Pine to Page

So I am going to try to blog again after a few trips of not posting.  

We left Pine, Arizona, last Wednesday (5-8) for the start of our second trip to Alaska.  We meet up with Ron and Bernita Poutney outside of Page at the Lone Rock Campground.  Our travel time was a little bit longer than usual because Hwy 89 West of Page is closed do to the road collapsing in February of this year. Lone Rock CG is about 9 miles North of Page, in Utah, and is run by the National Park Service.  Cost for us - $5 per night.  No amenities except for dump and water.  But a fabulous view of Lake Powell and surrounding area.

On Thursday we went to the Lower Slot of Antelope Canyon.  This has been on my bucket list for many years.  Dean and Ron did the photographers tour of 2 hours and Bernita and I did the regular tour of 1 hour.  This canyon is beautiful, not very crowded, and well worth the money.  I have included some pictures.  We also stopped at the lookout over Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River.  Great view but I sure don't remember hiking that much when we were here before!

On Friday, we drove to the thriving city of Big Water, Utah (population 430), and enjoyed a nice presentation from a paleontologist on the Grand Staircase/Escalante area.  Then we did a hike at the Toadstools (pictures included).  After a brief stop at the Paria Ranger station to ask about hiking in the Vermillion Cliffs area, we stopped at the old Paria Townsite, which only has a couple of structures standing.  Highlight of this stop was having to cross the Paria River (streams) twice going over and twice back.  No one fell in!

Today, Saturday, Dean, Ron, and Bernita went on the boat trip to Rainbow Bridge.  Since I have been there twice I decided to go to the Upper slot of the Antelope Canyon.  This canyon is very disappointing after going thru the lower slot.  There were so many people there - probably close to 200.  It was very hard to get a picture without someone in the picture.  And the price of this tour is almost twice the cost - $46 compared to $26 for the lower.  For those of you planning to go to Antelope Canyon - do the lower and forget the upper.  

Tomorrow we leave for Kanab and try our chances on hiking into The Wave, day trip to Zion, and some other hiking trails.  

Rose Bowl parade, Pasadena

We battled the LA traffic and spent 5 days in Glendale and Pasadena, CA. Traveling together with the Poutneys and Chuck and Jan Moore, we parked at the Glendale Adventist hospital for two nights while we worked on the Rose Bowl Floats. It was pretty tight parking in a parking lot with lots of cars. Working on the floats was fun even though it was hard work and the pavilion was cold. We worked on the Shriners and the City of Glendale floats for 3 days - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We glued groundup flowers on both floats and stuck roses on the Shriners float.On Saturday morning we moved the rigs early in the morning to one block off the parade route. The streets were already getting crowded with RVs. Monday morning we staked out our area at 6am and most of us stayed with our chairs throughout the day even though it was very cold all day.There was lots of entertainment with old cars cruising Colorado Blvd. We put our chairs into the street at 11pm. Thank goodness Ron setup his fire in a can. Some of our group got a little bit of sleep. The parade started for us around 9 and lasted 2 1/2 hours. We had great seats and the parade was awesome. Besides floats there were fabulous costumes, lively bands, beautiful horses, and the Stealth Bomber.

Joshua Tree National Park

I have decided to start blogging again after over a year. Last year we did a RV trip in the winter and summer and I didn't write anything. Maybe I will do a catch up blog. We are at Joshua tree National Park with good friends, Ron and Bernita. We did some hiking in the park and in the Painted Canyon near Mecca,CA. We spent Christmas Eve having a wonderful dinner in the Poutney's rig and moved on Christmas day to Beaumont Elks.

Summer in Kansas

We just finished 2 months in Kansas visiting relatives so I am going to include the highlights of the trip here in pictures.  The first two weeks we spent at Dean's brothers farm outside Allen, Kansas.  During our stay at the pig farm we spent a lot of time with Dean's mother, Marge, who turned 91 this year. Memorial weekend Tom and Barb's kids and their grandkids came to visit along with Dean's younger brother Richard, his wife, and two boys and Dean's oldest daughter, her husband, and 2 boys.  We had lots of food, ATV rides for the kids, a little turkey hunting for the older kids, and decent weather so we could sit outside.  Here is Marge and Dean's oldest daughter, Stephanie.


Below is brother Tom and lots of the grandkids on the ATV.











Then we moved to Atchinson to spend 5 weeks with oldest daughter, Stephanie, her husband, Lorin, and two boys - Lane and Landon.  We parked in front of their house.  It was hot but fortunately we were plugged in and the air conditioner was humming along all summer.

When we arrived, Lorin had to move a Killdeer bird's three eggs which were in the gravel.  He replaced them and for two weeks we watched over the bird and her nest until finally two babies hatched.  Sadly, the third egg never hatched.

Final Post: Maine to Prescott

We have been home in Prescott for two weeks and I have finally found time to finish off the RV trip with the last blog. There has been a blurry of activity since we got home between unpacking the rig, laundry, our house sitters moving out, moving things around in the house, seeing friends, and going to activities in town. It has been a busy two weeks. Dean has already started on a remodeling project.

At the end of the last blog we were in Maine and heading for Kansas. We traveled fairly fast – covering 8 states in 3 days. Dean drove 6 to 8 hours per day. We stayed at his daughter’s house for 6 days visiting with Stephanie, her husband Lorin, and the two grandkids, Lane and Landon. On Monday of our visit we had lunch with the boys at their school. On Tuesday we drove to the Kansas City area and visited with Dean’s other daughter, Suzanne, and her family: husband Jason and grandkids Ethan and Parker. Parker (age 3) was much more talkative now than she was when we saw her at age 1 and a half.

After visiting with the kids we went to Dean’s brother’s farm in Allen, Kansas, and spent 5 days with brother, Tom, wife, Barb, and Dean’s mom who turned 90 this year. Then we were off to Oklahoma to see my brother Stan and his wife Becky and my stepmother Doloris. We stayed 4 days in Oklahoma and then started moving west to Arizona. The first night we boondocked at a very nice Elks Lodge in Tucumcari, NM and then the next day (Sept 10) we drove to Prescott.

It was a great trip. We were gone 270 days, passed thru 24 states (25 if you count 5 miles in West Virginia) and 5 Canadian Provinces. We put close to 13,000 miles on the motorhome and 7000 miles on the car. The highest price for gas was around $5.50. We averaged around $3.40 per night for camping fees and didn’t pay any camping fees in Canada. We stayed at National Parks, Elks, store parking lots, Harvest Hosts, Day’s End boondocking spots, and even driveways of locals. We stayed at 4 Passport America Private parks and one private park, which turned out to be our most expensive at $23 per night. We had summer in Florida at the Everglades in March and winter in Newfoundland in July. We saw an assortment of wildlife from alligators to whales. We traveled 11 weeks with Ron and Bernita Poutney, whom we thoroughly enjoyed, and besides seeing a few relatives, the rest of the time it was just Dean, Chica, and I. We saw a lot of this country and Canada. It will be a trip we will always remember.