CANYONLANDS AND MOAB

We arrived in the Needles District of Canyonlands after a short drive from Bluff.  By arriving early in the day we figured to grab a campsite inside the park.  We arrived around 11 am and the campground was already full, so we opted for a BLM side called Hamburger Rock just outside of the park's boundary.  A great spot and with our National Parks Senior Pass only $3 a night.  Such a deal!

 HAMBURGER ROCK CAMP

On our first night we were rewarded with a full moon.  Out here in the open spaces with no artificial lights to be seen, the full moon really brightens up the night.

After our last hike to Perfect Kiva (see previous post) Cathie decided to sleep in while I ventured out to Chesler Park, a little 11 mile jaunt through some over the top scenery.  The hike starts inside the park and for the first 3 miles traverses slickrock, and canyon or two.  You then arrive at on a high point overlooking Chesler Park.

 BEST TO GET AN EARLY START

 VIEWS ON THE WAY

CHESLER PARK

As you continue along the well worn trail you skirt around the edge of Chesler Park.  This part of the hike is mostly on a level surface and easy going.  Upon reaching the far side of the park the suggested route continues on Joint Trail,  a short section that’s just like a slot canyon: sheer, vertical walls 20- to 40-feet high, as straight as a hallway, pinching down to less than three feet wide in some spots. You’re not in an actual slot canyon, just the space between giant boulders that somehow lie parallel to each other for about a quarter-mile. You may have a hard time resisting the urge to chimney your way up between the walls.

THE JOINT

AT THE JOINT EXIT

Upon exiting The Joint you're about halfway done and the superb views continue.  After climbing up more slickrock you arrive back at the Chesler Park overlook and finish up walking the last 3 miles over the same trail you started on.  With the exception of the last 3 miles, I only saw one other hiker.  It doesn't get much better than that!



As is our custom while traveling we usually take a break around 4 pm for happy hour.  Some wine or beer along with cheese and crackers and the like is the normal fare.  While enjoying our respite at Hamburger Rock Camp, we were paid a visit by one of the camps inhabitants.  Didn't want any of our wine or beer, but just visited for about 30 minutes.

After 3 nights, we continued north on Hwy 191 to Moab, a town we've visited many times before.  Since our last visit several years ago, Moab continues to grow.  We saw new housing and business, so it appears that the recession bypassed this tourist mecca.  The town was crowded with people and the traffic leaving town on a Sunday afternoon was backed up several blocks.   We managed to find a great BLM camp right on the Colorado River several miles outside of town.  Once again we used our Senior Pass and snagged a riverfront site for $7.50 at Goose Island Campground.

 Being right on the river we decided to drag out the kayak and float down a calm section of the Colorado.  With the help of fellow camper Don, we put the kayak in about 6 miles up river from camp.  Don drove the truck back while we took a leisurely trip down a lazy river.

Cathie used to ride in the back, but after several kayak adventures I discovered that she wasn't paddling.  Now she rides in front so I can keep my eye on her.  We managed to make it back to camp in about 3 hours and as luck would have it, before some forecast high winds hit.  You don't go far down river against 40 mph head winds.  You actually get blown up river.

We were kept awake much of the night with the windy conditions, with blowing dust and sand seeping it's way into the trailer.  Then we had just enough rain that lasted about a minute and turned most of the dust covering the outside of the truck and trailer to mud.  We spent several hour in the morning getting things back in shape.

MORE HAPPY HOUR GUESTS

To be continued..................



BLUFF...PART TWO

Just across the San Juan River from Bluff is 16 Room House.  Most visitors don't even know it's there.  There used to be a suspension foot bridge across the river leading to the ruin but a flood in 2007 wiped the bridge out.  Now you have to take the long way around by car.  The ruin sits on a ledge in a large alcove.  I climbed up to the ruin, but in order to get inside you would have to grab onto part of the wall to pull yourself up the last part.  I started to do this but I was afraid I would pull the stone out of the wall.  Still pretty fascinating from the outside.

16 ROOM HOUSE

We are staying at Cottonwood RV park here in Bluff.  When we arrived we were greeted by an elderly gentleman who told us to park anywhere and his daughter, who runs the place, would contact us later.  We later met his daughter who told us her family had owned the property for years.  She said she has lived in Bluff most of her life.  Besides the RV park there is a cafe, pawn shop, a store selling Indian jewelry, rugs, pottery and the like.  There are a couple of "motel" rooms in a small duplex plus an old gas station and garage, which are now closed.  She said her mother runs the cafe, so I asked her what time the cafe opened in the morning, thinking we might go to breakfast.  She told me her mom usually opens somewhere around 10 or 11 and then closes around dark.

We paid the cafe a visit because that's where the gift and pawn shop are.  We met the matriarch of the whole shebang who showed Cathie some jewelry she was interested in.  She told us that she had lived all of her eighty years in Bluff and married a local boy.  She and the local boy split their ways sometime ago as he was "like a bee going from flower to flower pollinating each one".  He stays on the property in his trailer from time to time, until he wants to find "more flowers".

For our last exploration in the Bluff area we headed out in the morning for Cedar Mesa, about 40 miles away.  I had read about an intact Anasazi Kiva that could be reached after 5 mile hike down Bullet Canyon.  We arrived at the trialhead around 9 am and climbed our way down into the canyon.  Heading down canyon was pretty straight forward, but there were several fun spots to negotiate.

 CATHIE HEADING DOWN DRY WATERFALL

 MY FAVORITE, LEDGES

LOOKING BACK AT A POUR OVER

Before heading down or over each of these obstacles, we had to determine whether or not we would be able to get back up.  Looked doable, so we keep on heading down canyon.

LOTS OF WATER IN THE CANYON

TWISTY TREE

After almost 3 hours and 5 miles, we spied the ruin in an alcove above the canyon floor and picked our way up.

 RUIN WALL CENTER RIGHT

 WE MADE IT



The kiva and the small building are fully intact.  The ladder into the kiva is a modern addition.  The building (room) even has it' roof structure with earth covering.

 INSIDE THE KIVA

NOTICE THE BLACKENED CEILINGS

SOME OF WHAT WE FOUND

CORN COBS

A REAL BLUE BIRD

We spent about an hour at the ruin before heading back out of the canyon.  After ten miles we were really dogging it up on over the obstacles that seemed so easy on the way down.  Oh, I almost forgot, the kiva has a name, it's called Perfect Kiva and I could see why.

From here we're continuing north with a stop at Canyonlands National Park for a couple of days.  Then on to Moab.

HEADING NORTH, SLOWLY

It turned out the weather man was wrong about the temperature in Springerville, the low didn't get down to 15 degrees.  I got down to 14 degrees!!  Used 7 gallons of propane during the night to keep warm.  After thawing out, we continued north on Hwy 191 with the next stop being Canyon de Chellly.  We stayed in a really nice campground run by the Navajo Nation for $10.  We arrived early enough in the day to take a hike into the canyon to the White House Ruin.  This is the only place in the canyon that you can enter without a Navajo Guide.  The trail twists it's way 600 feet down from the rim to the canyon bottom.

 THE TRAIL DOWN

WHITE HOUSE

The ruin is protect by a fence so you can't get too close.  There are Navajos who are selling their jewelry, blanket and pottery nearby.  I talked a young woman who was selling her jewelry told me that her family had lived in the area for many years.  She said they still farm in the canyon, planting corn, beans and squash.  They also have peach trees, which she said probably won't produce this year.  She told me the weather has been really cold and after the trees bloomed, they had a freeze.  A couple of days prior to our visit, it was snowing in the canyon.

The next morning we continued northward to Bluff, Utah.  If you are a follower of the blog, you know we've been here before, so I suppose you could say we like it here.  A very small community of about 250 people located on the San Juan River in red rock county.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I like to explore Anasazi Ruins and the area around Bluff is the place to do it.  There are literally hundreds of Anasazi sites in the area that surround Bluff.  We have explored many ruins on previous trips so we visited  new ones this trip.  We first hiked to Hotel Rock, about 7 miles round trip up a very treacherous jeep trial.  It was had to believe that people would drive up this trail.

 THE ROAD

CATHIE WALKING THE ROAD

Hotel rock sits by it's self on a mesa covered with Cedar trees.  It gets it's name from several small ruins that encircle the rock near the bottom.  The rock it self conjures up one's imagination in describing what it looks like.  I think it's a turtle with a lizzard on it's back.

 HOTEL ROCK

 HOTEL ROOMS

CATHIES ARCH

One morning I took a walk up a canyon just outside of town.  It's surprising what you see if you look hard enough.  While walking up the canyon I spied two ruins high on the cliffs.  Too high and exposed for me to reach them, I continued up the canyon for a couple of miles all the time scanning the cliffs for ruins.  On the way back down the canyon, I saw two more ruins that I had walked passed on the way up.  They are so well camouflaged, they blend right in to the cliffs on which they are built.  If very hard for me to imagine someone even building something on the side of these cliffs, let alone getting up there.

Some of what I saw on my walk:

CAN YOU FIND THE RUIN?

HERE'S A CLOSE UP

 The petroglyphs on the rock face are about 300 feet off the canyon floor and another 300 feet from the cliff top.  I could barely see them, in fact I only noticed the figure on the left.  The petroglyph on the right I only saw when I looked at my photographs.  Who in their right mind would cling to the side of the cliff to do this?

LOTS OF POTTERY SHARDS

All of this a more was in sight of the town of Bluff.  I walked for about 3 hours covering around 4 miles.  This is great county.  I was talking to the owner of a restaurant in town who has lived in Bluff most of his life.  He told me that there is no place in the States like Southern Utah where there is so much to explore and see.  I couldn't agree more.

More on Bluff in the next post.

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

We're off again in the RV, this time for 6 to 8 weeks or until  the money runs out.  We left this past Saturday and headed to Southeastern Arizona to meet up with my sisters, Kathy and Jude.  They wanted to explore the Chiricahua National Monument so we agreed to met them there for a small family reunion.  The monument is about 40 miles south of Wilcox, AZ.  Wilcox is in the middle of no where, so that makes Chiricahua NM south of no where.  There is a small campground that limits the size of RVs to 29 feet, but we figured that at 30 feet we could manage to squeeze in.  We were lucky that Kathy and Jude held the largest campsite for us or else we would have been looking for a different place to stay.  Being south of no where, that would have been a challenge.  Really small campsites and tight turns within the campground.

The monument is known for it's towering rock formations and great hiking opportunities.  To make some of the longer hikes a little shorter and easier, the park service offers a shuttle service to the upper reaches of the monument allowing one to hike mostly downhill returning to the visitor center.  This is the option we chose hiking from just shy of 7,000 feet down to around 5,000 feet.  The 7 mile hike from the top twisted and turned though some pretty amazing rock formations including the highlite of the trail, the "Heart of Rocks".

I messed up with the settings on my camera and all the photos I took turned out fuzzy, but here are a couple shots to give you an idea of the area.

 KATHY ON THE LEFT, CATHIE ON THE RIGHT

After backing partway out of the campground, we parted company with Kathy and Jude after 4 days and headed north.  The plan, which could change for any reason, is to travel US Hiway 191 all the way to Montana.  That means we'll be going through, Eastern Arizona, Eastern Utah, Western Wyoming and Montana.  We haven't figured out our route when we decide to head back towards home, but we'll think of something.

We are currently in Springerville, Arizona where the forecast calls for a low of 15 degrees tonight.  If we survive, tomorrow we will continue north with the next stop, Canyon de Chelly, where I try to get the camera settings right.

THE PLAN IS COMING TOGETHER

So, what have we been up to?  Planning more trips of course.  Without the trips, I'd have to keep making stuff up for the blog.  I've got a hankering to write, so I'll bring the blog up to date on our future plans.

We're going to Europe, yes again.  Cathie said she wanted to go to Scotland, and not being one to argue, I told her it sounded like a fine idea.  Of course since we're there we might as well see England and Wales, so I figured a month would do.  And since we'll be in London at the beginning and end of the UK tour, we might as well hop on the EuroStar for a week in Paris.  And since we'll be in Paris, why not invite friends Hansjorg and Silke to join us and share an apartment.  And since Hansjorg and Silke live in the Black Forest, why not spend some time there.  Hansjorg has agreed to be the "Travel Master" for two weeks of fun in Germany and Switzerland.  Sounds like a plan, now for the details.

The Ride Over and Back:

Leaving on September 10th flying on British Air non-stop San Diego to London and returning out of Zurich via London back home.  We will arrive back in the States on November 2nd. We picked BA because it's the only airline with a direct flight to and from London.  Did I get a deal on the airfare?  What do you think, no one gets a deal anymore.  I watched the airfare for a couple of months and it never came down.  When it went up $20, I bit the bullet and got our tickets.  We're flying Premium Economy for the extra comfort.

In figuring out where to stay and what to see I sometimes use Internet travel forums to get some first hand knowledge about an are or attraction.  I've used the following sites, some with more success than others.

Fodors

Tripadvisor

These are very popular web sites and you will always get an answer to your questions.  It may not be the right answer, but someone will give you their opinion on things.  If you use any travel site, filter the information you get and check it out as best you can.  Most of what people tell you is pretty good information, so it gives you a guide.

One of the best sites that I've found for the type of travel we like to do is Slow Travel.  Mostly stuff about Europe especially Italy, but most people on the forums seem pretty knowledgeable.

Another site that I found is Silver Travel.  Most of the folks here are from the United Kingdom so they are good for information about the UK.

On occasions you run across someone who is really helpful with suggestions of what to see, where to stay and how to get there.  That is the case with Eleanor.  She answered questions posted on Slow and Silver Travel forums and has provide me with all kinds of valuable information about England, Scotland and Wales.  It's almost like I have my own travel planner.  Thanks Eleanor.

So here's what the trip looks like so far:

Six nights in London in THIS Bed and Breakfast.  It's centrally located and with in walking distance of many attractions.  In fact it's a stones throw from the Queens back yard at Buckingham Palace.  Perhaps we'll drop in for tea.  It is over our usual budget, but its all about, location, location. Actually we had enough points on our Capitol One Credit Card to pay for the entire stay.

After London, we take the train to York where we will rent a car for a short drive north to the North York Moors where we will be staying at Hazelwood Farm for 3 nights.  Netty, the owner has a keen sense of humor, as evidenced in Netty's Blog.  A link is on her web page if you care to read it.  (Shorter than this post, you say thankfully).  I think we'l enjoy our stay on Netty's farm.

From there we continue north to Northumberland, a national park.  We're staying four nights in the village of Wooler at the Old Mill Bed and Breakfast.  We'll probably do a day trip to Edinburgh from here. 

Then onto Scotland.  No lodging plans yet and we probably won't make anymore until we arrive in the vicinity.  We're traveling in the off season, so finding a place shouldn't be a problem.  One thing I will attempt to do while in the Scottish Highlands is to climb Ben Nevis.  At 4400 feet, this is the tallest mountain in Great Britain.  Doesn't seem like much in comparison to our mountains here, but it's the weather that will kill you on this mountain.

We turn south next to the Lake District, then Wales and finally the Cotswolds.  We have two weeks for this part of the trip and we'll probably figure out how long to stay in each location when we get there.

After an over night in London we will board the EuroStar for the short ride under the English Channel and Paris.

In Paris we've rented an apartment for a week.  Hansjorg and Silke will meet us here for a great time in The City of Light.  I found our apartment after reading a review on the Slow Travel Web site and selected it after communication with someone who had stayed there.  It's the La Belle Epoque located in the 9th Arrondissement just below Sacre Coeur and close to food and wine.  What more could you ask.  La Belle Epoque means The Beautiful Era, the period of time between 1871 and 1914, or in simpler terms, party time!

SACRE COUER

After Paris, it's all up to Hansjorg and I'll be done with the trip planning.

Oh, I almost forgot.  In three weeks we're taking off in the RV for 6 to 8 weeks, so stay tuned!