2023 Winter & Spring Part II

One of the reasons to go to CA is that Yosemite National Park has been on my (Jean's) bucket list for a long time. Again, we were in the right place at the right time. The waterfalls in the park were "gushing" because of all of the winter snowfall melt.  In fact, one of the major highways through the park was closed due to snowfall (and remained that way through most of the summer). We arrived in the area on Tuesday, visited the park on Wednesday and on Thursday they announced that the park would be temporarily closed on Friday due to flooding in the Merced River. Talk about timing! 

I love this picture with the reflection of the waterfall in the river. 

As I have said many times before, pictures don't do it justice. Yosemite did not disappoint!

While in Tuolumne, we found an old railroad museum to visit. This is the fun of RV'ing. Hadn't planned on it but when we went it was a pleasant surprise. The museum houses old locomotives, including rhe one that was used it the "Petticoat Junction" TV show. 

Leaving CA, we traveled through the Sierra Nevada Mountains heading to Colorado. We frequently stay overnight in Walmart parking lots when we are traveling. It's not often that you can get a picture like this from a Walmart parking lot!

Spring blooms on the tree with snow capped mountains in the background. 

Colorado beckoned again. We had planned to go back when I had new knees so I could walk on the trails at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This year we did both the north and south rims.  

Unfortunately, the road to the bottom of the canyon was closed due to repairs. Black Canyon is like the Grand Canyon but on a smaller scale as you can see across the canyon to the other side. It is one of our favorite places. 

Trees growing out of the rocks!

Gunnison River running through the canyon. 

The beauty of CO is everywhere. We were located near Glenwood Springs. Again, in the right place at the right time. We were treated to red and green mountains. Locals told us that five years ago, they were all brown due to drought. Again, because of heavy winter snowfall, the drought was gone and the mountains were vibrant instead of drab. 

This is the creek that was gushing through our campground. 

We were sad to leave CO behind. There is so much to see there. We want to go to the Royal Gorge and to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. That's for another trip. 

I'm including this picture as part of our ongoing saga to see bears in the wild. Yes these are bears not in a zoo, but at a wildlife sanctuary. 

From CO we headed to MN for our annual trek to Mayo Clinic for checkups. I was supposed to have hip surgery. However, before we left CO I had an accident with my bike (tipping over on a gravel road). I got a nasty gash in my knee right next to the incision from my knee surgery. My surgery was postponed because of the open wound. When I could get it scheduled it interfered with the rest of our summer and fall plans so it has been put off for a year. 

We did get to see granddaughter Mira perform in "Anything Goes" at the Mankato Playhouse. She did a great job! (We're not biased at all.) After that the family met for a get together - this is the second year in a row it has rained. Fear not, the grands just played in the rain while the adults talked. 

Having missed the east coast contingent of the family in '22 due to my first knee replacement, we were excited to reconnect in person with Andy's kids in MD. We were able to enjoy the National Aquarium in Baltimore with Sam and grandson Brickell. (A good reminder that 3 year olds don't walk, they run.) 

Allison and I went to the Barbie movie since the guys didn't want to see it. A good time was had by all just being together. We enjoyed going out on Allison and Vince's boat with them. 

Now we are back in Red Bay for annual maintenance on the RV and a few upgrades as well. We are looking forward to fall, cooler weather and the Albuquerque Balloon Festival! 

2023 - Winter & Spring Part I

Winter 2023 saw us in the Phoenix area. This is the first time we had spent four months in one place. The park we stayed at was Sunrise RV Park in Apache Junction. It's close to Mesa with a bonus of some high school classmates in the area as well as my uncle and aunt. My second knee surgery was scheduled for early December. All went well and I recuperated nicely in the warm weather returning to aqua aerobics after 6 weeks and doing PT nearby. 

One of the excursions we took was to the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). It is a fascinating place exploring the origin of musical instruments from all cultures. 

These are just a few of the photos from the museum. Truly a fascinating place for music lovers!

In March we moved to Tucson. One of the reasons for that was that we were attending the Escapade Rally at the Pima County Fairgrounds. 

We hadn't been to a RV rally for a while. We can always learn new things and we enjoy meeting other RV'ers. There is always something to talk about!

In Tucson I was also able to catch up with high school classmates Cheryl and Kathy. (Oops, forgot to take some pictures.)

Our next stops were Nevada and California. We'd been scheduled to go there in 2020 but then the pandemic hit and our plans were put on hold. Finally we were able to add the NV and CA stickers to our USA map. 

Before:

After:

That leaves NJ and CT as the only states in the lower 48 that we haven't stayed overnight in.

In CA we stopped in to see my brother Greg and wife Diane. Then we headed on to Greenfield where we were based for a month. It seems that we are lucky in being in places at the right time. After the harsh winter CA had (lots of snowfall and rain) this spring was designated a "superbloom" time because of all the moisture they'd had. We got to experience seeing lots of vibrant flowers.

These were alongside the road by a vineyard.

These poppies were in our campground. 

While in the area we did several side trips. One was to Monterey where we did a whale watching excursion. We also walked along the famous Cannery Row. 

Another excursion was to San Simeon to see the Hearst Castle. This rivals the Biltmore in NC. Too many pictures but here are a few: 

I am realizing that there is a lot more to cover and lots of pictures I want to include so I've decided to split this into two parts. Stay tuned!

We left our hearts in Colorado

On our way to CO, we stayed in Page, AZ. We'd been there before; it is a beautiful area. I include this photo only to highlight the drought and the drop in the water table there. Hopefully it has been refilled this winter by the large amounts of snow and rain that hit northern AZ. One thing left to see there is Antelope Canyon. I did not think my knees would be able to take all the climbing and didn't want to slow down other tourists. 

From Page we headed to Westview RV Resort in Dolores, CO. This would be our home base while we explored CO and the surrounding areas. First up on the list was Mesa Verde National Park. 

Next up was a trip to Monument Valley. Yes, technically this is Utah, but we left from CO so it's in this post. This was a very interesting place to go. This next picture is the highway made famous by Tom Hanks running on it as Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name. Lots of people stop to take pictures and there are signs warning people to be careful as there have been many accidents there. 

We elected to take a tour of the valley. Our guide was a Navajo Indian who had local ties to the area. He let us know of Navajo customs, as well as modern day things. On the tour you go by the "monuments". This is one of the "mitten" buttes. 

This butte is called the "Three Sisters".

On the tour we were able to see a Hogan Village. There are two types of homes (male & female) that are distinct by their shapes.  The female home is round shaped, larger so it can accomodate more people. These homes are  still used today by the elderly and for ceremonial purposes. Hogans are made of natural materials-cedar, bark, sand & water. A fire keeps them warm in winter, in summer they are 25%  cooler than the outside. 

Monument Valley is a popular place for movies to be filmed. Nearly fifty movies have used Monument Valley as a back drop for scenes. This next photo shows the place where Indiana Jones dropped through the hole to the floor below. 

Here's another butte. All in all, we really enjoyed our day in Monument Valley. 

One of the most beautiful and scenic drives (and famous!) drives in CO is the San Juan Parkway. We decided that we would take a weekend to do it and treat ourselves to an overnight stay in Telluride. This drive contains the Million Dollar Highway that goes from Durango to Silverton. There are two theories for the name - 1) it's the cost of the road to build it, and 2) it stands for the number of million dollar homes that are along the road. Regardless, the views are spectacular. 

One of the towns along the way is Ouray. We stopped here to soak in the hot springs.

Telluride is a ski town, obviously we were not there to do that. We enjoyed our hotel and again, got some great views as we were driving. I must confess, I will never get tired of seeing snow capped mountains!

San Juan Parkway, we feel, is a must if you are in CO. There is also a train ride from Durango to Silverton that is very popular, we didn't have time on this trip to fit it in. When we got to CO, we stopped in at a information center, and picked up several brochures. Looking through them, I found an article on the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and told Andy we need to go there. Little did we know that it would come to be one of our favorite national parks!

This park is unique because you can drive all the way to the bottom of the canyon and look up (not for the faint of heart-it's a 17% downgrade on the road down), and then go back up to view the canyon from the lookouts on the top of the canyon. The Gunnison River runs through the canyon. Needless to say, the pictures won't do it justice. Andy said he thought this was more spectacular than the Grand Canyon. Due to my knee issues (you can see my brace in the pictures) I was not able to see as much as I would have liked, so this park is on the list for us to go back to. 

We were awed by the beauty of Colorado and plan on going back in 2023. From CO we headed to MN for our annual medical check-ups and the first of two knee replacements. We were in Rochester for most of the summer before we headed to Red Bay, AL for our annual maintenance, and then to Apache Junction, AZ (stopping in Austin, TX for niece Olivia's wedding on the way) for the winter. This time we will stay put for 4 months from Nov. to March. Knee #2 was supposed to be done in September, but my body said it wasn't ready so we postponed to having it done in AZ in December. At least I will have a warm climate (no snow & ice to deal with) for recuperating. So that brings us to the end of 2022. Traveling will begin again in March of 2023. 

Winter & Spring 2022 Part I

Again, I am apologizing for doing this so late. That is what happens when you get out of sync. But I am determined to make sure this is all written down for posterity. 

We had made the decision to go back to Bentsen Palms. For the most part, we enjoyed it. The winter was a bit chilly and windy, which didn't make us want to be outside very often.  I learned to play Mah Jongg. Andy worked. Since we had been in the area before, there wasn't much new to do. But, we did have a couple of excursions while we were there. 

The first was a drive over to Space X headquarters in Boca Chica, TX. It was amazing how close we could drive up and see things! (No tours.) Yes, we were on driving on that road. 

We also decided to take the Port of Brownsville boat tour. Unfortunately, we picked the coldest day of the winter to go. Dressed in warm clothes and our winter jackets we braved the cold to see the Port. 

Beginning March 1st, we started traveling again. I'm including a picture of the RV and toad so you can see what we look like going down the highway. (The hood was open on the car because we had stopped to warm up the engine and needed to turn the battery off and on.) We are about 60 feet long when we are driving.

From Mission we headed to Camp Verde, AZ. While there we made trips to the Phoenix area to see friends Tolly and Maren, and Rick. High school friend Penny & her husband Dean made the trip to Camp Verde to see us. We also checked out several RV parks for next winter. 

Catching up with relatives we met up with my cousin Mark and Uncle Dave and wife Heidi. 

We were awed by all of the different views of the desert we saw. From cacti to plants to rolling hills and mountains, the desert has it all. 

This is a picture of the pueblos at Montezuma Castle National Monument near Camp Verde. 

Of course, part of our plan was to see the south rim of the Grand Canyon. (We'd already seen it from the north rim.) 

We also explored Flagstaff and hooked up with college roomate Sue & her husband Tim-and promptly forgot to take a picture! On the way back from Flagstaff, we had to include a stop in Winslow, AZ. 

This is the obligatory picture of me standing on the corner in Winslow, AZ, such a fine sight to see, it's a girl, my Lord, in a flat bed Ford, slowin down to take a look at me....   Fun fact, that is not a complete building behind me, only one wall. 

And from here, I am going to stop. Next up is CO. We saw so much there I've decided to let it stand on it's own.