The Four Corners

On our long drive from Monument Valley to Colorado, we past the four corners. An area where four states join. We got there just before the site closed and so we didn't have to pay, or queue for our photos. It was a bit of a silly novelty tourist thing, but we had fun standing on the different states at the same time. The four states are Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. We took a few photos, then Dan and Luke lay across the states for some funny photos.

Monument Valley

From the first day we started planning this trip there were two places I really wanted to see. Monument Valley in Utah/Arizona and the Rockies in Colorado. On Sunday we finally made the trip down to Monument Valley, on Mothers Day of all days. The kids woke me up with home made mothers day cards, and a DVD about the art of tattooing. That was cool. One kid (who shall remain nameless) woke me up with a moonie of the face drawn on their bottom!!

We only had an hours drive to get to Monument Valley. When I saw the monuments in the distance I got very excited. We stopped at a Navajo Indian stall on the way in, to take some photos of the valley in the distance and to look at the Indian jewelry. Both Jimmie and Annabelle saw something they wanted to buy from the stall. The necklaces were $12 each, but when the owner of the stall heard me tell them they'd have to use their own money he told them they could have them for $10 each. Little Barney was begging to buy something but I kept telling him he'd be better saving his money for a toy in Walmart than an Indian necklace. The stall holder must have felt sorry for him, as he picked him out a blue necklace made with juniper berries and gave it to him for free. He showed him the Juniper Tree and told him about how he made it. Barney was way more impressed with his gift necklace than he would have been if I'd bought it for him.

A few days before Barney had asked me if Indians were bad people. When I explained that they were nice people, he said he thought they were bad because they fought the cow boys. After the Indian man gave him the necklace he said to me "you're right Mummy, Indian people really are nice".

The drive into Monument Valley was as beautiful as I'd expected, although it was quite an overcast (yet hot) day. We stopped countless times to take photos. We saw wild horses wandering around the roads and Dan got a photo of two of them in front of the monuments. We paid $20 to get into the Indian run tourist part of the monument. This was really wasted money as we could see as well from the roads anyway. The visitor centre there was closed, and we couldn't take the RV on the scenic drive as the roads were unpaved. So we basically paid $20 to sit in a car park and eat lunch. We did take a walk down to the little Indian village and have a look in homes there.

It turns out that there isn't an RV park for about 150 miles either side of Monument Valley, which we didn't realise. So we ended up driving till late in the evening to a town in Colorado, just to find somewhere to sleep. The kids though we excellent the whole time. They are really getting used to traveling so much and entertain themselves every time.

Arizona and the Navajo tribe

I have to write a short post about the drive from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park. We are leaving Zion today and heading to Bryce (both in Utah) but since I haven’t had any internet connection, I am behind with the blog posts. Hopefully I will catch up soon. We have some amazing photos from Zion to go with my next blog post.

Anyway, the drive through Arizona to Utah was as beautiful as any drive we have made so far. Vast orange colored landscapes, filled with huge rocks and canyons. The scenery was breath taking. We were driving through a huge Indian Reservation, that covered hundreds of miles. At various stops along the road were little Indian craft stalls selling jewelry, pottery, dream catchers etc. We drove past a huge canyon in the ground. I’m not sure if it was the end of the Grand Canyon, or something entirely separate. But the Indian Reservation had opened up a little area to stop and view the canyon. To get to the canyon we had to walk through Indian craft market stalls. I was a bit dubious about that and felt I was being conned into making purchases just to see the view, but I was wrong.

It was nice to see the Indian stalls being run by actual Indians. All through America we have gone into Native American gift shops just to find out they are run by people who have nothing to do with Indian heritage at all. I always felt that they were making money out of the people whose land they stole. But here the stalls were owned by native Indians, from the tribe of Navajo. The people sat and made their items whilst tourists browsed past. They never once tried to sell us anything or pressured us to buy anything. So I felt fine to take my time looking, and we bought a few gifts for family members and school friends. We all really enjoyed listening to the native Indian language too. It sounds so mystical! (Later on we stopped at Walmart and were one of the only non-Indian shoppers there).

We ended up sleeping overnight at Lake Powell as the drive to Zion was too far. At Lake Powell, like Lake Mead, there is a large dam which we were able to drive over. The Lake Powell area runs on the border of Arizona and Utah, and is beautiful. However, camping there cost an arm and a leg, so we only stayed one night, despite the scenic beauty.
Hopefully, I will be back soon with my blog post about Zion National Park. In the mean time if we are out of range for phone and email, we are at Bryce National Park in Utah.

The Grand Canyon, Arizona

Where on earth do I start when writing about the Grand Canyon? I just don’t know where to begin. The drive to the Grand Canyon took longer than we’d anticipated, so we stayed over night in an RV park outside of the canyon. The following morning we woke up bright and early and headed to the park, as we had nowhere booked to sleep, so we didn’t want to arrive late.

The drive into the park was so much more alpine than I’d expected. I really thought the canyon was in the middle of desert land, but it felt more like Canada with all the tall pine trees. At the entrance to the park we were told by the ranger that we had no hope of finding a camp site to sleep in inside the park. That was disappointing, but Dan never gives up and he asked in the visitors centre, where he found out there were 3 spaces in the dry camping park (no hookups). He sprinted back to the RV and we raced to that campsite, to find two RV’s in front of us. We got the last space! The following day Dan went over to the other RV park, that had hookups, and asked for a spot. The ranger there said he had nothing. Dan asked if he wouldn’t mind double checking. So as he rolled his eyes up and checked through the bookings he said ‘Oh, we must have had a cancellation!” and so we had another 2 nights to sleep in the Grand Canyon National Park. Three nights in total. Not bad considering we’d been told we didn’t have a hope of finding a space.

I think the majority of tourists from Britain see the Grand Canyon on a one day tour. I know Dan did that many years ago. The tour bus drops them off and then collects them three hours later. But we had three full days to explore the park, and so we were able to see some of the less touristy parts.

On day one however, we took the free shuttle bus up to Hopi Heights, with many other tourists. The shuttle buses came every six minutes and always had space on board, so it was an easy way to see the park. I remember when the bus doors opened and I caught my first glimpse of the canyon. Wow. It just took my breath away. Photos can not convey how huge it is, how wide and deep. All our photos, although lovely, in no way truly show how vast the place is. There are no words to describe the Grand Canyon adequately. You simply have to go and visit it yourself.
We rode the red bus line up to the top of Hopi Point. Little Barney was quite scared of the sheer height of the cliff edges we were standing on, and every time a gust of wind came he begged to go home. On another of the stops we walked out across a cliff to a huge rock with a memorial plaque on it, with the names of the men who first discovered the canyon. The walk across to it was scary for a mum with three adventurous kids. The cliff walkway was about 6 feet wide, with no rails on either side, and possibly a mile drop off if one fell. The wind was harsh and Barney was clinging onto me begging to go back to the bus. But we made it across to see the view there. Dan proceeded to scare a couple of touring pensioners, by climbing out to an area that looked like a sheer drop from where we were standing. But it was an optical illusion and he only had about a 10ft drop below him. However, the old couple nearly had kittens when they saw him, and started calling him back, telling him the wind would blow him away. I had to explain to them. I read that 600 people have died in the area, many of which are tourists who have ventured too far for the perfect photo, and fallen off the edge. I was completely surprised at how many un-fenced cliff edges there are.

On the second day we drove the RV to Mather point, which is the first place on entry to the park where its possible to view the canyon. Because of this it is packed with tourists. This area was fenced all around. That is how I expected the entire place to be. But it wasn’t at all. After stopping at Hopi point and various stops on the red bus route we walked some of the ‘Rim Trail’. The trail often has no rails at the edges, and I was a nervous wreck trying to keep an eye on all three kids and Dan (he’s the most likely to fall off a cliff!) On my first night sleeping in the Grand Canyon, I spent the entire night dreaming of catching various family members before they would fall to their doom.

During our Rim Walk we spotted a park ranger giving a talk about the California Condors that live in the area. We hiked down to where she was and sat for 40 minutes listening to her, whilst watching the condors flying hundreds of feet below us. The kids learnt a lot from that talk. The condor weights up to 20lbs, has a wingspan of up to 9.5ft, and can live 50 years in the wild or 80 years in captivity. It was great to see them flying below us. They are ugly critters though, I must say.

The Grand Canyon is a mile deep. I didn’t realise that. If you can imagine standing at the edge of a 1 mile drop, you might understand how its possible to feel slightly dizzy. I felt dizzy on more than one occasion. But I just loved staring out at the vastness of the canyons, and the Colorado River below.

On day three we decided to drive Thelma II up to some of the areas that the shuttle bus didn’t run. This is when I really started to feel that I was exploring the area for real. We left most of the tourists behind us and headed eastwards. There were several scenic areas to stop and view the canyon, but the road in between these areas were covered in alpine forests. So different to how I’d imagined. We saw wild elk grazing in the forests.

At the end of our drive we stumbled upon an old watch tower. We had no idea it was there. This watch tower is built right on the cliff edge, and has 360 degree views of the canyon from the top. Inside the watch tower is decorated with Indian Petroglyphs. It is well worth the drive if you’re in the Grand Canyon area with a vehicle to visit this watch tower.

I had really wanted to venture down inside the canyon on one of the trails there, but I was so sick with the cold while we were there that I could barely walk. I still enjoyed the views through my watery eyes, but it was a shame not to be able to climb down into the canyon. We were told that if you climbed down for 30 minutes, you had to allow 2 hours to climb back up again!

Edit - there is an album on facebook called 'the grand canyon' but i can not add the link to it on here yet, as this goverment internet connection Im using doesnt allow connections to facebook. So annoying. I will add the link next time. Meanwhile if you are a friend of mine on facebook you can go see the photos there yourself.

Please also take time to read Jimmies first blog post below this one.

Organ Pipe Cactus, Arizona

(There is a new blog post by Dan below this one... don't miss it!)

We have come to the last few days in Arizona for the time being. We will be back here in a few weeks to visit the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, on our way further north into Utah and onwards. But in the morning we will be heading into California.

The last two days have been spent admiring the Saguaro and Organ Pipe Cacti, at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, in west Arizona, bordering with Mexico. The drive to the park was as beautiful as ever. The roadways were lined with gorgeous spring flowers, and for two hours we stared at miles and miles of Saguaro cactus (see 2 posts down). We drove through an Indian Reservation and past hundreds of miles of mountains, desert wilderness and cacti. The prickly pear cacti have become less and less as they are replaced by the Saguaro and Organ Pipe varieties.

We ended up getting an RV spot at the Alamo Canyon part of the park. The ranger said it was beautiful there and that RVs werent generally allowed, but since ours was 25ft and not 45ft she'd let us use it. The Alamo park only allows for 4 sites, whereas the main campsite had about 100 sites. We love to be as alone as possible in the wilderness, so we took that option. The 3 mile lane to the Alamo Canyon turned out to be a gravel dirt track. We could not drive more than 5 miles an hour on it without feeling like the RV would fall to bits. But it was worth it. We were blessed with the most stunning, remote, quiet place to sleep, surrounded by mountains and cacti. The kids, as usual, completed the junior ranger program in the park, which was educational. Barney and I went on a cacti scavenger hunt as part of the program and made notes about various species of cacti, wildlife, bite marks in prickly pear etc. He really enjoyed that. It was very hot but a dry heat, no humidity. It was bearable, and as we had no electric or water hookups we had to cope whatever the weather was.

The area we stayed in was so beautiful that we had no need to drive about the place. Dan and Jimmie went on a hike to the creek whilst Barney played cars in the shade, and Annabelle and I relaxed in the sunshine. We saw plenty of lizards creeping about the place. In the evening we all sat out to watch the sunset behind the mountains. The silhouette of the cacti across the landscape was something I will never forget. Later that evening we all sat out staring at the stars. The sky was so clear that we could see satellites, and even the odd shooting star. The desert skies are so much clearer than city skies.

Now we have driven almost to the border of California, where we will head to in the morning.

The good, the bad and the beautiful...

I have two things to blog about today, as I haven't written a post since we left Bisbee. From Bisbee we headed not very far to Tombestone, that famous town (made even more famous by the movie) where Wyatt Earp and others had the renowned shootout at the OK Corral. Anyone into Western films will completely know what I'm talking about, and would just love this place. The town in itself is a museum. It has been preserved just the way it was 130 years ago. It is not one of the many film sets that you can visit over here, but a proper working town. Visiting Tombestone is like walking back into the wild west 130 years ago.

Our first stop was to the Boothill Cemetary, where many infamous names can be found on the gravestones, and many more interesting names such as 'cowboy bill', 'six shooter Jim', 'Stinging Lizard', or 'Cherokee Hall'. The graveyard has been restored by members of the local community and is an extremely interesting place to wander around. Some of the graves tell of how the owner died, and some have some strange messages on them. Most of the people in there were shot or hanged. Its truly a real wild west cemetary with many of the residents having been 'shot in a pub brawl' (one man shot over the colour of his shirt), or 'lynched from the county jail by an angry mob and hanged from a street light'. There are many more photos from Tombestone and the cemetery in Arizona Album 1.

We spent the afternoon wandering through the old streets of Tombestone. The bars were authentic looking, and all the buildings had wee gift shops inside them. Occasionally someone in period costume would wander past. We met 'Wyatt Earp' wandering the streets and he was kind enough to pose for a photo. At certain times during the day the shootout at the OK Corral is re-enacted. We didn't buy tickets for this, but the actors start out in the street before heading inside for the paid show, so we able to experience a little of what it was like.

We did however, pay to take a wander around 'The Bird Cage Theatre', a theatre/bar/brothel which has been perfectly preseved just the way it was. It was amazing to wander around and I really felt I'd been taken back to 1880. This house of ill repute still had its original stage, back stage, front stage, basement bar for customers of the 'working girls' and bedrooms that the girls worked from. There was a room with photos of all the girls that worked there over the years, each with a caption of how they got into the profession (eg - husband forced them).

We could have spent a week wandering around Tombestone but it was time to head on. We drove northwest slightly to an area near Tucson - the Saguaro National Park. Home to the giant Saguaro cactus, the symbol of the American west. We stayed 2 nights in an RV park nearby, which had a pool, much to the kids delight. Yesterday we spent the day at the Saguaro National Park, taking the 8 mile loop drive through the Sonoran Desert, and stopping every 2 minutes to get out and look at the amazing scenery. We felt truly as if we had reached real Arizona with these giant cacti literally everywhere. The kids put their heart and souls into completing the junior ranger programs (we do this in all the national parks as they are very educational). I think Dan could have spent the rest of his life wandering around the large cacti. He was in his element photographically. The photos from this trip are in Arizona Album 2.

Welcome to Arizona

It's amazing to look back on a map at how far we have traveled in the two months we have been in the US. We have made it to Arizona, which is only one state away from Califorania (the last state before the sea!) We drove through route 80 to Bisbee, where we are now, which was an amazingly scenic drive past yet more mountains. The scenery has changed a lot. There are beautiful sping purple flowers along all the road, but the landscape looks very golden and orange, not a green tree in sight.

On our way to Bisbee we stopped at the tourist office in Douglas and was informed by the lady there that we should walk into Mexico. She said it was perfectly safe, we could leave the RV in the US and that it shouldn't be missed. She also told us that the town on the Mexico side was not at all touristy and uniquely Mexican. So this we did. We were able to walk freely into Mexico through the border gates without anyone questioning us. On our return though we had to answer questions and have our passports taken away and analysed to get back into Arizona. Since then I have heard from many other locals that the border we went through is one of the largest ports for drug trafficing from Mexico, and the locals dont feel its safe there at all! I have no idea why the tourism office is promoting it. Anyway, we walked around Mexico for 30 minutes, got bored, (it was far too hot for walking) and came back to the RV. The Mexico side was such a contrast to the US side, despite being seperated by only one road. The steets were extremely poor and unmaintained. The signs were all in spanish and no one spoke any english. We met beggars looking for spare change. Still, it was an experience. We can now say we've been to Mexico. (Thats a photo of us in Mexico, by the way)

We are now staying in Bisbee which is very close to Tombestone. We've spent two nights here and will be driving to, or through, Tombestone tomorrow. Bisbee is a gorgeous place. We are staying in the old town right next to the old copper mine. The town was once a thriving copper mining industry, but now houses many mature hippies who fell in love with the place on their way to California, and never made it any further. There are so many artists and musicians, and lots of people in strange clothes. The houses are set up into the hillside and its really very quaint. A lovely place to walk around.

This morning Dan, Jimmie and Annabelle were so brave, and took a tour through the old copper mining tunnels. The tour lasted almost 2 hours and they were decked in a mining hat and torch, and protective mining coats, and boarded the real old mining train. They were taken deep into the mountain through tiny tunnels and shafts. When Dan came out he told me that I would have absolutely freaked out in there, so I'm glad I gave it a miss.

Last night, on one of his evening wanders into the town, Dan met some of the local people and was treated to an evening of chatting and making new friends. He met a lovely lady called Cha-cha, who invited us all over to her house for dinner today. So we turned up at her place, which was a beautiful typically American looking house (to me) and I felt a bit odd about turning up at a strangers place to eat! But Cha-cha and her family were so lovely that they put us right at ease. She cooked us the most amazing authentic Mexican meal, and we ate it with her two daughters aged 5 and 17, her father and her grandma (aged 92 but she can still boogie!) Grandma Annie hugged us all when we arrived as if we were old friends. Her father came from Norway, as a stowaway on a ship, a long long time ago. She was just lovely. My kids fell in love with her. But she did keep telling them how beautiful they were, and they do like that!

Barney made friends with their gorgeous little girl and they soon went off to play together. After the meal Cha-cha asked if we needed to do any laundry, or take baths or anything that we can't do in the RV. Dan said that I'd been missing baths for the last two months, and before I knew it a hot bubble bath had been drawn for me! Dan was laughing at me taking a bath in the house of someone I'd only just met, but as soon as I got out they drew him a bath too! We both came out feeling like new people.

It is so nice to travel across the globe and to meet lovely, hospitable, generous hearted people like that. We thoroughly enjoyed their company, and really appreciated tasting the local Mexican cuisine.