Mesquite/ Las Vegas, NV

October 26-31, 2010

It was a short jaunt from Valley of Fire to Mesquite where we spent two days at Marnie's resting up and re-stocking our 5th wheel with groceries. Unfortunately, Marnie and Chuck were in Seattle for their granddaughter's christening. We loved the warm nights and enjoyed our 4 mile walks in the evening. On Friday morning before we drove the 79 miles to Sam's Town RV Park in Las Vegas, we had a little scare. Marnie had warned us that her cat, Tara would try to escape if she could when the door opens. Needless to say, we were extremely careful when we went out. After we loaded the 5th wheel, we did a last minute inspection and noticed that Tara was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, opened closets, checked under the beds, and every nook and cranny. In a panic, I was ready to call Marnie and see if there were any other hiding spots where she might be. When I checked the bedroom one more time, I noticed the bedspread was a little rumpled and suddenly it moved. When I lifted the spread, there was Tara stretching and looking irritated that I was bothering her morning slumber. Relieved, we were finally able to get on the road.

It was a sunny afternoon and we had a couple of hours to relax before heading to the Palazzo on the “Strip” to see Jersey Boys, a 2006 Tony Award Winner for Best Musical.

Jersey Boys takes you behind the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It is a rags to riches story of 4 blue-collar kids from the streets of New Jersey working their way up to the big time.



You might remember some of their hits: “Sherry”, “Big Girls Don't Cry”, “Can't Take My Eyes Off You” and “Oh, What A Night”. It was a fantastic show. Our only regret is that John Lloyd Young, who played the role of Frankie Valli in the original show on Broadway and sang lead vocals on the Grammy Award winning album, was not in the cast. He grew up in Plattsburgh, NY where we used to live.

(Authored by Bob) It has been 37 years since Judy and I attended the NHRA Nationals Drag Race. In the winter of 1973, after flying to New York for Christmas, we bought a car and took a road trip to California. While we were there, one of the highlights was going to the Winter Nationals at Pomona. This was the premier event in drag racing. The legendary Don Gartlits went up against Dennis Baca in Top Fuel finals. Gartlits won with a time of 6.51 seconds and 235.60 MPH. I remember how impressed I was with the speed and noise. I have always been a drag racing fan, but living in a Alaska, we don't have a chance to attend many races. In my younger days, I had a '55 Chevy, '63 Falcon Sprint, and a '65 Mustang Fastback that I raced in North Hudson, a drag strip about 50 miles from Keeseville in upstate New York where we lived until we moved to Alaska. Judy and I spent many weekends at that strip and filled up the trophy case.

On Sunday morning,  we were on our way to the Las Vegas Winter Nationals. It was perfect weather and all the big names were there. We arrived at 8am and spent some time looking at all the top competitors' cars and crews working on them.



We had a full day of racing fun. The finals of Top Fuel and Funny Car races were amazing to watch.







Tony Schumacher won Top Fuel with a new World record of 325.61 MPH and 3.794 seconds. The ground shakes as they roar by and it is impossible to comprehend how fast that is unless you are there and see it.



 The legendary John Force won the Funny Car final. At 61 years old, he continues to beat the young guns. It was a great day.




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Valley of Fire, Nevada

October 24-26, 2010

As we drove down from Snow Canyon State Park, we went through a round-about with a fantastic sculpture. Not a great place to stop but I manage to get a few quick shots.





 We continued on  through Mesquite to Valley of Fire State Park, 55 miles from Las Vegas. On the way into the park, we spotted a desert big horn sheep ambling along until he crossed in front of us. He certainly wasn't intimidated by us!





As you can guess Valley of Fire gets its name from the red sandstone formations. The Basket Maker people were some of the first prehistoric users of the Valley followed by the Anasazi Pueblo farmers. Beautiful examples of their rock art are visible throughout the park.





The Atlatl Campground offered 43 large campsites surrounded by interesting rock formations and canyons.



 We were treated to a breathtaking sunset. The Valley did indeed look like it was on fire.



The sunset was followed by a brilliant night sky which surprised us since we were not far from the neon lights of Las Vegas.  We were awed by the beauty and the solitude.

The next morning, we hiked from our campsite to Atlatl Rock to see the petroglyphs including the atlatl.







We continued on to Arch Rock and checked out the primitive and secluded campground.







We had been told at the Visitor Center that there was a 2 mile loop back to our campground. We hiked around to the main road and stopped at what is called the Beehives.



 The 2 mile loop turned out to be 3.75 miles according to our GPS, a pattern that seems consistent most places that we visit. We spent another glorious evening under the stars.

The next day, we stopped at the Visitor Center and saw snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas, all behind glass fortunately. We drove up to Rainbow Vista just as a limo dropped off a wedding party and onto White Domes. After we got back to the campground, we explored some of the surrounding canyons.



We woke early on Wednesday and drove up to Mouses' Tank, named for a renegade Southern Paiute Indian who hid out in this wild canyon in the 1890s. As we hiked in, we passed several prehistoric petroglyphs.
 

 

 
The trail ended at the "tank", a natural basin in the rock where water collects after rainfalls...a perfect hiding place in this arid valley. 
 

 
 From there we went to the 7 Sisters rock formation and to the historic stone cabins built with native sandstone by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s.
 

 

 
 They were used as shelters for passing travelers. We decided to check out Overton Beach but the road was closed because Lake Mead had receded so far from road. We continued on down North Shore Drive which is misleading to say the least to Echo Bay, Lake Mead Marina and a National Park Service Campground. On the way back we drove into Stevens Point to Lake Mead where several campers were boondocking close to the Lake. There was road construction on the way back and we had to stop for 20 minutes- a good time to make some calls and check email. Even though, we do not always have a great connection in the desert and canyons, it is great to have Verizon Mi-fi . When we got back to our site, it was time to sit in the sun and relax after a busy day. We made a fire, cooked fajitas, and went for a moonlight walk. We both agreed that this is a place that we could stay longer than 3 or 4 days.
 


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Snow Canyon State Park, St. George, Utah

October 21-23, 201

We arrived at Snow Canyon State Park near St. George, Utah in the afternoon, hot and tired from a long day of traveling. But we kept our pact not to complain. After all, we could be in Alaska whining about being cold and not having enough sunshine. It is an older state park created in 1959 and not designed for large RVs. Our full hook-up site( number 11) was so narrow, we could hardly put our slides out. At least we had our own little private desert garden outside our door. We went for a walk around the campground amoung colorful Navajo sandstone cliffs that looked more fragile than other places we have been.




We found some sites that were very private and roomy but without  hook-ups. We will keep that in mind if we come again. As the sun was going down, the light and shadows danced across the canyon and was awesome.


The park has an interesting history. The Anasazi Indians inhabited the area as early as A.D. 200 to 1250 and the Paiute Indians used the canyon for hunting and gathering from A.D. 1250 to the mid-1800s followed by the Mormon pioneers. At first, we wondered if they actually got snow here because of the park name, but it was actually named after two Utah Pioneers, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow. The canyon is a famous site for several Hollywood films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Dance Kid, The Electric Horseman, and Jeremiah Johnson.

On Thursday, we went into St. George and had a delicious lunch at Olive Garden before shopping for groceries, calling home, and catching up on our email. It was a lovely evening so we sat outside to eat our dinner of crab bisque and BLTs.

Friday was a beautiful morning and after breakfast, we went hiking on the Lava Flow Overlook Trail to some lava tubes and lovely views of the West Canyon.








We then connected with the Whiterocks Trail leading to the a natural amphitheater of white sandstone for a nice easy 3.75 mile hike. You can barely see me at the top of the white sandstones. As we were walking back to our truck, we came across a tarantula walking along with us.




That afternoon, Marnie Bartoloni drove up from Mesquite, NV to have dinner with us. She and I relaxed outside having cocktails and counting our blessings: family, good friends, and of course, sunshine. We went for a walk after dinner before she left. After she left, Bob and I watched the Unfinished Life with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Lopez; not an academy award winner, but not bad.

Capitol Reef National Park

October 18-20, 2010

On Monday morning, we continued our journey along the 124 mile Scenic Byway 12 in southern Utah. As we traveled eastward we made our way through Dixie National Forest and to the northern part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This 1.9 million acres of public land offers sandstone canyons, plateaus, unique rock formations, rivers and cliffs. We hope to come back here to spend more time exploring and boon-docking. We stopped at the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park but when the ranger told us that they were doing 24 hour construction with generators and lights running, we opted to continue on down the road. Our friends, Bob and Sue Hicks has told us about how much they enjoyed hiking to Lower Calf Creek Falls. When we got to the Calf Creek Recreation Area where the campground and trail head was located, we noticed a sign that said no RV s over 25'. We put that on our to-see list for another time and headed to Capitol Reef National Park. As early as AD 700, the people of the Fremont culture hunted and farmed in the area but left sometime after AD 1250. However, there is still archeological evidence of the their culture on the canyon walls in the form of pictographs (painted on) and petroglyphs, (incised into the stone).





The early pioneers named the area because of the very large domed formations that reminded them of the nation's capitol. Besides the beautiful landscape of colored cliffs, domes, and canyons, Capital Reef is noted for the Waterpocket Fold, a gigantic buckling of the earth's crust, stretching for 100 miles.







 We loved the Fruita Campground nestled among the historic orchards and cottonwoods on the Fremont River.




 The Mormon pioneers settled here in the early 1900's and the 3100 trees in the orchards are still producing cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, and apples.


Visitors can pick and eat ripe fruit at no charge and during designated harvest times, can pick in quantity for a small fee. Since we missed the last harvest by a few weeks, we definitely want to come back. The orchards were full of deer roaming throughout and several were eating and bedded down near our site.



We took a ride into the nearest town called Torrey looking for a grocery store but it was so small it had only a general store with very high prices.


We opted to stop at Slacker's for one of their award winning burgers for $4.69 including fries. They lived up to their reputation and offered free WI-fi, too. We called the family to check in and let them know where the Alaska Nomads were. When we got back to the campground, we worked off those burgers by hiking the 3 mile Fremont River Trail, the first half meandered through the orchards and along the river and then we climbed 500 feet to a valley overlook.





It was on the cool side when we woke on Tuesday morning so we relaxed and read before we went on our hike. We first stopped at the blacksmith shop to see all of the well preserved tools and farm equipment from another era. The Fremont Gorge trail was a 1100 foot climb with part of the trail on a mesa. It seemed like we went up and up until we finally came to the Fremont Gorge overlook.







 The sign said that it was 2.6 miles but our GPS said 5.5 miles. A nice hot shower and some down time before dinner felt great. I went for another short walk to see my “buddies” over by the river and take some pictures of the deer.




On Wednesday, we woke at 7:30 am. The temperature has dipped to 25 degrees during the night so we stayed in bed until the furnace warmed up our little “nest”. After another one of Bob's scrumptious breakfasts (omelet and home fries), we went over to the historic Gifford House to buy some homemade bread. Bob had already sampled their homemade cherry pie with a 3 thumbs up.



The Giffords left the homestead in 1969 after the Capitol Reef became a national park and it has been well preserved. From there we stopped at the Visitor Center where I picked up some books on the early pioneers and my NP patch and pin for my collection. We continued on to the Scenic Drive with views of the Waterpocket Fold landscaped ending at Capital Gorge. From the trail head we hiked 5 miles RT passing some petroglyphs and one rock called Pioneers Register where names of miners, settlers, and others who passed through the canyon beginning in 1871 can be found on the rocks.







 It was hard to believe that at one time they drove cars through this canyon to get to the settlements. After our hike, we came back to our site and had some lunch watching the deer and a woodpecker in the tree above us. In the afternoon, we drove to Highway 24 to the one room Fruita Schoolhouse, the Petroglyphs, and to the Hickman Bridge Trail.



We did not really plan on another 2 mile hike with a 400 foot climb but I wanted to see the 133 foot natural rock bridge.



We met some people from Nashville, TN and Maine and had a nice visit with them before heading to the “barn”. That evening we sat outside as the sun dipped behind the towering rocks and talked about how much we had enjoyed our experience here. Although all of the National Parks in Utah were unique and beautiful, Capitol Reef felt special to us and is one of our favorites. I think that we will be back some day during harvest time.