Yesterday, Wednesday, we drove a long way from near Death Valley to Virgin, Utah.  Several of us got lost in Las Vegas due to bad advice from a tour guide who said we could avoid construction by doing it his way, but signs he said to follow did not exist.  We finally got back onto I-15 north.  It was a strenuous mountain road drive much of the way, with a lot of cross winds but also some beautiful scenery as we neared and passed through the Virgin River Gorge.  The following photos were taken by Betty as we drove through the Virgin River Gorge.

The following photos were taken at the visitors center at Valley of Fire State Park.

Rocks off the parking lot at Visitors Center in Valley of Fire

Fruit-bearing cactus at Valley of Fire

Typical row of red rocks at Valley of Fire

One stop along the way was actually a diversion to Valley of Fire State Park.  It was the idea of our tour management and not something that the GPS or we would have included.  This is a large area with red rocks similar to those in Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  It is interesting enough, but the road leading into the park clearly was not designed for large motorhomes towing cars behind them.  It was slow going and as we neared the park itself, there were some very tight rolling turns that even car drivers would find memorable.  Everyone just snapped a couple phone photos and moved on.  It was $10 per vehicle.

We apparently were the most cautious drivers, since our 55 mph pace through the cross winds and mountain roads rendered us last to arrive at the RV park.  We also stopped off-road for a rest break, since these western states have few if any rest areas along the interstate highways.

Toward the end of the journey, we decided to get diesel fuel at the Flying J truck stop that was heartily recommended by the tour leader.  It was advice contrary to one of our first trip lessons learned, but after our tight squeeze experience in Kingman, Arizona, we thought a truck stop might be a good choice.  Wrong.  It was the truck stop from hell.  Very heavy rude traffic going in; a very busy, crowded, and filthy truck stop once inside; and after waiting for a line to open up to access a fuel pump, I had to prepay inside before pumping.  The location of the office was uncertain, since the place was spread over several acres, but I found it inside a Burger King that was built into other buildings.  Once we paid a high price for fuel and snaked our way quite a distance around big rigs to find the exit, we gingerly sought a gentle entry back onto the road.  Wrong again.  The curb was badly deformed (likely by poorly driving big rigs) and our motorhome rocked violently even though we were traveling at 5 mph.  Things flew around inside and some damage was done.  A clock fell off the wall in the bedroom and cracked the housing, storage cabinet contents flipped and some came out, molding around the slide-outs cracked, etc.  At first the slide-out for the bedroom would not slide out once we reached the RV park, but eventually it did deploy.  It is now Thursday morning and we are still doing some cleanup.

Since we had already seen Zion park in a past Tauck tour, we decided to relax while here rather than make the early morning mad run into the park.  So many foreigners are crowding into our parks that Americans have to scramble to find a place.  Thankfully we can take this time to do some housekeeping chores, do some shopping, and relax.  Another first, the power went out at the RV park this morning but is now back on.  The reason I even knew was that the AC stopped and it was getting hot in here.  The power inverter kept everything else going.  Several people on this tour are from Florida and looking for a cooler place for the summer; not found it so far.  And allergies are a continuing problem, likely due to all the dust blowing.  We drove through a town nearby named Hurricane.  Driving through you see how it got its name:  the winds.  And the winds blow up dirt and other debris.  Our sinuses are really backed up this morning.  That is also aggravated by constantly changing altitudes that cause your ears to clog and pop.  So, RVing in the west is hard on RVs and hard on you.

Our short pull-through slot at Virgin River RV Resort

Entering Utah also put us back on Mountain Time, so we "lost" an hour.  Crossing these time zones back and forth is a strange and annoying (though artificial) experience.

On the way home from shopping today, we pulled over to the side of the road to shoot a panorama of the rock formations that present themselves to the driver passing through this area.

Near 360 degree panorama of SR 9 leading to Zion River RV Resort

Here the portion to the left of the photo above is enlarged

No Wi-Fi was available Monday and most of Tuesday, but they were busy days.  I started this update on my phone but finally got it to work as a hot spot for the computer.  Trying to update blogger on a phone is a tedious and futile effort.

Monday Betty and I spent much of the day at the Pahrump Valley Winery with Lynn Switzer, an old friend of Betty's from her days in Salmon, Idaho.  While there we got a tour, enjoyed wine tasting, had lunch, and bought a couple bottles of wine.

Pahrump Valley Winery

Today was spent in Death Valley on a bus tour.  Death Valley National Park is the largest park in the lower 48, so many miles were traveled to see the sights on our agenda.

Betty and Steven at Zabrinskie Point

Zabrinskie Point

Lowest point of Death Valley

Sea level marker 282 feet overhead

Salt water oozing to surface at Badwater Basin

Ubehebe volcanic crater

 As time and internet access allows, I shall add more images for these two days.

Death Valley at 4:45 pm

After we returned from our tour of Death Valley, we were picked up by Lynn who took us to her home for a nice supper with her family.  After supper we drove to the RV park in our Jeep, which Lynn's son Eddie had worked on to get the passenger door to open and shut.  Now we can finish our trip with a functional Jeep.  Thanks again, Eddie.

The Switzer family

We leave early tomorrow morning for Virgin, Utah and Zion National Park.  I hear that internet connectivity will be even worse there.

Arrived safely at the Nevada Treasure RV Park in Pahrump, Nevada quite late yesterday, and we scrambled to get set up before dark.  It had been a long difficult drive from Cottonwood, Arizona, with strong side winds and mountain roads with long climbs and descents.  I am tiring of dust, wind, and mountain roads.

We had a mishap along the way.  We stopped for fuel in Kingman, Arizona (home town of Andy Divine).  The Jeep did not make the turn (Betty thought it would and gave the go-ahead).  The result was a bent right front fender that jams the passenger door shut.  We had to disconnect the Jeep from the motorhome, move the motorhome and Jeep incrementally to loosen things, pull the Jeep free from the post, move both motorhome and Jeep to a new staging area, reconnect everything, and test out the combination again to be sure that we could continue to travel in tandem.  Thank God it all still worked well.

A friend of Betty's in Pahrump is a mechanic, and we hope he can help us at least get the door to open so that the car is usable until we can get home to the Jeep place for full repair.

This RV park is very crowded.  Never seen such a sardine can park before (and hope not to again).  No pull-through slots; only back in slots with little space to maneuver.  It is adjacent to Death Valley.  Needless to say it is very hot here in August.  (Who thought this up?).  Death Valley National Park is first on the agenda with an air conditioned bus ride through on the 29th.  Working on the motorhome outside is still a new experience in dry heat.  Today the forecast temperature range is 119-122 degrees.

The very cramped Nevada Treasure RV Park near Death Valley

This morning we slept in late, even though we had planned to try to find a church here to attend, but we have managed to exhaust ourselves getting out here to the point that we could not drag ourselves out of bed early enough.  We always said this trip would be an education, and it has been, body and soul.

One of the key ironies of this trip thus far is that we took this trip to exercise our intention to be away from Florida in the summer to escape the heat, humidity, and hurricanes.  OK on the third count, but we have had humidity in many places and heat everywhere.  The air conditioners work overtime, and even fans are running inside the motorhome to stay comfortable.

Wi-Fi out west continues to be terrible.  Takes a lot of time and trouble to accomplish anything on the web.

In mid-afternoon Betty's friends who live here in Pahrump stopped by our motorhome.  They came bearing a gift, a cake similar to angel food but with fresh fruit pieces and pudding covering it.  It might be called a fruit custard cake.  Very good!  We had a good visit exchanging memories.  Eddie, Ed and Lynn Switzer's son, promised to come home from work early tomorrow to work on our Jeep to enable the passenger door to open.  This will allow us to use the Jeep on our trip and have a complete fix done when we return to St Augustine.  Eddie is a mechanic with experience in these things.  Lynn will be coming by to take us to see a local winery and restaurant where we shall have lunch.  Then she will coordinate with us getting the Jeep to Eddie's home.  We have plenty of spare time yet, since the only item on the tour agenda tomorrow is a 3 pm orientation, then Tuesday we leave the motorhomes parked while we take a bus tour of Death Valley National Park.  The working out of all these things is truly an example of God's providential care.

 

Today we drove up to Prescott, Arizona to visit with Rod and Jan Wills, friends we knew from Jacksonville who now live in Prescott.  I also got to meet Rod's lovely 94-year-old mother.

Rod and Jan graciously showed us around the Prescott area.  There is an old central downtown area that looks like something from the early 20th or late 19th century, but is very busy today with modern traffic and shopping.  On the more distant outskirts are new retailers like Home Depot, Target, Costco, etc that reflect an extended growth outward.  It is a place of changing elevations, where you can drive along one street and the next street over is so far overhead that you cannot see what is up there.  Or it could be so low that you are looking down on top of them.  Many of the views from these various parts of town provide stunning perspectives.  It seems like a working town rather than a celebrity or artsy town such as Sedona.  There was little if any conspicuous consumption or flashiness.

The topography of the land makes it more of an effort to go places here.  Large trucks strain either to climb up the incline or struggle with the dramatic decline, flashing their warning lights as they go down.  On a two lane road, things really get bogged down.   It was very noticeable as we drove back to Cottonwood.

Tomorrow we shall leave for Pahrump, Nevada where the RV tour will begin on the 28th.  This ends phase one of our trip.  Phase two will be the RV tour.  Phase three will follow the RV tour, leading us north for the first time through Idaho and Montana, then continuing east through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan as we start heading south and travel through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, then home to St Augustine, Florida on November 1st.

Thanks again to all of you who follow us on this blog and email us now and then.

Today began with a trip to Nexcare in Cottonwood, an urgent care center, to have my right knee x-rayed.  As I mentioned previously in this blog, after the hike to the cliff dwellings at Cliff Dwellings National Monument, that knee swelled up, sore and stiff.  It was slowly getting better, but I needed to know if something serious was underlying these symptoms.  It turns out to be age-related arthritis, so I was given a prescription for ibuprofen, told to use ice on it (which I was already doing), and wrap the knee before hiking.  At least I now can continue with this adventure without being concerned about whether I was causing serious injury to my knee.

The prescription was transmitted to the local Walgreens pharmacy, which is where we were when our friend from Prescott called to say she was in town.  Not the most interesting place to rendezvous, but it worked out fine.  She followed us to the RV park, where we selected the local attraction that would suit our interests for the day.  We decided on Out of Africa, a nearby wildlife park.

Out of Africa had many sizes of animals in small cages through large compounds.  It was very difficult to get good photos of the smaller animals through chain link cages.  In the Arizona afternoon heat, the large animals were mostly lethargic and unresponsive.   The lions and tigers were draped out on platforms in the sun.  There were even air conditioned houses for some large animals to use to escape the heat, so they understandably retired into this preferable environment.  A large albino rhinoceros was never in plain view due to this.  It seemed odd to have us pay money to see the animals as we endured the heat only to miss out on seeing them due to their seclusion into air conditioning.  Seems we should have come much earlier in the day when it was cooler.

There were a few exceptions to this rule.  The giraffes were quite affectionate, especially when fed their favorite goodies.  Betty found herself the recipient of many giraffe "kisses," a copious application of their very long tongues to her face.  A video of this can be found at the following link:   https://youtu.be/6U3OnKY9tGU  Betty also got up close and personal with a reticulated python (see photo).

Betty helps to lift python back into its cage

Zebras were very forthcoming when treats were handed out.  The driver of the safari vehicle warned us to keep our hands away from zebras who would snap off fingers if given the chance, then she proceeded to hand out goodies surprisingly close to their aggressive open mouths with very large teeth (see photo).  Some other large animals came to the fence as goodies were tossed out by the driver.  She spoke so fast and ran through so much information so quickly that we missed most of the names of these animals.  I have included a few photos that we managed to get from a distance.

Careful of those fingers

The hot environment, combined with speakers broadcasting recordings of songs sung in African made the mind drift a bit, leaving one feeling like one might actually be in Africa.  The Serengeti motif employed throughout was very effective.  I recommend going there around 9:30 am.

Today was spent on relaxing, then on housekeeping chores.  I went into town to get replacement bulbs for the front and rear blinkers of the motorhome, refill a prescription, and do some grocery shopping.  I also finished up photo processing of the images captured at the Cliff Dwellings National Monument and the Petrified Forest National Park (and Painted Desert).  Go back and check out those sections to see the images.

Betty spent her time cleaning the inside of the motorhome, which has gathered much dust in these dry locations.  The dust somehow works its way into the interior of everything.  The basement compartments of the motorhome have dust in them, even though I keep them locked shut.  The vehicles get dust inside and outside.  I prefer a place where dirt stays on the ground where it belongs.

Cottonwood portrays itself as a small town, but the traffic today in this small town was as hectic as any suburb of a big city.  Rude drivers make it hard to get onto the street or make a turn.  The speed limit is posted as 35 mph, but no one seems to pay any attention to that.

As I write this, a thunder storm has begun outside.  Perhaps it will wash some of the dust off the motorhome and Jeep.

We ate out for supper tonight.  We walked the few yards down Rt 89A to the Black Bear Diner.  I had never heard of it, but it is a chain headquartered in Redding, California.  Servings are huge and the prices low.  It began in 1995 in Shasta, California and has expanded into a chain of many diners.  Our waiter said it had spread far to the east, right up to Colorado Springs, Colorado.  At that rate, in another 100 years they might make it to Florida.  There is a sort of nostalgia theme, with the front and back of the menu being a reprint of a Cottonwood 1955 newspaper.  There are several ads on the back.   Seems you could get a Kodak movie camera, projector, and screen for only $99.50.

Top half of front page of menu at Black Bear Diner

Typical landscaping in Cottonwood.  Either grass will not grow or water is scarce.

This morning we refueled at the station on the premises of the RV park on Meteor Crater Road in preparation for our drive to Cottonwood, AZ.  In the photo below, look to the far right to the expanse of land seen there.  That is a 350,000 acre ranch owned by the family that owns the rights to the crater and set up a foundation to run it long ago.

Yesterday we drove the winding road about 6 miles in that direction to arrive at the building along the rim of the crater.  After paying admission ($14 for senior rate minus $2 discount for being at the RV park), you see a high quality movie simulating what must have happened when a fragment from an asteroid hit the earth, causing an explosion that disintegrated the fragment into many pieces and leaving a giant hole.  Then they take you on a hike along the rim of the crater, give you a lecture, and allow you to take photos.  Only scientists are allowed to descend into the crater.  I was relieved.  I was a bit tuckered out from the prior day's adventures.

To the right is the ranch through which you drive 6 miles to arrive at the meteor crater.

In lower left is foundation complex and trail leading to crater rim.

At right is the trail we walked, heard a lecture, and took photos.

Largest fragment of meteorite ever found.

Later today we arrived safely in Cottonwood, AZ at the Turquoise Triangle RV Park.  This is a park mostly populated with permanent tenants, both RVs and mobile homes.  A little run down but quiet, shady, and low cost.  The management are very friendly and helpful.

Our slot at the Turquoise Triangle RV Park in Cottonwood, AZ

Today we went to the Petrified Forest National Park early and stayed until after 4 pm, shooting hundreds of images in Canon RAW format as well as JPEG format.  I used the same DSLR camera that I used at the cliff dwellings in New Mexico.  Now I need to process all these images to include on the blog.  Betty has another DSLR and shot very many RAW and JPEG images which I also need to process for the blog.  That may take a while.

We did make a few interesting photos with our smart phones that we have included below.  That can whet your appetite for the really amazing images that will follow.

The Petrified Forest National Park Welcome Center was built around surviving examples of petrified trees.  These examples were around a covered area for visitors to congregate.

The Painted Desert Inn, historic gathering place for travelers now features exhibits of the park's past.

Outside Painted Desert Inn.  Example of good light.

 

Navajo man shows weaving done by his 86 year old grandmother.

Young Navajo man shows exhibit of his grandfather who was a Navajo code talker during World War II

The snack bar displayed the fascination there for the old Route 66

The weather was forecast to be foul in the afternoon, windy and rainy.  It turned out to be sunny all day with a slight breeze.  The temperature did rise significantly as the day progressed, becoming pretty hot before we left.  Yesterday I wrote about how windy it was as we arrived at the RV park.  I took no photos of the park at that time.  However, this morning the weather was cool, clear, and still.  The park looked as though it had been washed and freshly rearranged.  Note the photo below.  Really a nice RV park.

Our slot at Meteor Crater RV Park

When we did our hurried drive-through of the Petrified Forest National Park last night in order to reach I-40, it was overcast and dismal.  We looked around at the park features and were not impressed at all.  Today the light was good, so good by the late afternoon when we had to leave that we wished we could start the photos all over in that fabulous light.  What a difference good light makes!  The images, especially toward the end, are gorgeous.  What an amazing place in good light!

In the morning we did take time to watch the progress of the solar eclipse.  A ranger at the national park welcome center was passing out free viewing eye glasses in the parking lot.  It was a scene of many different kinds of people from many different places sitting or lying down looking up at the sky while wearing these eye glasses.  To think that I had prepared by spending good money ordering and express shipping such eye wear to arrive prior to leaving for our journey.

Steven and Betty watching solar eclipse.

The park's name is strange.  Most of the original petrified forest wood has been stolen over the years.  The rangers tell everyone entering to take nothing out of the park, but we saw some dubious actions by people.  Due to this, there is only a fraction of the original petrified wood left to be seen.  However, the painted desert extends over most of the area, but is not so designated.  The northern part is designated as painted desert, and the southern part is designated as petrified forest; but the name of the park only refers to the petrified forest.  You will spent much more time amazed at the painted desert than looking at petrified wood.

Tomorrow we go down the street to the meteor crater to get some more photos.  We plan to leave for Cottonwood, AZ mid-afternoon, since it should only take about 1 1/2 hours to get there from here.  We must check out of the RV park by 1 pm, but will likely leave early and tow the Jeep on down the street to be parked while we visit the meteor crater.  Then we will not need to watch the clock for a 1 pm check out.  It is hard to believe that we soon will wrap up phase one of our long journey.  August 28 the RV tour begins in Nevada.  While at the Cottonwood park, we shall  be visiting with an old friend and doing things with her rather than visiting national parks.  We hope to relax a bit before launching into the next phase of our adventure.

Thanks to all of you who write to us and make comments on the blog.  It is good to know that friends are following us along the way.

What follows are more photos of the national park, added as time allowed to process them.  No photograph, no matter how carefully captured and processed, can convey how this place looks in good light, but this may give you some idea of the colors and scope of its dimensions.

Blue Forest area of the Painted Desert

Blue Mesa area of the Painted Desert

Puerco Pueblo area of the Painted Desert

The Tepees of the Painted Desert

Newspaper Rock, used as public bulletin board by natives

The Agate Bridge from a petrified tree

Petrified trees from the Petrified Forest

Petrified trees from the Petrified Forest