Zion National Park

Wednesday, we arrived at Zion National Park. We're staying at the Zion Canyon Campground & RV Park Thursday we drove to St George for lunch with Karl's family, Bryce and LaRee (brother and wife), Lolene (sister) and Lisa (niece). Enjoyed reminiscing old times. Lolene, the eldest living family member, remembers the days of her youth very well.

Friday and Saturday we explored the park and enjoyed the AC of the motorhome after each trip into the 95 degree outdoors. The Springdale and Zion Park shuttle buses are very nice, every 10-15 minutes all day. They're not air conditioned but all the windows are open to keep them hospitable.

Tomorrow we'll change camps to St George, we have an appointment to get the front end aligned Monday. We expect to drive to northern Utah on Wednesday, 6/3.

Grand Canyon/Jacob Lake

Got to Jacob Lake 5/23/2015 in the middle of a snow storm. It was cold! Staying at the Jacob Lake RV park with water and electricity. It rained all day Sunday, so we just kicked back and stayed inside most of the day. Monday we drove to the Grand Canyon. When we arrived the canyon was all fogged in, couldn't see a thing, so we went to the deli for a sandwich.

When we got back to the rim the fog had lifted and the canyon was about as clear as I've ever seen. It was great, be sure and view the photos in dropbox. We saw several deer, some bucks with velvet antlers.

Tuesday we drove to Kanab for a couple of tires. The front tires were down to the cord on the inside. The outside still had 1/2 inch of tread. We've made an appointment for wheel alignment in St George Monday.

Page AZ

We've been here a couple of nights. Yesterday was laundry and kick back day. We're planning to hike today and do Antelope Canyon Slot Canyon tomorrow, but it's cloudy today and rain is forecast for tomorrow so we'll have to wait & see. We'll be going to Grand Canyon Saturday and stay at Jacob's Lake RV Park. A few miles from the park but we'll have full hookups which be nice since a new new storm is forecast and we don't want to repeat what we went through. at Bryce.

PS: We hiked to Horseshow bend yesterday along with a few thousand other tourists. Awesome view but couldn't get the whole curve iin the picture without getting a lot closer to the edge the  I was willing to go. It's an easy 1 1/2 mile hike, halt is up but that leaves helf downhill.



Today we got up early and did the upper Antelope Slot  Canyon with a few hundred other people. It's a miracle how they can get that many people through that tiny canyon at the same time. The pictures you get in the canyon are awesome, even though 8 am is not the prime time to go. We had good sunlight, however.
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Tomorrow we pack up and travel to Jacob Lake AZ, outside of the Grand Canyon.

Bryce Canyon

Arrived at Bryce Canyon Friday in a snow storm. Arrived at about 10 am and got a choice site. We stayed 4 cold snowy nights but it was worth it. Wouldn't trade the experience for a million dollars but don't want to do it again. Our cabin batteries didn't seem to be holding a charge very well. Had to run the generator 4-6 hours a day for the furnace. We didn't run the furnace at night just added a couple extra blankets to the bed.

Besides the most beautiful sights in the world we enjoyed a couple of nightly ranger programs on astronomy and deserts.

Capitol Reef National Park

Spent 4 nights. Very nice campground, first come first served. We got there about 11 am and just barely got in. 1st three days were beautiful but it rained all day the fourth. We did a little hiking, nothing too strenuous. We took the Capitol Gorge trail and climbed up to the water tanks. We never did find the tanks. A herd of a dozen deer could always be seen around the campgrounds/fruit groves. We loved the red rock and fruit pies from  the Gifford house.

Moab and Arches

We have really enjoyed  spending time with Dee and Mearl. We've had quite a bit of rain but managed to go to Arches National Park one day. We enjoyed the walk to Landscape Arch and strolled along. We then took a ride to Mearl & Dee's mountain property where they hope to build a cabin one day. We had a great picnic on the mountain enjoying the view.

We enjoyed 2 great Mom's day dinners, one at Sunset Grill overlooking Moab and a brunch at Red Cliffs Lodge overlooking the Colorado River. The lodge has a great museum with a history of the movies filmed in the Moab area. The grill is the former home of a uranium tycoon, who went from washing his clothes in the river to flying his laundry to Grand Junction.

Tomorrow we leave for Capitol Reef National Park, then on to Bryce, Lake Powell, Grand Canyon and Zion before heading north.

Fayetteville To Moab

Monday we drove from Fayetteville AR to Wilson State Park Kansas (about 50 miles west of Salina). The park is about 7 miles off I70 and is really quiet and clean.  I imagine that during the summer it has lots of boaters/fishermen, but it was almost vacant for our weekday visit. It only has 3 full hookups at $26 per night but they also charge $5 entrance fee. It also has a lot of tent and rv sites not full hookups.

Wednesday we drove from Wilson State Park to Aurora CO and camped at Cherry Creek State Park. Aurora is a southern suburb of Denver. The park is really nice, with camping spaces having plenty of room/ Camping fee for full hookup is $24 per night but they also charge $9 park fee per day, so the fee is really $33. The park is active with bicyclists and tent campers as well as RVs. We made a run over to camping world and found it in the GPS, but when we got there (24 miles through rush hour traffic) we found another RV dealer. They said they haven't been camping world for 2 years. We found most of we needed there anylway at a slightly higher price. Upon leaving Denver we saw the real camping world on the far west side of Denver.

Friday we drove the remaining distance to Moab UT through some of the most beautiful terrain in the country. The Rockies are indeed fantastic and we didn't have a bit of car trouble. We beat the trucks up the mountain but they usually passed us going down. The last time we drove through Vail CO was on our honeymoon 52 years ago, we almost couldn't believe the change. It is now a little bit like LA. Back then we stayed in a little old rustic motel (I think there was 2 in town).

We'll be driving to Capitol Reef on Monday. We hope to make at least one trip to Arces NP before we leave Moab.