Joan on the Road...of Life

It took decades but we finally reached the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I think the South Rim is better because you get many views of the Colorad River. Here at the North Rim, you can only see it from a few places so you see these mighty canyons and don't have a sense of what's causing them.

The approach to the canyon is beautiful...rolling meadows and pine forest. We are staying about 50 miles from the park; once you're in the park there are a couple of 25 mile treks to points that reach out into the canyon. The picture belowshows us at the edge of the canyon...drops off about 5000 feet right behind us. From this point you can see the canyon both east and west. It is awesome.

We walked several trails out to overlook points, checked out the gift shops, lounged on a deck overlooking the canyon and took lots of pictures. We'll go back again to get pictures with different lighting and finish exploring the trails. Really glad we came here!

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Our drive north on 89 from Flagstaff to Jacob Lake and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon took us through the Hopi Indian Reservation. There is very little in the way of towns...just little roadside stands, standing empty. Probably they'll be occupied by indian sellers as the summer traffic increases. The scenery is wild. Part of it looks like a big Disney landscaper came along and plopped down big lumps of gray-green sludge and it hardened into smooth dome hills. Then come the Vermillion Cliffs which are a National Monument. They really are brilliant red depending on the lighting. The road is good but pretty narrow and then starts climbing to the Kaibab Plateau which is at 8000 feet and covered with pine and pinyon. This is the plateau that is at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Our campsite in Kaibab Camper Village is set in the pine forest. Incredibly they saved us a site "with a clear view of the southern sky" so Mr. Moto (satellite) is working. No phone service however.

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Who knew that in a funky little observatory in Flagstaff Arizona, Percival Lowell, from a rich east coast family, would latch onto the idea that there was a 9th planet out there. He searched for years and died before the confirmation in 1930 that his planet existed. A contest was held to name the new planet and PLuto won out...a reference to mythology and interesting had Percival Lowell's initials. There are several telescopes on this side of the San Francisco Peaks and more on a mesa south of Flagstaff. Lots of astronomy going on in Arizona.

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At Slide Rock State Park in Oak Creek Canyon lots of kids were sliding and swimming although it must have been pretty cold!

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This is Bell Rock viewed from highway 179 leaving Sedona.

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Before leaving Flagstaff we wanted to spend a day in Sedona so we tried to leave early so we'd have plenty of exploring time. But 11 AM rolled around quickly so we got off to a late start. We drove south on 89A through Oak Creek Canyon and stopped at Slide Rock State Park. The rocks are wonderfully red and there was enough water flowing, even after 6 years of drought, that kids were sliding down the rocks and landing in pools of icy clear water to swim. We walked along the creek and then continued on 89 to Sedona.

There are several spots where you come around a curve and go "ahhhhh"....because it is so lovely. The road descends quickly from Flagstaff so there are lots of curves and switchbacks; not a road recommended for motorhomes although we did see a few. We stopped in Sedona for lunch, Mexican restaurant where it took forever to get our meal but it was pretty good. I had Red Rock Enchiladas--Cheese and Avocado stuffed taco with a "substantial" enchilada sauce. Yum!

I'm totally turned off by the touristy aspect of many towns but we did stop at a special shop to buy some birthday gifts for family. (Can't say what because they might read it here!).

We left via 179 which gave us great views of some of the "rocks". Awesome country tucked away and inhabited by thousands of tourists! Imagine being the first people to find an area like this...in the midst of desert and ponderosa pine country.

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About 15 miles north of Flagstaff on US 89 are two National Monuments where we spent a windy day exploring. First stop was Sunset Crater. We drove in a ponderosa pine forest for a few miles and suddenly, on the left, we saw huge "waves" of black lava and then ahead the cinder cone of Sunset Crater which erupted in 1064. The cone is 1000 feet high with many smaller cones and fissures of lava surrounding it for miles.

35 miles further on, after driving through hills of cinder and ponderosa pine, then pinyon, we came to an overlook view of the painted desert and then dipped down into the desert area of Indian pueblo ruins. We walked through two sites at Wupatki and Wukoki. These Pueblos are sometimes 3 stories high and dozens of rooms. They were occupied for about one hundred years after the volcano erupted by the ancestors of the Hopi and Zuni Indians. The Pueblos are constructed of slabs of slate and brick cemented with clay-like material. Wooden beams that held up grass roofs are still in place.

A lot of restoration has been done on the Pueblos but currently there is disagreement about disturbing the remains of Indian ancestors so not much digging and restoration work is done.

The sense of ancient history and past lives is very thought provoking.

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Wupatki Pueblo National Monument, Arizona

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Lava flow at Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona. The crater cone is in the background tinged with redish hues, thus the name.

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My travelling partner has taken to entertaining me with impersonations of Jack Nicholson (in As Good As It Gets) and Cliffy, from Cheers. If you know Jim you'd say...What???!! He seems like too serious to do that. Well he's really a "closet expressive" as a friend once said. Anyway, yesterday we were shopping the supermarket aisles and he starts talking like Cliffy. There was a guy stocking the bread shelves who overhead, turned his head to sneak a peak at us, smiled, looked again and laughed. I just went along with Cliffy and pretended that this was normal. What a riot?

In this same store, a Safeway, the clerks were obsessivly helpful. Can that be? Every single clerk that went by us said, "Hi how are you can I help you did you find everything you need???!!" Jeez...then when we're checking out the checker looks at the tape printout and says "thank you Mr. Wise"...and the packer...get this...says.."what is your last name?..." so I told him and he says, "Well have a great day Mrs. Weise"! I couldn't stop laughing at that one. We figured they must have had a management reorg and everyone has a new role to play!

Every day is something new, weird, wild or wonderful!

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We've stopped in Flagstaff, AZ for 10 days at a small campground that is pretty funky, lots of personality. There are only 60 spaces, but they are so narrow that most of the guests have two spots assigned. There are lots of obstacles to manuever around, like electrical connection poles and water pipes and trees. We had to jockey the motorhome around to fit our slideouts between all these things. And that leaves no space for putting out our awning. However, it's so windy that I wouldn't want the awning out anyway. My mom said she heard the wind never stops blowing in Flagstaff...and she's right! 20-30 mph every day. But it's cool, sunny, and Rocky Mountain beautiful.

We walk the doggies and meet lots of interesting travellers. Next to us we've had an explosives expert who travels and investigates stuff (he says they've never found that missing tanker from the east coast). Next in that spot was a couple from Death Valley CA. The wife had taken a job with the Marine Corps at Quantico so they are driving, in a week!!, across country to relocate her. She'll live in their 5th wheel and find a house in Virginia, he'll go back to CA to sell their house and relocate his mother to a rest home. WOW! Some years are tough!

The people across the street have a new motorhome because a tree fell on their old one. They made out good with insurance and are now on their way to our home base Hart Ranch in SD where they'll spend 3 months volunteering. Hmmm...And next to us is a couple who come and go working, living in an old motorhome, driving a jeep and a truck, listening to country music and talking loud on the cell phone. Never met them!!!...life in the neighborhood.

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Yes, it's a big hole in the ground! But it's one that Jim has wanted to see since he was 10. He got a little orange book with a piece of the crater while visiting the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He says he must have read the book 50 times. It was then known as the Berringer Crater for the guy who studied it for years and theorized it was an impact crater. It wasn't until the 60's that it was confirmed as being formed by a meteor about 150 feet in diameter but weighing several hundred thousand tons!

The impact happened 50,000 years ago and created this gigantic hole which is 550 feet deep and nearly a mile wide. The meteor disintegrated on impact and flung debris around the crater for miles. Astronauts trained here before the moon flights and left a 6 foot astronaut cutout along with an American flag on the floor of the crater. Look on the right side in the bottom of the crater. Jim took the 1 hour tour along the rim; I had on sandals and couldn't go!

We're staying for a few days at the campground here which is nice but windy. The guides say it is not unusual to have 60 mph sustained winds in this area with 100 mile gusts! Hooowee!

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"Well, I'm standin on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,it's such a fine sight to see."..now I can't get the song out of my mind! There really is a "Standin on the Corner" Park on old Route 66 in Winslow. It is the brainchild of locals who want to promote and support the revitalization of historic Winslow. You can buy a brick for the park sidewalk, inscribed as you desire, for $50-250. Profits to the revival effort! The wall behind the statue and corner park is a trompe l'oeil painting including an eagle (for the Eagles), a couple embracing and of course a girl in a flatbed ford. Around the corner is Krissy's Nifty 50 Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop where we enjoyed a hot dog and coke diner experience for lunch. (FYI the song is Take It Easy by the Eagles.)

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We spent an afternoon at the Sharlot Hall Museum complex in old Prescott, just one block from Whiskey Row. Jim is standing in front of the first Governor's Mansion of Arizona. Sharlot Hall was a "feisty broad" of the first rank. She was a poet, writer, historian, traveler, politician, and political activist. It was her goal to establish a museum to house Indian artifacts to preserve the culture of Arizona. She once took a 10 week covered wagon trip from Prescott to the Grand Canyon to see what it was like!

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Our campground is set in the midst of the rocky dells beside Lake Watson in Prescott, AZ. The weather here is great except for the winds which have been gusting up to 30 mph in the last few days. It's such a relief when the wind dies down! This area was a haven for Indians because 5 creeks flow down to this area, although in this 6th year of a drought you don't see much water. About 50,000 people live in this area now and we find all the chains and franchises that were familiar in CA.

Today I got a haircut at Regis Salon in the Gateway Mall where there is a Dilliards, Penney, and Sears. Regis owns many of the hair cutting salons across the country including the little salon in WalMarts. Hair cutting...one of my greatest stress factors. But the Regis folks usually do a good job. They tell me they are the highest level of salons in their corporation!

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It's a good thing we knew not to drive the motorhome on this highway (89A) from Prescott to Jerome (and then on to Sedona). This drive had more wild switchbacks, blind curves and narrow spots than anything we've been on so far. It's a good road...just not for wide bodies! We climbed over Mingus mountain to the town of Jerome, a little old mining town on the side of a mountain. Streets are one-way and narrow as you head down the mountain. In this picture if you look in the distance, you see the town of Cottonwood. The difference in elevation is about 4000 feet. We didn't stop in town..don't need any more stuff! Beautiful weather and gorgeous drive. We decided to tackle the Sedona portion heading south from Flagstaff.

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April pics are available at http://www.weisefamily.com/pics

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We're "on the road again"! This is the view on I 17 midway between Mesa and Prescott AZ. The geography and vegetation change a lot in this short drive of 125 miles. Mesa is in the Sonoran Desert so there are lots of Saguaro. By the time we reach Prescott we're at 5000 feet elevation and there are more trees, grassy plains, buttes and mesas.

A little bit after this picture was taken we were slowed for an accident on a 6%, grade going up, for about half an hour. When we reached the accident site it was a burnt out motorhome...an old Apollo that probably had a bad tire. The whole front half of the coach was melted. It's a really scary, unsettling site. It looked like another coach had stopped to help the family and the burned coach was already on a tow trailer.

Glad we're in cooler weather (by 20 degrees) and we're looking forward to exploring this area.

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Finally we went to Organ Stop Pizza and it was more than I expected! What a fantastic concept. The pizza was good but the ambience was outstanding. Guests eat at long wooden tables and are treated to musice from The Mighty Wurlizter. The whole front wall, probably 60 x 40 feet, is filled with 4 glassed in rooms containing the organ pipes. Theater organs have such a different sound than church organs. The walls are lined with the drums, bells and cymbals that make the added orchestral sounds. We finished our pizza in 30 minutes but hung around for two sets of music, then bought a CD of patriotic tunes. Check out the website...it is a must stop in Mesa, AZ.

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We wondered if Saguaro bloom and they do, but they are later than a lot of the other cactus. This is atop a 20 foot Saguaro that is down the street from us here at Sun Life in Mesa. Several birds have made homes inside this one..it's lots cooler in there they say! This little woodpecker is actually making his nest; lower down is a blackbird who probably stole his nest from someone else. The blooms become seed pods that were very important to the Indians for food.

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While making our morning Starbuck's we heard a lot of helicopter noise outside. I thought it was a herd of military planes going by, then stepped outside to see 2 police copters hovering over the park. We were going to walk the dogs and my first thought was...wow...maybe there is a criminal on the loose in the park!

Then the maintenance guy came by and said that a body had been found in the canal which is less than a block away and runs along the pathway where we walk the dogs. Of course people came out with all the noise and we went to check it out. Lots of police, spectators and planes! Later in the news online I saw that it was a man (later ID was an elderly white male) who was tied to "an object" and it has not been determined if foul play was involved. News helicopters hovered around the scene all morning.

Of course people in the park are conjecturing...some wife got mad at her hubby and tied him to a lawn chair so she could drag him to the canal! This is the stuff of mystery writers. I could just imagine Sue Grafton writing about Kinsey Milhoun working on this crime.

These canals are all over the place here and I'm told that irrigation water is regularly released into neighborhoods for people to use. The Hohokam Indians, in the 1100's designed the irrigation canals and some are still in use! Bet the Indians threw bodies in the canals too.

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