Grand Canyon, National Monuments and Sedona

I arrived in Williams, AZ on Tuesday and am staying at the Grand Canyon  Railroad Campground.  Mostly pavement, but very clean and more space between sites than some campgrounds like this.  As you can see we did have a little bit of rain one night. (Don’t forget you can click on the picture to enlarge it)

Wednesday, I went to the Grand Canyon.  My plan was to take the shuttle to the far west end – Hermit’s Rest and hike about 8.5 miles back on the Rim trail.  I love this part of the trail because it is not as crowded as the part in the center of the park.   I ended up only hiking about 6 miles – another great thing about this hike is the shuttle stops not far from the trail in several places so if you get tired you can jump on and ride the rest of the way. 

The next day, I went to Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National monument.  Wupatki pueblo was occupied  during the 1100’s.  Sunset Crater last erupted 900 years ago. 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday I went to Sedona.  I had intended to do 2 hikes, but once in town, I decided to play the tourist and take a Pink Jeep tour.  It’s great scenery and a fun 4-wheel drive tour.  After the tour, I hiked the West Fork trail  in Oak Creek Canyon.  

San Diego and Los Angeles 2

My second full day in San Diego, I went to the Wild Animal Park.  For those who don’t know about this park, it is associated with the San Diego Zoo, but is a bit different.  They have about 1800 acres so they have room for the animals to roam.  They have a “Journey into Africa tour” that I like.  I did it early in the morning as I feel that the animals are a bit more active then and you have a better chance of seeing them.  While not a great picture, it shows several different animals and that the animals roam freely.  They also have other zoo like exhibits.  I asked about the SUV in the picture below and they replied that in Africa on safaris, you often see old abandoned cars and the lions like them.  That seems to be true of this SUV, I watched a male and female lion get in and out of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the walking so much at the Wild Animal park and the San Diego Zoo, I thought I would take it easy the next day.  I went to La Jolla and ended up walking about 2 hours on their path at the beach.

After leaving San Diego, I drove back to Montclair and picked up my RV.  It looks great, just like new. 

Yesterday morning I went to Will Rogers State Park, where there is a 20 mile Bike path (Marvin Braude Bikeway),  mostly on the beach.  I ended up riding my bike about 15 miles, seeing Venice Beach, the Santa Monica pier and “muscle beach” along with other interesting things.  Since I rode very early in the morning, I missed some of the interesting characters that frequent Venice Beach.  But I saw a few! I also ran into a Volleyball tournament not far from the park, which I ended up watching for a while.  When I got to the beach, it was very pretty – blue sky.  There was a strip of dark “stuff” over the ocean, which I assumed was LA smog.  I was wrong.  It didn’t move to fast, but then it seemed like all of a sudden everything was covered with Ocean fog.  In the picture below you can see the fog out over the ocean, then in the volleyball picture you can see no blue sky at all. 

Pomona and San Diego

I stayed at the KOA in Pomona, CA the 4th of July weekend because it is only 10 – 15 minutes from the Lazy Daze factory.  I had been warned that the sites were close together, but wow I have never seen them this close.  I literally could have leaned out my drivers side window and shared dinner with the people next door to me eating at their picnic table.  Anyway, it is convenient to the LD factory and the good news is that it is right next door to the Fairplex where they hold various events.  They had fireworks on the 4th, so all I had to do to see the show was walk to the edge of the campground.   I took pictures using my new camera.  I failed to bring a tripod – I should know better than

that – I’ve taken quite a few photography classes.  But the pictures didn’t turn out too bad.  The main give away is that it was close to a full moon and you can see the camera shake by the moon.

I dropped my RV off Monday morning to have the dent and a few other things fixed, then I drove to San Diego.  The weather is great here.  High 70’s to low 80’s during the day.  It’s just about perfect, especially after all those 100 + days. 

Today I went to the San Diego zoo.  This is one of my favorite zoo’s, in addition to the great animals they are also considered a botanical garden. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And watch out for those lions!!!!!

 

 

I did get a good laugh at a couple of parents explaining to their 5 – 6 year old why 2 Bonobos (pygmy chimps) were “wrestling”.  No pictures, I don’t want to be accused of distributing porn!

Arizona

It’s hot.  It has been 100+ for the last several days, and they expect it to continue.  I was expecting heat, but I didn’t really think it would be this bad.

Since in Arizona, I have done some hiking – all in the morning before it gets to 100 degrees.  One of my favorite places in Arizona is Chiricahua National Monument.  http://www.nps.gov/chir/index.htm 

One of my cameras decided to mess up  and I didn’t get many good pictures.  So the pictures attached from Chiricahua are from a previous trip.  Actually, one of the pictures on my first blog –(Feb 13) is a picture of Chiricahua.  This time I hiked the Echo loop trail – it’s my favorite in the park.  

 

I did some hiking in Saguaro National Monument and Sabino Canyon.   I also went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum (http://www.desertmuseum.org/).  Many of you know I am not a museum type person, but this isn’t your typical museum.  It’s more of a zoo, garden and hiking trails in the desert.  There are a lot of birds around here.  One of these days, I’ll learn more about birds, maybe joining some bird watching trips.  The first picture is from Sabino Canyon, the others were taken at the Museum.

  

In addition to having some fun hiking, I’ve bought new tires for my CRV and have replaced the smaller of my 2 cameras since it appears to be no longer working.  So full time RVing is not all fun and games, you still have to do the normal day to day type things (car and house maintenance, laundry, dealing with insurance agents {chging to Texas policies}…).

I’m a Texan!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that it’s official, I am now a Texan.  I think that means instead of saying “Hi Ya’ll” that I now have to say “Howdy, Partner”.  

I haven’t done much that was exciting over the last week.   It’s been too hot to do too much outside.  It hit 98 today, they were calling for 100!  I have been getting in an 80 minute walk each morning.  I start walking about 6:30 am so it’s not too bad when I’m out.   My excitement today was getting my Driver’s license, yesterday it was going to Walmart, the day before that it was the laundry – I told you it wasn’t very exciting!

I could put some pictures here, but once you’ve seen one Walmart you’ve seen them all! 

I finally left home (Georgia that is)

Just a quick note to touch base with everyone.  My plans changed and I stayed in the Georgia mountains a bit longer than I had planned.  Today, I left Georgia and I am currently in Alabama.  Tomorrow I’ll head out and I think I’m going to go to the Escapees park in Summerdale before heading to Livingston, Texas.  Depending on the weather I might stay there a couple of days.  It’s not far from the beach and while I wouldn’t go to the beach during the summer (too hot and too many people), since I’m going to be there I might take advantage of it.

Today, I’m staying in Montgomery, AL at The Woods RV park.  At a quick glance, it’s not bad for an overnight stay.  It’s your typical campground that is close to the expressway, but it does have wi-fi and good cable channels.  The best thing is it’s on Passport America’s list (a discount camping club), so it only cost me $15.00.  I’m trying to stay at cheaper places, so Passport America comes in handy.

I’m curious how other RV’ers handle bad weather.  Yesterday in Dillard, we had a Thunder Storm warning, with possibly winds of 50 – 70 MPH.  Well, I don’t want to be in my RV if a 70 MPH wind hits so I went to the Pavilion/restrooms.  I seemed to be the only person who knew we were under a weather warning.  It ended up not being too bad, but does make me think about bad weather. 

Pam

I'm now a Full-time RVer!!!!

I haven't written much on the blog because I was moving.  My house closed May 22.  They gave me a few days after that to move and I handed the keys over on May 28th.  I never want to move again!!!  Too much work, too many decisions - Store, Give away or sell, or take with me in the RV.

I have too much in the RV.  Actually I weighed it and I'm about 1400 lbs below the max weight, but I don't have room for many of my items.  Right now I have books sitting in the walkway between the sofa and some clothes sitting on the sofa that I don't use. But at  least it is now an organized mess.  For the first couple of days, I couldn't sit on either of the sofa's and only had one place at the table where I could sit. 

Anyway, I'm slowly making progress on getting it somewhat organized.  My first few nights, I spent at Hard Labor Creek State Park, which was only about 30 minutes from where I used to live.  For the most part I was organizing the RV, but I did take a bit of time to relax and walk around the campground.  They have a couple of nature trails, which I'll try if I make it back there again.

I'm now in Dillard, GA at River Vista RV resort.  I typically stay at Moccasin Creek State Park when I'm up in the GA mountains, but by the time I tried to make reservations the weekend was already booked.  So I went for the more expensive "resort".  They do have a pool which I may check out.  My mom lives about 15 minutes from here, so we will visit for a while before I head up into Tennessee next week.

I have an appointment to get my RV fixed (where the tree jumped out and hit my RV) on July 6th at the Lazy Daze plant.  So I have a little more than a month to make my way across the country.  When I bought the RV, I did it in 5 days - 5 weeks sounds much better.

More on full timing later --