April 11-14, 2011

Monday April 11^th  -  June wanted to try out the local Mexican food since we were in Gallup, New Mexico for the night, so we asked the RV park host where to go and he recommended Don Diego’s Mexican Restaurant about three miles from the RV park.   Their special was the Don Diego Burrito – so we ordered two and after downing the complementary chips and salsa, the restaurant “Indian Vendors” started visiting each table with items to sell – Indian jewelry, necklaces, rings, earrings – oops, the earring caught June’s eye, so $8.00 later and she was the proud owner of a dangly pair of Indian made earrings.   Our food arrived and we dug in, June adorned with a brand new set of beaded Indian earrings.  First bite was a little warm, and each bite after got even hotter.   About half way through, we asked for sour cream. That helped, but we decided the best thing about Don Diego’s was the chips and earrings.



50 miles away

Next morning we are off to Flagstaff, Arizona.  Scenery along the highway is definitely dessert, but  it’s beautiful.  We could see snow capped mountains over 50 miles away as we headed west.  Driving from Gallup, NM to Flagstaff is a gradual uphill climb of 190 miles to a higher altitude and temperatures on the cool side.  We checked into a KOA RV park instead of a National or State Park as we had been doing, and just relaxed, caught up on doing the laundry, and since we were hooked into cable tonight, caught up on some TV watching. 

Temperature dipped to about 28 last night.  We were toasty warm inside with the electric heater, but made sure the coat went on before stepping out this morning.  Our first stop was at Sunset Crater Volcano, about 15 miles from last nights’ campground.  Temperature climbs to the upper 50’s 

 

Sunset Crater

today with beautiful sunny sky.  The Lava flows near Sunset Crater are an interesting thing to see; sort of like black crust on burnt toast, except chunks from the size of a pea to a sofa. We hiked the 1.5 mile trail through the Lava Flow only to find out that the actual Sunset Crater could not be visited by tourists, but we could see the volcano clearly.  A mountain with very little vegetation and covered largely with a fine gravel-like black volcano dust. Apparently during the early 1900’s, tourist’s were able to hike to the top and a film crew once wanted to use dynamite for effect in making their movie. The trails were then closed to the public as too much damage/scaring was being done to the volcano which 

Wupatki

has now evolved into the National Monument we see today. 

A few miles down the road we visited the Wupatki National Monument and pueblos. These Wupatki people lived here in the 1100’s and were farmers, raising corn in the dessert. I could never even get it grow in my own garden…. Much less the dessert.  The town they built here had a thousand or more inhabitants and was a stopover for travelers of their day.  That continues today except now we’re called tourists.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon park entrance around 1:00 and after stopping at a couple canyon viewing points, we checked into our campground at 3:00.  We plan to stay here the next three nights and use the park bus system to get around.

June and I purchased the National Parks senior pass a year or so ago, and it has come to be quite a money saver.  Just about all of the Federal lands give discounts to seniors who have this pass.  National Parks, Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of Engineers Lands, and some others I can’t recall, all give discounts.  We started tracking the savings, and so far we’ve saved over a hundred bucks in camping and park entry fees just for having this $10.00 card.    Three nights at the Grand Canyon campground totaled $27.00 – Half the normal fee with our pass.

We have propane heat, but use the electric whenever we are plugged in.  Last night at the Grand Canyon Campground we had no electricity hook up, so we fired up the propane.  Temperature dropped to 25 but the heater worked fine.  As a side, all systems are working just great in the RV.  It’s a fine way to travel. We could even do this full time.  Highest gas price so far has been $3.78/gal.  I’ve been able to push the mileage up a bit by slowing down on the highway to about 58-60 MPH.  Our first few days, I drove 65 MPH and barely got 9 MPG. Slowing down, I now am averaging a bit over 10 MPG for the last two tanks of gas.  That 1 MPG can make a difference in the coming months.

Our last visit to the Grand Canyon was in the 70’s.  The views are just as magnificent as they were then.  The pictures don’t do this place justice. It is so immense; you just can’t capture it in a photo. Looking out over the canyon is like looking at a large mural. It just doesn’t seem real – You need to visit here to get the full glory.



Getting around is pretty easy. The park has free bus shuttle service to about anywhere you need to go, so we just parked the RV and rode the bus during most of our three day stay.  Trails are plentiful, from easy to extremely difficult.  Back in the 70’s, June and I walked the Bright Angel Trail all the way down to the Colorado River. This was a 9 mile hike – one way.  One of the trail signs at the start of the trail says there are over 100 emergency rescues every year, the majority of which are people from 20 – 40 who could not make the 9 mile hike back up to the canyon rim.  Against strong advice “not” to attempt it, June and I did the round trip all in one day!  Tell me I can’t do something and I’ll find a way.  Today we could never do what we did then…… but, we are doing a lot of walking which is doing us good.  At the end of the day, we’re ready to relax.




 

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Colorado River - Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon Elk

Bright Angel Trail