The next morning we hit the road early. We were going to
visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and had an 80 mile drive to get there.
The road goes to the North Rim, and once you are done with your park activities,
you have to drive the 80 miles back out.
 |
| We pass through a bison herd |
Our plan was to spend time on the rim
and then get as close to the South Rim, or main entrance to the Grand Canyon,
as we could. Then we would visit the other entrance the next day.
Our ride into the North Rim was really interesting. About
15-20 miles outside of Fredonia, AZ, we were greeted with a sign indicating
that we were entering the Kaibab National Forest, but all around us we saw no
trees, only desert.
 |
| #57 |
After another 10 miles, we started to increase our
altitude and encounter pine forests. We continued our climb and the trees got
bigger, and we enjoyed beautiful scenery all the way to Jacob Lake. Here we
took a road south that would lead us into the North Rim about 30 miles up the
road. Leaving Jacob Lake, which is little more than a general store, gas
station, and campground, we started to encounter large groups of mule deer
feeding by the roadside early in the morning.
 |
| A World Heritage Site |
We slowed our speed to make sure
we wouldn’t hit one of the animals, but the concentration of deer seemed to
steadily increase.
 |
| You know what she's doing |
About 10 miles from Jacob Lake we came up over a small rise
to find a large buck muley standing in the left hand lane. Capt. Larry slowed
the van, but the deer started to come into his lane, and seemed to be
indecisive as to whether to proceed or turn back. As the buck came closer to the van,
Capt. Larry swerved to the right just as the deer turned sideways and struck
the vehicle. In the rear-view mirror, Capt. Larry could see that the deer was
down in the middle of the road and was struggling to get up.
 |
| View from the North Rim |
Nothing to do but
continue on. We stopped at a pullout to check the van and were relieved to find
absolutely no damage. Just a few deer hairs and that was it. Had
we not swerved at the last minute, we are pretty sure that we would have hit
the deer on the left, right, front bumper with a lot more damage possible.
 |
| Grand Canyon Lodge |
We
continued on our way until we came to the entrance of the Grand Canyon, a World
Heritage Site.
We arrived at the ranger station at the park entrance only
to find it closed. We were still struggling with the right time. We wound our
way into the park as we climbed the Kaibab Plateau and made our way to the visitor's center and the Grand Canyon Lodge. We went
into the lodge to find a cup of coffee, and were presented with overwhelming
views of the North Rim. Capt. Larry ventured out to a couple of points for some
picture taking, but Jane would have none of it. The vistas were just
spectacular.
 |
| At Point Imperial |
Returning to the visitor’s center, we collected the stamp and view
some of the exhibits. While the North Rim provides some spectacular canyon scenery,
views of the Colorado River are limited and better seen on the South Rim.
 |
| Point Imperial view |
We decided to visit Point Imperial which wasn’t too far from
the visitor’s center, and if we had time to drive all the way to the Cape Royal
overlook. We met a young couple who had visited several national parks and were really interested in some of the stories we had about park experiences. We talked with them for
quite a while. We left Imperial Point and headed back down, deciding to skip
the 40 mile round trip to Cape Royal. Leaving the North Rim, we headed back to
Jacob Lake and through the deer gauntlet which by midday sported far fewer
animals.
 |
| At Point Imperial |
At Jacob Lake we stopped at the Kaibab Plateau visitor’s center and
found a picnic table to have some lunch. We went into the center to view the
exhibits, but didn’t really find much to see. Leaving Jacob Lake, we wound our
way back down to the desert floor and headed east for the first accommodations
in any little town that we could find.
 |
| More Point Imperial |
But every little desert town that we
thought might have a motel, had nothing. We went through the Navajo Indian
Reservation at Chinle, AZ. While we didn’t find any accommodations, we did see
a sign for a Quality Inn Motel in Tuba City, AZ, about 50 miles further south.
This we thought would be where we would spend the night. It turned out that
Tuba City had all kinds of lodging accommodations, but we stuck to the Quality
Inn Motel and RV Park.
 |
| On the road to Tuba City |
We checked in and decided to make use of the motel’s
laundry facilities. The adjacent RV park had picnic facilities, so when the laundry
was done, we put together a dinner of grilled chicken shish kabobs with
vegetables and potato salad. It was delicious! We returned to the room and
watched the news and were saddened by a story about the last WWII Navajo
Codetalker had died that day. These Navajo Indians developed a code to
communicate over the radio in the Pacific theatre that the Japanese were never
able to break. Through their language and culture they made a major
contribution to the war effort. Here is a link to a story about the last
Codetalker:
http://www.fayobserver.com/military/article_2818494e-43b2-55af-8974-d6fb428db90f.html
We left Tuba City early (but we still didn’t know what the time
was) the next morning and drove to the South Rim entrance to the Grand Canyon
N.P. Once again the ranger station at the park entrance was not open.
 |
| South Rim entrance |
We drove
to Desert View to catch a glimpse of the canyon. It was spectacular!
 |
| The river still cutting |
Here we
got a good view of the Colorado River still cutting away at the canyon’s
bottom. The colors and formations were very beautiful from several different perspectives.
 |
| View at Desert View |
We went to the Desert View visitor’s center only to find it closed.
 |
| Another Desert View view |
Turns out
the visitor's center didn’t open until 0800 and one of our clocks all said 0750. We waited 10
minutes in the parking lot until the center opened, then went in and collected
the stamp and viewed the exhibits. Leaving Desert View, we headed for the park’s
main visitor’s center while stopping at several overlooks for views of the
canyon.
 |
| Desert View Tower |
We arrived at the main visitor’s center and were surprised at how large
the center and adjacent parking lots were. It was like going to Disney World!
We parked in the Raven lot and walked to the center. Jane got our stamp while
Capt. Larry perused the exhibits. It would have been possible to board shuttle
buses to view more of the canyon, but the turnaround time seemed to be rather
long and we felt that we had seen a good bit of the views between the two rims.
 |
| Overlook on way to visitor's center |
Jane really wanted to ride the train, but we learned that in order to do that,
we really needed to board in Williams, AZ or have someone pick us up there, so
it really wasn’t an option.
 |
| Another wonderful canyon view |
We left Grand Canyon
N.P. and headed south. Capt. Larry found a road about 20 miles south of the
park that would cut diagonally toward Flagstaff and save us time from going to
Williams, catching I-40 there and then heading east to Flagstaff. Jane looked
at the map and found that it went past Arizona’s highest point which suggested
a mountainous road. We continued on to Williams and caught I-40 east to Flagstaff.
After passing through Flagstaff, we continued journeying east until we reached
Holbrook, AZ.
Here we exited I-40
and got on the historic Route 66 which would take us to our 58th
park, the Petrified Forest N.P. This park is the only one that Route 66 ran
through, and we were later amazed at all of our friends that said they
remembered visiting this park when they were young.
 |
| Not a Grand Canyon selfie! |
Of course, in those days
Route 66 was the one of the only ways to get to the southwest, so it’s logical
that many visited the park. We entered the park and went straight to the
visitor’s center.
 |
| A final Grand Canyon shot |
In the parking lot we tried to get our bearings. Both the
national park and the Painted Desert National Monument share facilities, and we
weren’t sure where we had to go to get our stamp. It was very hot, so we
finally decided to go into the Painted Desert visitor’s center, and sure
enough, they had the park stamp.
 |
| We make #58 |
About 65 million years ago this area was part
of an inland sea which deposited the fossilized remains of many animal and
plant species.
 |
| Prehistoric Cajuns loved these! |
The petrified trees were formed when the trees fell into the
water and the cellulose was replaced by mostly quartz and amethyst minerals.
When the sea receded, the sediment was gradually eroded exposing the petrified
logs and many fossilized remains.
 |
| Stone wood |
We left the visitor’s center and took a walk
through the Garden of Giants to see the petrified logs. Then we found a
sheltered picnic area and had some lunch.
 |
| In the Garden of Giants |
Driving north along the park road, we
basically had the Pai nted Desert to the east and the Petrified Forest N.P. to the
west, even though the topography and geology basically looked the same on both sides.
We stopped at a few of the features listed on the map before we came to I-40
exit from the park.
 |
| Now that's a Woody! |
We made it to Gallup, NM before we found a motel and called
it a night.
 |
| Formations in the Painted Desert |
The next morning we left Gallup and started to head for
home. We drove all day long, stopping at a roadside rest to have some lunch,
and finally called it a day in Amarillo, TX.
 |
| The Painted Desert |
Capt. Larry thought that we could
make it home the following day, but after consulting the maps, decided that it
would be two days before we slept in our bed again. We had a great night’s
sleep and headed out of Amarillo early the next morning. We hit Dallas around
noontime and decided that by the time we hit Shreveport, LA, it would be a day.
 |
| Painted Desert offers wonderful colors |
Capt. Larry promised Jane that in lieu of going to Las Vegas on this trip, she
would be able to hit the casinos in Shreveport and get her fix. We found a
motel next to casino row around mid-afternoon and settled in. A nearby Chinese
restaurant was calling Jane’s name so we had an interesting meal of Chinese seafood
(the Chinese have no idea how to cook seafood, and it’s always a bad choice, even
when it sounds great as it did in this instance!) and then headed for the
casinos. We were there only a short time before Jane lost all of her gambling
money and announced that “this place is a rip off, let’s go!” We had a short
driving day the next morning, so we had a leisurely breakfast and then hit the
road which took us home.
And that is how this adventure went.
