Camp Verde Adventures - Continued

So are you still with us....Grand Canyon was amazing....can't say that enough....so it was time to just do a little driving around the area. We headed up to Prescott and again, very impressed with the area.  Beautiful mid size town with lots of amenities and a great historic downtown area..

We kept going and headed over another mountain range with the twists and turns one would expect to find in Europe along some steep Italian seaside!  What a lot of fun!  Mind Pat was a bit nervous at some of the quick corners and sharp drop offs!  As we started down the other side, we came into the little town of Jerome.  We commented on how the houses were right on the curbside just like England in spots!  One more hairpin turn and noticed a road to an old Gold Mine....naturally, we had to explore so off we went...
the most amazing collection of old Studebakers I have ever seen!  Not to mention the collection of just about everything you could imagine.  This would be a junk yard to end all junk yards and both Darwin and I had memories flood back from our youth about areas on the farm that were magical because of old relics!

After our trip down memory lane, we continued to downtown Jerome and had a great lunch at the "Mile High Diner"  yes, you guessed it....it sits at 5,280 ft above sea level!  Some pretty incredible views from up there looking down towards Cottonwood at the bottom.

We loved this road so much, we took another trip over the other direction back to Prescott just for fun!

Of course, a tour of the area would not be complete without a visit to the Sedona area.....what incredible RED ROCK  !!!!  A busy little place with many folk seeking the "Vorticies"  hope I got that right.  A Vortex is an area where magnetic energy converges and there are all sorts of "New Age" theories about the value of finding these spots.....We just thought the area had an incredible beauty all its own!

The saying in Utah where Bryce and Zion were located....."Utah ROCKS  !"  Now we can say Arizona ROCKS as well.

Thursday,March 27

Off we go again headed for Camp Verde, Arizona where we will be set up for four nights...the longest "rest" that we have taken thus far.  Again, a very interesting Desert landscape with MANY hills to climb.  We went from around a thousand feet into the Flagstaff area at 6,000 feet, then back to Camp Verde area again around the 1500 foot level.  It was COLD in Flagstaff as we pulled in there for fuel....downright chilly compared to Vegas, Laughlin area.  It was a bit warmer in Camp Verde and this became the base camp for a few interesting day trips around the area.

Our first road trip took us to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon into the Park set up there.  What a wonderful experience there!  They have done such a great job at keeping the development down to reasonable levels.  The bus tour  to all the different lookouts took us pretty much the better part of the day!  Again, every stop was breathtaking!  Quite over whelming at times!

Just check at the bottom of the valley!  Do you see the Colorado River there?  I know...just barely visible!

Here we experienced areas where the valley bottom was over a mile down (5280 feet!)  We go back to using words like "awesome, incredible, magnificent" and still can't find enough words to describe the beauty.  It will certainly "raise the bar" in the future when using these same descriptors in our everyday language!

See the FACE with the bit of a hair "lid"......amazing!

Tuesday March 25

Our journey today took us from Vegas through more desert to a cute little town on the Colorado River where Laughlin, Nevada on one side of the bridge and Bull Head City, Arizona on the other side.  We pulled in to the campsite on the Bull Head City side and as we were getting set up, Maye wandered down to the washroom and spotted a familiar licence plate on a Motorhome parked three units down from us....turned out to be Joe and Linda Rivard from Salmon Arm....Joe worked as the Sherrif in charge of the court services in Salmon Arm and retired a few years back.  He and Linda hit the road and are still travelling South for most of the year!  Great to catch up on the news and they were able to share so many great experiences with us.

Wednesday, we took a road trip from here to Lake Havasu and got to spend some time on the beach as we ate lunch, then a quick visit to London Bridge as we left town.

Another beautiful spot that we have promised to come back to !!!!  It was Spring Break here, so the town was crawling with students and traffic!

Monday March 24th

Well, our last day and night in Vegas started with a VERY early morning (0545) at the Golden Nugget to meet our bus for the guided trip out to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon NS  visit to the Hover Dam on the way.  The tour included the one hour plus bus trip to the West Rim where the Skywalk was included and a nice lunch served up by the Hualapai Tribe. This was our first introduction to the Grand Canyon and WOW...was it ever impressive....could hardly stop snapping photos as every time you turn around, another amazing site!

It was amazing to see the helicopter tours taking off every 10 minutes (it seemed) and even more interesting to be looking DOWN on them as they flew the canyon!

Can't believe my Sister Pat, who has long suffered with vertigo, actually conquered her fears today and walked out on the platform suspended over 3,000 above the canyon floor and 70 feet out off the side of the cliff!  Could not get any "Grand..er" than that.  Truly a once in lifetime experience that we will always treasure  (as long as our memories hold out !!!!)

We got back to the Golden Nugget around 1830, so was really long day but well worth it.....

2014-03-22  Welcome to "Sin City" (Las Vegas, NV)....arrived to the Hitchin Post RV park and the temps are now getting comfortable....got up to 24 degrees today!  I officially put away my heavier jacket and will not need it any further for this trip.....wishful thinking?...I think not.

Any way, we took a run into "town" to check things out ..... talk about our senses being bombarded again.  Totally different way I must admit!  The City that never sleeps!

We managed to get tickets to two shows; one tonight (Donny and Marie) and the Australian Bee Gee's for Sunday night.  Discovered that parking is a bit of a nightmare, hence all the transit options that open to everyone.

The show was great entertainment...just like we remembered of their sibling antics back in the '80s ...some really  great reflections on the Andy Williams start and all the artists that have contributed to their continued success.

2013-03-21  Moved location to the KOA in (Hurricane/St George) area then took our travels in to Zion Canyon.....amazing...just a few more miles down the road, but getting much warmer...  Some amazing territory to absorb.  This part was totally different from Bryce Canyon in that here, we are looking UP at most of the rock formations and feeling much more like we are INVOLVED at a different level.  Still an amazing experience.....we kept asking each other which canyon we preferred, but none of us were willing to make a choice!

The drive through the tunnel down into the canyon was enhanced by a hike along the ridge at the top with a spectacular overlook!

 It actually warmed up to 18 degrees today....!!

Did some "rock" hunting and came away with some incredible memories ans spectacular photos of the are.  This is an area we could explore for a much longer period of time.....like the bumper sticker says "Utah ROCKS!"  

2014-03-18  Well, the stop in Klamath Falls was a little cool, but we managed to get away  in good time and hit hot spots like Standish and Puckerbrush (just before Winnemucca) before our next overnight stop at Wells....a little "Resort" called Angel Lake...turned out to be a small parking lot just off the I-80  .  We were late getting in, but quickly set up and crawled into bed (for a short time) until awakened by the fridge "clicking" at about 2am.......jumped out into a FREEZING trailer to check things out and discovered we were already out of propane!  Not surprising as the temps were WELL below freezing.....brrrrrr.  Once the spare tank was installed, things started to warm up a bit inside.  Also discovered that the breaker switch on the power hook up had not been turned on, hence, the fridge error!

2014-03-19  Up early and on the road again where we made it to Eureka, UT and sort of back road travel from there to Cedar City......could set up for TWO nights in a row.  This is where the real "holiday" feel started.

2014-03-20  Took our Drive up to Bryce Canyon.....WOW.....anyone who looks at this amazing part of Creation must give some thought to the Creator!  In my mind, there is NO WAY this "just happened" by a random collision of molecules as some would have you believe!  As the song states: "Our God is an awesome God...."

The weather was finally starting to improve and the temps climbing a bit....we could actually take our jackets off for most of the tour down.  Interesting to be at over 9,000 feet elevation and looking out at these spectacular formations.  If we looked up, we could clearly see the commercial jets with detail.  I guess they fly at 35,000 feet, so we were about a third of the distance closer....???

An amazing day of wonder finished with a trip back to Cedar City via Zion Canyon....just to make a round trip of it!  As impressive as Bryce was, this was totally different but every bit as amazing!  We saw enough to make us really look forward to our next days exploration!