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Grand Canyon, North side, – Thursday September 25, 2014

We spent two nights at Jacob Lake Campground and most of the day on Thursday at Grand Canyon.  It is still a 55 mile drive from Jacob Lake to the canyon rim.

I took a lot of pictures and Hank learned the fine art of getting in and out of the car at every view point.

At 9000 feet I could really tell the elevation in my when we walked out to the view points.
This is the classical view of the window and the walk it 0.6 miles out to the end from the parking lot.  No dogs were allowed on the walk way so I hurried out and back so Jean didn’t have to wait to long.

The aspen has already started to turn.  This side of the canyon closes on October 15th of each year.  It was a fun day.

Zion Natl Park – Tuesday September 23, 2014

Our current plan is to leave Zion on Wednesday 9/24/2014 and go to Jacob Lake, Az for a couple of nights.  This is on the north side of the Grand Canyon and I have driven by this forest service campground many times and always was interested in stopping.  This is up in the mountains and we will not have internet or cellphone.  From there we will go to Lees Ferry National Recreational Area for a couple of days.  After that we will need to decide a direction to travel.
 
(Monday evening 9/22/2014,  Know you could not tell however I am setting out by the river typing on my iPad.  Had to stop for a while to take care of Hank, several deer are on the other side of the river and he believes he should go play with them.  He thinks if he barks loud enough or long enough they will want to come to this side of the river and play. )
 
I do want to be some place that is going to be dark on October 7-8 for the red blood full moon.  We may also head towards the “very large array” in New Mexico.  They have guided tours on the first Saturday of the month and that maybe neat to attend.

Zion Natl Park – Sunday September 21, 2014

We had rain yesterday afternoon and most of the night.  A lot of people came back to the campground wet.  The park has had a lot of rain over the last 3 weeks.  The rain storm from hurricane Norbert brought the 7th highest quantity of rain to Zion in a 24 hour period in the 86 years they have been keeping track of rain fall. The Virgin River went from 40 cfs (cubic feet per second) to 2500 cfs.  The storm in 2010 which wash out some of the road peaked at 8000 cfs and was one of the largest volumes since the 1960’s.

The rain stopped at about 9:00 a.m. and it has been is nice all day.  I did get to follow the Seahawk’s game on NFL game center.

Zion Natl Park – Friday September 19, 2014

I caught the 7:00 a.m. bus up the canyon for a hike.  It is actually still dark here at 7:00 a.m. in the morning.  When I was walking through the parking lot by the visitor’s center and the bus stop one of the park volunteer’s was out walking his dog.  The interesting thing about this dog walk was a deer was attacking his dog.  This is the first I’ve heard of this, the deer went for his dog twice.

My original goal for the day was to start at Weeping Rock and head up the trail toward the East side.  The trail to Observation Point and East Side trail splits at the 2 mile mark.  When I got to the trail fork I headed out on the East side trail for about a quarter mile.  It is not much of trail in this area and I got to a point where I was going to have take my pack off to get down a five foot rock face I decided to turn around and go up to Observation Point.

Here is the classical picture from Observation Point.  The high point in the middle is Angels Landing.

Here is the Google map of Observation Point: 37 16.708 N 112 56.378 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.27847,-112.93965

In this picture you can see people at the top of Angels Landing.
This is the InReach track of my hike.  The GPS had a lot of trouble when we were down inside the slot canyons.  My FitBit said I hiked 13.68 miles and yes I was hot and tired, hiked from 7:20 to 1:45.  When I got back to the motorhome I had two strawberry daiquiris, they were GOOD.
The Virgin River hiking picture from 2010 is still on all the buses.

The other day I hiked the East Side trail from the East Side entrance station.  Here is a google link to my turn around point at the end of Jolley Gulch:
I am here: 37 15.117 N 112 52.627 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.25196,-112.87712

 

Zion Natl Park – St. George, UT – Wednesday September 17, 2014

Monday we got to go on a road trip.  The Saturn (our tow car) has not been happy with the hot weather.   It was getting hot and after the radiator fan came on it would spit out coolant as it was cooling down.  It would stay at it’s normal operating temp as long as we were moving at 30 miles per hour.  I called a shop in St. George I found on AAA and we towed the Saturn into St. George.  They did an excellent job, pressure checked the block and ultimately decided what the car needed was a new radiator cap, all for $50.00.

This morning I got up at 6:00 a.m. and drove to the East side of the park for a hike.
These are pictures from my InReach GPS tracker.
This was my turn around point, the end of Jolley Gulch.  I think I was about 3.5 miles and I had to go back the way I came.  A lot of the trail was loose sand and when I get tired it really sucks the energy out of my legs.  It was a good think I turned around here, I was tired when I got back to the car.
The trail was one of the original roads into this area.
It is really nice up here.

Zion Natl Park – Sunday September 14, 2014

This morning I got up early to see the sun rise over Zion.  My plan was to go the East end of the tunnel and hike the half mile to the view point above the great arch of Zion.  I was the second car in the parking lot and as I started up the trail a group of sheep ran out of the rocks.  I ended up spending 45 minutes taking pictures until too many people showed up the sheep moved on.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Zion Natl Park = Thursday September 11, 2014

We finally made it to Zion, our second significant stop on this trip.  We have traveled 1535 miles and we’ll be here for two weeks.
This is a map of our current travels.

Our campsite is right on the river, site B44.  Being so close to the river helps keep this site cooler then even across the road.  The current weather report calls for 85 to 88 everyday for the next 10 days.

Here are the traveling Flamingos in the front window of the motorhome.

The storm during the first part of the week created a lot of flash flooding.

I took this picture to show the color of the water in the Virgin River. It is usually crystal clear.

We had another first for retirement and traveling for extended periods of time.  The ever popular laundromat, first time I’ve been in a laundromat to wash clothes in over 40 years.  ( I have used them to dry a sleeping bag or two during this time ).

 

Cathedral Gorge State Park – Tuesday September 9, 2014

We made it through all the bad weather.  What was left of hurricane Nordbert came through here yesterday and made a mess of things just to the south of us.  We made the right decision to stay here and set out the storm.  One of the campgrounds I had targeted to go to is on the Virgin River in the area where Hwy I-15 got washed out.  We’ll have to wait and see if the campground is even still there.  The whole town of Mesquite, Nevada lost power and is not supposed to it back until today.
We have been here so long I think we need another campsite picture.

This is the satellite TV antenna using firewood to keep it from blowing over.  I also have an arrangement to use water as the weight to hold it in place, you’ll get to see that later.

We will be leaving here tomorrow (Wednesday September 10) for out two weeks at Zion, from what I have been able to read this morning all the Virgin River destruction was south of St. George and everything at Zion is fine.  Like yesterday the internet connection comes and goes.
We don’t have clouds like this at home so I am obligated to take pictures and show them.

I will not bother you with any more today, however I do have more.

Cathedral Gorge State Park, NV – Monday September 8, 2014

We are still at Cathedral Gorge setting out the weather.  This seemed like to be a good place to be with all the potential flooding the weather channel was talking about over the last several days.  I talked to one of the park people and he said he hoped we’d get some rain but we would not have any  flooding here in the park.
This place does have a of interesting formations.
It has been a little hot for Hank, he really wanted to play with one of these bones but it was just to warm to move.

This was the clouds a hour before it started to rain.  Started at 12:30 and lasted 15 minutes, nothing like they got in Phoenix this morning.  The ground got wet and cooled things off a bit and that’s about all the rain for now.  Still a nice day in my book.  We got some wind Sunday at dinner time with a little rain.  The wind did help to coat the inside of the motorhome with a nice layer of dust.  Still have some thunder so we may get more rain, we’ll see.

We may leave here Tuesday if the weather clears up and definitely on Wednesday.