on.

On our way to Toronto we spent a few nights at Fifty Point Conservation Area. It's a very nice park on Lake Ontario with lots of hiking trails and some nice wineries nearby. We decided to return for a few days after our time in Toronto and enjoyed exploring the area, including a drive up to Niagara-on-the-Lake which is a quaint town, although a bit touristy. Pretty drive, though, and fun to try a couple of the wineries. Even Tilly got to come in and check things out at one of the wineries called Megalomaniac which is built into a hillside.

We ran into fellow RVers Larry and Marilyn who spend their summers at Fifty Point. We originally met them in Paamul (Yucatan peninsula, just south of Cancun) about 5 years ago. Such fun to see them and we had a very fun dinner at their place.

Our reason for visiting Toronto was to see my niece Shelby, her husband Dan, and their son Sam. The last time we saw Shelby and Dan was two years ago when they were getting ready to move from Rhode Island to Toronto. Sam entered the world shortly after that so this was our first chance to meet him. Pretty cute and lots of fun to spend time with all of them.

Shelby's sister Suzie was also visiting so we had a mini-reunion.

We did some exploring in Toronto which is a huge city and a bit overwhelming. It's home for Shelby and Dan and we appreciated their time spent in sharing it with us. We even got to visit the Toronto Zoo for the giant panda exhibit which was most interesting.

And of course one of the highlights for Brian, especially, was encountering this huge ship going through the locks as we were driving to Niagara-on-the-Lake. As far as we could figure out, it was going from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. It used up just about every inch of the locks - very impressive.

 

Letchworth State Park, New York

The nickname for this park is 'The Grand Canyon of the East'. This seemed like a good reason to check it out on our way to Toronto, plus Brian had been there as a child and was curious to see it now.
The park is nice and we enjoyed our visit, but it doesn't have much similarity to the Grand Canyon. There are three major waterfalls - upper, lower and middle. The upper waterfall is about 107 feet high and the cliffs rise about 600 feet above the Genesee River, one of the only rivers that flows north.

Much of the rock is limestone, and I thought the picnic tables they made from it were pretty unique.

The river has carved some interesting outcroppings and rock formations.

We knew we were in Amish Country pretty quickly, and I was glad to have a chance to buy a few things at one of the local Amish markets. 

Onward to Toronto from here. We're in a pretty crummy RV park so it will be nice to move on.

Back to the Blog

Since I haven't posted anything since May 26 I guess it's pretty obvious that I've taken a break from blogging. I'll see if I can get caught up a bit and then get back to posting on a semi-regular basis.

We've spent most of the time since leaving Alabama in Florida. Our first stop was to visit with Paul and Helen, our good friends we originally met in Mexico.

Paul and Helen have a lovely piece of property outside of Inverness and we were able to park there for a few nights. Their friends Sam and Donna were visiting as well and we enjoyed meeting them. We even formed our own little RV park. Great to spend some time with them and see the area.

Brian's sister Laurel purchased a home in Port St Lucie -PSL- so we were on a mission to get there in time to help with the move. Of course there were a few glitches and we found that she would be delayed a few weeks. The plan was for Brian to fly to New York, help Laurel with loading her rental truck, and then drive it down to Port St Lucie, which he eventually did. When we arrived at Laurel's we backed the Bus into the driveway so Brian could unload all his tools.

While waiting for Laurel, we joined with Brian's brother Bruce and sister-in-law Eileen to begin the remodeling process. Lots of work and challenges. Both Brian and I found the heat and humidity to be the biggest challenge of all. Granted we lived in the Caribbean for six years, but we never felt as hot in Vieques as we did in Florida.

Not all work and no play, though. Our friend Chuck is a bass player and has moved from LA to Boynton Beach, not too far from PSL. We always loved going to hear him in LA so it was great that we had a chance to catch him with one of the bands he now plays with in Florida.

Bruce, Eileen, Brian and I spent a very pleasant afternoon in a club on the water visiting with Chuck and enjoying some fine music.

The first month of our stay was spent on Hutchinson Island near PSL in one of those parks where people buy a lot and usually come down for the winter. There were small lots with everything from open pads to old trailers to two-story houses on them. We were able to get a good deal on a monthly rental. Although we weren't too far from the beach it was just too hot to spend any time there. Too bad.

After the first month on Hutchinson Island we moved to an RV park closer to Laurel's house and that worked out fine. We also took a few days and moved the Bus closer to Chuck so that we could spend more time with him. We stayed at John Prince Park in Lake Worth and had a site that backed right onto Lake Osborn.

It was a beautiful, spacious park and we were able to take some nice walks although with the many warnings about alligators I was always looking over my shoulder. Never saw one but we did see some cool birds.

 

We're heading for Toronto to visit with my niece Shelby, her husband Dan, and their very cute little boy Sam who we will meet for the first time. We haven't seen Shelby and Dan for two years so are looking forward to our visit. On the way to Toronto we stopped in Winchester, Virginia, to visit with friends Patti and Denny. We spent much of our time with them in Vieques so it's always a pleasure to see them again and get caught up on things.

Arizona to Red Bay, Alabama

 

We had a nice spring in Arizona this year but once the temperatures got close to the triple-digit range we knew it was time to pack up and move on. The Bus barely fits into our driveway, which is steeper than it looks in this picture - it's a tribute to Brian's driving skills that he backs it in there so well. Before leaving he completed some projects on the Bus including replacing our 32" flat screen TV with a 37" flat screen. It looks great. We also finished up the latest round of medical appointments which went well, and enjoyed catching up with friends.

Our travel plan was to head directly to Florida to help Brian's sister Laurel get moved from Nyack, NY,  into the house that she bought in Port St Lucie. We crossed Arizona and New Mexico before hitting Texas which seems to take forever to cross. It has such a contrast from west to east beginning with wide open spaces stretching for miles

to what I refer to as The Tunnel of Trees closing us in.

When we were about halfway across Texas we heard from Laurel that there were a few glitches that would delay her move. We decided to detour and head for the Tiffin factory in Red Bay, Alabama, where our Bus was built. This isn't our first trip to Red Bay so we're pretty familiar with the routine. The campground next to the service area is mostly on an old airport runway. There are close to 100 full hookup sites, several sites with water and electric, and when those are full there's a dry camping area.

Many Tiffin owners prefer to come to Red Bay for service on their coaches. The techs are usually quick and know how to go about doing what needs to be done, and the legendary Tiffin customer service is excellent. When we arrived it seemed that most of the sites were taken. Really interesting to see so many Tiffins in one place and always interesting to compare notes with other Tiffin owners.
We had some paint issue on the roofline of the Bus and decided to have it taken care of in Red Bay at a paint and body shop that we had used before. They do a nice job and are reasonably priced. Since the weather was rainy we had to spend the night in the paint booth, something we have done before.

 

A bit claustrophobic and stuffy but we survived and were out early the next morning.

 

 

We think we've finished up with everything we can do here and will stay through the Memorial Day holiday weekend, then head for Florida.