May 24, 2013 Wausau, WI

We arrived home late in the afternoon. We drove through rain and lots of wind the past 2 days. We had driven 4700 miles throughout the southwest on this trip. It is great to see everything so green after driving so many miles in the high desert.  We surely enjoyed the scenery and experiences of this journey. As Beth always says " it is the journey not the destination that counts". We hope you enjoyed our pictures.

We spent the day driving from Mesa Verde to LaJunta, CO. The storms are ahead of us. Tomorrow we will visit the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. I finally had to add DEF liquid to our Diesel engine in the motorhome. , for the first time. It was interesting asking people in the gas station about how to do it. None of them had any idea. I finally decided to read the instruction booklet. The. Weather is very cool. We crossed the Wolf Creek Mountain Pass east of Pagosa Springs, CO. It was snowing at the top which is at 10,800 ft. The temperature had dropped to 32 degrees there. Brrrrrr.

Mesa Verde National Park, Cortez, CO

We spent the day touring the park. It is huge and really neat with all of the ancient Pueblo Indian's cliff dwellings. I am including some pictures. The solar panels are what power the new visitor center at the park. We have seen large fields of solar panels in the southwest. It looks lime because of snow in the passes in Colorado, we will start for home. We will have to drive through southern Colorado and then through stormy Kansas and Iowa. We will start back tomorrow, May 19th.

Utah, May 15-17, 2013

Hi, We lucked out and found an available campsite within Zion National Park . This place has incredible scenery. We hiked a lot and rode the free shuttle all over the park.Because we have a motor home, we were required to get a special permit to go through the tunnel into the park. So, when we entered the park from the east we lead a line of vehicles by being able to drive down the middle of the tunnel. The weather was warm and sunny. Because of the recent warm weather, Utah is experiencing la big snow melt from the mountains. So,at our campsite we had a rapid stream running along the edge. After spending a day at Zion we left Thursday AM to drive toward Torrey, Utah. We decided to take the scenic route which is Utah state highway 12. It goes past Bryce and numerous state parks. We stopped at Kodachrome Basin State Park and hiked on what we thought was an easy/moderate trail. Maybe, a teenager thinks it is but we found that is was easy/moderate for about 100 feet. After that it was a bit exciting . The next mile and 1/2 were anything but easy/moderate. After getting back to the RV and not falling off a cliff we drove on. This "scenic" highway Utah 12, has many 8 to 10 percent grades. At one point on a ridge at the 8000 ft. level, the road was literally just 2 lanes wide with no shoulder and the sides dropping off to several feet down (on both sides). Of course there is no guard rail. We then continued on and camped in a beautiful national forest campground called "Singletree" in the Dixie National Forest at 8000 ft. elevation. Beth & I are still having problems walking around at that elevation.It was a lot cooler there than down at the 5000 ft. level. We then left Friday AM and drove to Cortez , Colorado where Mesa Verde National Park is located.

The first 3 are of  Zion. The flower and trail pictures were taken at Kodachrome Basin State Park and the last picture is of the drive on Highway 12, south of Hanksville, Utah.

Knab, Utah 5/14/2013

We drove from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon on Sunday, May 12th. It was packed with people. Lots of languages we couldn't understand. We have never seen so many rental RV's as we have on this trip. So, the economy worldwide must be good enough that we are having lots of foreign visitors viewing the sites of the USA. We were unable to get a camping site at the park but were directed to a really neat site in a national forest (Kaibab Nat. Forest) 10 miles south of the park. The Grand Canyon is an impressive site. If you haven't seen it , please do. Pictures are great but the sight of its grandeur is amazing. We then drove on Monday AM to Jacob Lake, AZ (also a national forest campground). The temperature was in the 90's at 5000 ft. but at our campsite in Jacobs Lake, the altitude was 8000 feet and much cooler. We drove to Knab today, after visiting the Pipe Spring National Monument. Tomorrow we head for Zion National Park. We have already determined the campgrounds are full so made a reservation at the Bauer Canyon Ranch RV Park. Since Beth's maiden name is Bauer, we felt we should camp there.

May 11,2013

Since the last entry we drove from Taos, NM to Navajo Lake, NM. We drove on US Highway 64 which reached 10,600 feet. We encountered snow but the road was fine. Very scenic drive. We stopped in Aztec , NM to see the Aztec Ruins National Monument. We then drove to Navajo Lake which is a large impoundment that reaches up to the Colorado border. We spent 2 days there, getting some well needed rest. Then we drove to Canyon De Chelly National Monument in northeast Arizona near Chinle, AZ. We have our own jeep tour on Sat. AM of the canyon. Our guide's parents were born in the canyon plus she spent one year in the canyon as a 5 yr old. Did I mention she is a navajo whom teaches school, runs a canyon guide service and owns a coffee house? She is a busy gal. We then drove to Monument Valley which is a Navajo park. If you are a movie fan, this is where John Wayne made several movies, including "The Searchers". We have a great view from our campsite.

Taos. New Mexico, May 7, 2013. We left the Canon City area yesterday morning and drove to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. Between rain showers, we both climbed the dunes. We didn't climb the tallest one (750 Ft.) though. It is quite a sight. We then camped overnight at San Luis Lake State Park. Our site was to have a view of the lake. As you can see in the photo, no water in the lake. We then drove to Taos today. On the way we found another deep river gorge to drive over. This time we could. It is the Rio Grande Gorge just north of Taos. Taos is an interesting town with lots of art and crafts. It is a very old town as the narrow streets downtown make driving an RV interesting. Tomorrow we head to northwestern New Mexico to an aztec national park. Then who knows.

Canon City, CO

We spent much of the day in town to take the scenic railroad tour of the Royal Gorge. We have now seen the bridge from almost all possible angles. We also visited the Blossom and Music weekend in town though it is too cold to have any blossoms. Next we head to Great Sand Dunes National Park. I see on Facebook that Greg and Amy Rowley were there yesterday.

May 4, 2013 Canon City, CO

Since I last posted we have driven across Nebraska and into Colorado. The weather is slowly improving although there are signs of snow everywhere. While it has been wet at home it is extremely dry in southern Colorado. So lots of fire danger worries. We are camping near the Royal Gorge. It is a bridge over the Arkansas River in a 1000 ft. deep gorge. Really neat. They won't let us drive the RV across the bridge much to Beth's relief so we walked it. We also took a cable tram over the gorge and an inclined rail to the bottom of the gorge. We saw some white water rafters and wished we could join them. Next we go to Cripple Creek, CO then on to the Great Sand Dunes National Park south of where we are now. The first picture is what we left in Des Moines

Our May 2013 trip to the Southwest

Ok, we made it to Des Moines, Iowa the first night. We drove through lots of high wind. Our new motorhome, named the "Little Beast" handled it a lot better than our old one. We woke up today, May 2nd, 2013 ( I emphasize May) at the Cherry Glen campground on Saylorville Lake, just north of DesMoines to a snow storm. We decided to drive west toward Omaha instead of south to Kansas City after talking to our personal meteorologist, Mary. We drove through snow until we were near Omaha.  After that it was just high winds until we stopped at Grand Island, NE. The new unit performed well just have to get used to filling it with diesel amongst the big boy truckers.