Zion and Goblin Valley UPDATED 5/22

Zion and Goblin Valley

After leaving Las Vegas, we drove to St George, located in the southwest corner of Utah. As it turned out, there was an Ironman marathon the following day, and we were very lucky to get one of the last RV campsites in the area. The next day we were able to see the bicycle part of the race on our way to Zion National Park. 

Arriving at Zion, we parked our car and walked over to the shuttle bus, as private vehicles are not allowed, spring through fall, on the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. There are 9 stops on the free shuttle bus, and you may get on and off the shuttle as often as you like. A round trip on the shuttle takes about 80 minutes, and is the easiest way to see some of the park's most beautiful sights. There are many hiking trails available of various ability levels. We were able to spot some people quite a distance away climbing sheer cliffs.

At the Zion Human History Museum we enjoyed a ranger-led program detailing the geological changes that have taken place, as well as some of the animals inhabiting the park. It is the Virgin River, which runs through Zion, which is the primary agent of erosion that continues to carve and shape Zion.  In some respects, this is like the Grand Canyon.

The following 6 photos were taken at Zion:

 

We drove 310 miles the next day and visited Goblin Valley State Park in Green River, Utah.

Here we are at a restaurant in Grand Junction, Colorado with our friends Dave and Jeanette Dearborn

2 photos Sue snapped from our RV as we approach the Colorado Rockies at over 11,000 feet

Another photo from Goblin Valley State Park

On our way to visit friends, we stopped at the Goblin Valley State Park, in Utah. Cowboys searching for cattle were among the first to discover secluded Goblin Valley. The cowboys were awed by the hundreds of intricately eroded "creatures". They remind one of stone gnomes in a desert playground.

These are hoodoos or hoodoo rocks, referred locally as "goblins". A hoodoo is a thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin. This area was sculpted by erosion due to wind and water from deposits laid 170 million years ago. The goblins show evidence of having once been near an ancient sea. 

We continued east to Grand Junction, Colorado, where we stopped for a couple of days to see our friends, Dave and Jeanette Dearborn.    One night we had dinner with them and some of their family, including son, d-i-l, and 1 year old baby grandson- Brent, Kourtni and Carson. Fun night as Carson kept us all entertained!

Traveling across the scenic Colorado Rockies on I 70 is a favorite route of ours, if not too much for the driver, then especially so for the passenger! The road climbs to over 11,000 feet above sea level. We put the RV in low gear and ascended slowly, slowly, up. As you can see from the photos, there was over a foot of snow remaining beside the highway when we went through May 11th. 

The next morning as we were preparing to leave our campsite in East Denver, KOA, we encountered a problem that would plague us for the next 5 days. As Steve was retracting the front slider, which is in the area of the kitchen, dinette and living room, it suddenly stopped working, about 8 inches from complete retraction. At the same time, our stablilizing jacks also quit. We spent 30 minutes trying to locate and fix the problem ourselves, without success. Next step was to call Tiffin, and rely on their expertise. Steve and Tiffin tried for almost an hour to isolate the problem, again without a happy outcome. As we couldn't travel this way, we let the KOA know of our dilemma, and they were wonderful! Although our site was already reserved by another RV for the night, they allowed us to stay there all day and then helped move us to an overflow area with a hookup, and didn't even charge us anything.

The next day we had a mobile mechanic spend an hour working on the problem. He was able to come up with a working diagnosis of a broken hydraulic pump, but didn't have the part to fix it. We had to wait 2 days until Today morning to call Tiffin and find a place on our route where they could ship the part and do the work. Although they didn't usually do so, they shipped parts before they inspected the RV. We got to Columbus, Ohio a few days later. It took 7 hours, and they stayed an hour after closing time, but we finally got our RV back in good working order, and headed to Dayton, Ohio for Steve's Ham Radio Convention. More on that in the next, and last installment.

One other part of our story...we just happened to camp in Greenfield, Indiana on our way to Columbus, the same town that Ben's friend from WPI is now located, her apartment just a few minutes away. We invited Jackie Fanning to join us for a cookout that night. She and her 2 cute rescue dogs came, and we had a really relaxing time, sitting outside on a warm evening in Indiana. We hope we sent some of this lovely weather we've been enjoying to NH, as you guys certainly need some!


Jay & Joanie letting Steve play with them.

Las Vegas

We arrived in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon, and were met by bright sunshine, and temps in the high nineties. We stayed until Friday morning, and each day grew warmer, exceeding 100 degrees. It cooled off only to the mid 80s at night. But the very low desert humidity made it fairly tolerable....that is, up to 99 degrees.

On Monday we met up with our friends, and the women in the group saw Menopause The Musical that afternoon. Cindy Williams of Laverne & Shirley fame was the narrator and had occasional stage time. She is just shy of 70 years old, and hasn't really changed a great deal in the 44 years since she first hit it big in the movie American Graffiti, playing Ron Howard's girlfriend. Menopause The Musical is a comedy about 4 women of a certain age, and was great fun. Afterwards, we met up with everyone for a buffet dinner, and ate far too much, as we did every evening that week.

The following night we saw the Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, the original surviving member was  getting over a sinus infection. Bucky Heard, who took over Bobby Hatfield's role after his death, was really suffering from the flu that night, and spent only about half of the show time on stage. Everyone's favorites were Unchained Melody, and You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', which they did well. They tried very hard, but their combined illnesses did affect their singing. Still, we enjoyed it. Just don't know how much more we would have enjoyed it if they weren't both sick!

The third show we saw was the ventriloquist Terry Fator. He is also a singer, comedian, and celebrity impressionist, and uses 15 different puppets in his act. In 2007 he won the show America's Got Talent. The keyboardist in the band was originally from Concord, New Hampshire, and we had the chance to speak to him briefly. During the pre-show, Fator told the audience that one woman (blonde?) once told him she was aware the puppets could all sing well, but she didn't realize that he could sing, too!

On our last morning before we left we went back into a casino and placed bets for a few family and friends on a Roulette game. Sorry guys, bad news.....we played 8 games and lost every time! Well, that's all we're gonna talk about, and no photos this time. You know what they say, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"!

Definitely.

Arizona

After dropping Bethany off at the airport very early Sunday morning (sniff, sniff), we drove on to Arizona to a KOA RV park near the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

The following day
we went to the Petrified Forest National Park in Navajo and Apache counties in Northeastern Arizona. It's known as high desert country, with an elevation of 5,400 feet. This piece of America's heritage was set aside in 1906 to protect, and make available for public enjoyment, one of the largest petrified wood deposits in the world. We drove the entire 28 mile long park road from one end to another, making frequent stops along the way. We started at the Painted Desert Visitor Center where we viewed a park film and browsed in the gift shop. 

There were many spectacular views of the Painted Desert from several overlooks in this area. As we were gazing at the colorful geology, I thought how wonderful it would be to take a high school classroom on a field trip to actually see this phenomenon.  With all the many different layers of silt forming the tall mountains, one can get an idea of the forces at work that created this. An ancient huge lake basin once covered this area, and there are lower (older) layers of lake-related deposits of silt, sand, and clay. The upper (younger) layers contain ash and lava from volcanoes, and all of these layers are of different colors. About 60 million years ago, tectonic movements of the Earth's crust began to uplift the Colorado Plateau, of which the Painted Desert is part. Eventually parts of the plateau rose to 10,000 feet above sea level. 

          

Next we see some typical types of succulent plants found in the area, this one in bloom.

Here is more of the varied landscapes that see as you drive through in the National Park.

Here is a photo of the rock formation that depicts the summer solstice. The sun's ray comes through the crack on the left rock until it gets to a mark on the right rock. Think The Temple of Doom movie.

This is a piece of petrified log that was laying by the side of the road.  

We saw ancestral Puebloan homes dating back to 1250 AD, and petroglyphs along a loop trail we walked. The petroglyphs - images, symbols or designs carved into rock- are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old. One of the petroglyphs can pinpoint the summer solstice each year, a very important date to know for planting purposes in a very short growing season.

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Period, about 225 million years ago.  All the organic materials have been replaced with minerals, mostly quartz, while retaining the original structure of the trees. This makes for a stunning view, especially when the sun is shinning brightly.The KOA RV park we stayed at for the week in Williams, AZ was lovely, with lots of tall pines and plenty of room between sites. 

The following day we drove to Meteor Crater, located about 35 miles east of Flagstaff.  50,000 years ago a meteor estimated to have been about 150 feet across, and weighing several hundred thousand tons, struck the rocky plain with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT.  

The result of this was a crater 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across that was carved into this once-flat rocky plain. It's very impressive to stand at the edge of the crater and look down. Do you remember the movie Starman, released in 1984? Part of it was filmed at the crater. Although there has been some erosion by wind, heat and water over the years, the crater walls have only been slightly naturally modified. Inside the Meteor Crater Discovery Center is an exhibit and film, both very interesting and well presented.

We spent one full day in Sedona, a desert town near Flagstaff that's surrounded by red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls, and pine forests. It's noted for its New Age shops, spas, and art galleries. We enjoyed browsing through the shops on a beautiful, warm and sunny day.

Since we were so close to the Grand Canyon, we decided to go back, our second time there. The Grand canyon is a natural formation distinguished by layered bands of red rock, revealing millions of years of geological history.  It averages about 10 miles across and a mile deep along its 277 mile length. Much of the area is a national park, with the Colorado River and its white-water rapids flowing through. We got excellent advice from some nearby campers from Rhode Island. They said the best way to do Grand Canyon is to get there by 7:30 am and beat the crowds, and they were right! Close parking, shuttle buses only partially filled, and no crowds suited us just fine. So we awoke at 5:00 am, packed the car with water and snacks, and we were done and ready to leave the park by 2:00 pm. When we got back to our RV we had plenty of time for a nap before meeting our new friends from RI for dinner!

The Colorado River just visible at the bottom of the canyon

Colorado River visible in middle of picture

On our last night at the RV site, the temps, which had been chilly for a few days, were expected to drop to 23 degrees. Oh, No!! Having already been schooled in the disaster of having our water system freeze, we were naturally apprehensive. We drove 26 miles (at 75 mph, the fastest the old man has ever driven) to Flagstaff to get to the nearest Home Depot before they closed. We probably woke up our friend Bob Jackman in New London, (3 hours ahead of us) although he graciously denies it. With his advice, we purchased what we needed to keep our water pump, fresh water supply and hoses warm. We kept our inside faucets on a very slow drip all night, and got up every couple of hours to check that they were still dripping. The next morning dawned with no freezing problems of our RV! Yay!!

We packed up and left the area, heading for Las Vegas, where the temps were predicted to be in the 90's all week. The warm weather sounds pretty good to us at this time.