2018 - September

We moved to Cortez, CO, our home for the next 2 ½ weeks.  The West View RV Park, only 2 years old is a beautiful RV Park, we highly recommend. 

Our first stop was the Mesa Verde Visitor Center to learn about the national park and purchase our cliff dwelling tour passes.  We drove out to the Wetherill Mesa and visited the Step House and hiked part of the Long House Loop to see the Badger House Community.  Wild Horses were along the hiking trail, a site to see.

Drove up to Dolores, CO to see the Galloping Goose.  It was built in the 1930’s and is a cross between a truck, bus and train.  Used on the railroad for basic deliveries.  It is still used today for scenic excursions.  Quite a site to see.

We spent our 2^nd day in Mesa Verde.  Our first stop was the Balcony House Cliff Tour, the most adventurous in the park.  The ladder climb was not as bad as we thought it would be.  Our second stop was the Cliff Palace View, the museum and a very nice scenic lunch.  The last stop for the day was the Cliff Palace Tour, an amazing sight to see.  The entrance in wasn’t bad but the exit out was quite a climb. 

The next 2 days we took a road trip over to Mexican Hat, Utah.  Our first stop was the Four Corners, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah come together.  Definitely a tourist stop.

We then drove to the Hovenweep National Monument and did the 1.5 mile hike around to all of the Pueblo Ruins.  It was a good work out with very nice archeological sites.

Our next stop was in Bluff to see the Bluff Fort, it wasn’t a military fort but a fort built by the settlers in a square to protect themselves.  The buildings are in excellent condition and furnished by the descendants of the settlers.  The Twin Rocks were in the background.

 Our final destination was the Swinging Steak Restaurant and Lodge in Mexican Hat for Jerry to get the swinging steak.  We stayed here 3 years ago and he never forgot that steak so we made a trip back. 

Our trip back the next day held the best surprise we could have imagined.  The Canyon De Chelly National Monument, it was so worth the 2 ½ hour drive out of our way.  This is on the “1000 Places to See Before You Die” list.  There is a North Rim and South Rim drive with overlooks.  It rivaled the Grand Canyon in beauty even though it is much smaller.  Well worth the drive.  We will go back someday to do the canyon tour through the canyon bottom. 

On the way home we drove through IN 13, if you every have the chance it is a beautiful drive from west to east.  We passed Ship Rock, at a distance it looks just like a castle.

Our next road trip in the car was to Durango for our Durango to Silverton Narrow Gauge Train trip.  We drove over in the morning and did the railroad museum along with the Yard Tour.  After the tour we walked down Durango’s Main Street and found a wonderful surprise at the Himalayan Kitchen Restaurant, Yak meat.  We had Yak in Tibet and never thought we would find it in the US.  We really enjoyed our meal. 

We spent the night at the Econo Lodge, our first time at one and it was very nice with a great price. Our train ride started on a 20 minute bus ride because of a track washout they were still fixing.  We boarded the train into our First Class car which was the last one so we had a nice balcony out the back for viewing and picture taking.  Well worth the extra cost.  It was a beautiful ride up to Silverton, 3 ½ hours one way with a 4% grade uphill.  We had lunch in Silverton then a beautiful 3 ½ hour ride back to Durango.  We drove back to Cortez after the train ride.

Our next day trip was up to Telluride, CO., a winter ski haven.  It was a beautiful 1 ½ hour Colorado mountain drive with fall color changes.  We drove up town to the Bridal Veil Falls Trail, it was a 4 wheel drive, high clearance road.  We made it most of the way but decided it was smarter to turnaround as we don’t have a jeep.  We saw the falls, not much flow this time of year.  Back in town we hopped on the free gondola ride up to Mountain Village for a beautiful view of Telluride below and the ski mountains above.  We had a great lunch at the Tomboy Tavern, awesome view, delicious bloody mary and food. 

Our last stop in the Cortez area was the Canyons of the Ancients Museum and Visitor Center.  Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum is Southwest Colorado's premier archaeological museum focusing on Ancestral Puebloan, Native American, and historic cultures in the Four Corners region.  

We moved to Lake Powel, what a wonderful surprise.  We thoroughly enjoyed this area.  The Wahweap RV Park is a wonderful place to land for a week.  The sites are wonderful and the view is even better. 

Our first stop was the Glen Canyon Dam Visitor Center, we spent a couple of hours learning about Lake Powel, the Glen Canyon Dam and the entire Page area.  The Glen Canyon Dam is the second largest concrete Dam in the United States. 

  

Sunsets on Lake Powel are beautiful.

We enjoyed a 3 hour boat tour on Lake Powel, cruising by Glen Canyon Dam, Navajo Sandstone and up into Antelope Canyon and Navajo Canyon.  

Another beautiful sunset.

 Rainbow Room, great dinner and sunset.

We took a day trip down to Lee’s Ferry, the Navajo Bridge and the Vermillion Cliffs. 

Lees Ferry is the only place within Glen Canyon where visitors can drive to the Colorado River in over 700 miles of canyon country, right up to the first rapid in the Grand Canyon. A natural corridor between Utah and Arizona, Lees Ferry figured prominently in the exploration and settlement of northern Arizona.   Just upstream from the Lees Ferry launch ramp is the ferry crossing site and several historic buildings. Different ferryboats and pioneers, miners, Indians, and tourists crossed here from 1872 until 1928. 

We stopped at the Navajo Bridge, you can walk across the old bridge.  In the 1920s, automobiles began using the ferry at Lee’s Ferry as a means to cross the Colorado River. It was recognized that it was time to find a safer, more reliable way for vehicles to cross. A bridge site was selected 5 miles (8km) downriver at Marble Canyon. Construction of the bridge began in June of 1927. It was an historic day when, on January 12, 1929, the bridge was opened to traffic. At the time, it was the highest steel arch bridge in the world and made traveling between Utah and Arizona much easier. 

The Vermilion Cliffs are known for their colorful swirls of slickrock. Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is a sherbet-colored dream world filled with fantastical rock formations like The Wave, White Pockets, and Buckskin Gulch.  This 280,000-acre monument bumps up against the Utah/Arizona border, where the wooded Paria Plateau stretches south, dropping 3,000 feet at the monument’s namesake—the Vermilion Cliffs. Paria Canyon, a sinuous slot canyon along the Paria River, cuts across the northeast corner of the monument and offers a true wilderness experience for those who want to explore.

The Into The Grand is a dinner theater with traditional Indian dances including Hoop dancing.  Beautiful costumes and an awesome 6^th in the world hoop dancer.

We took the 45 minute Glen Canyon Dam Tour which included going into the bowels of the Dam and seeing the generators. 

After the Dam tour we drove out to the Toadstool hiking trail.  Very nice hike with interesting toadstool rock formations. 

Our next great adventure was the Horseshoe Bend Slot Canyon and Horseshoe Bend overlook Tour.  The slot canyon was an amazing geological formation that was so much fun to hike through with amazing colors.  The Horseshoe Bend Navajo overlook was very enjoyable without all the tourist crowds at the National Park overlook location. The National Park overlook has 6,000 people a day, it is a crazy place.

We did the Colorado River Float trip which started with a 2 mile drive through the tunnel to the bottom of the Glen Canyon Dam.  The tunnel was originally built to get workers and supplies to build the dam.  The float trip went from the dam down to Lee’s Ferry, great views along the river.  Would highly recommend this trip and it’s the only way to access this original construction tunnel. 

Our next stop was Flagstaff, Arizona.  Nice drive down Hwy 89 between Page and Flagstaff. 

We enjoyed a steak dinner at Black Bart’s Steakhouse and Saloon with saloon style entertainment. 

Our first stop was Meteor Crater.  The world’s best preserved meteorite impact site on Earth. Meteor Crater is the result of a collision between an asteroid traveling 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago.  Meteor Crater is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep. Part of the Apollo Lunar Training took place at Meteor Crater. 

We drove to Winslow, Arizona to experience “Standin on the Corner in Winslow, AZ”.  A fun touristy experience.  We had a wonderful lunch at the Turquoise Room in the La Posada Hotel, a historic icon on Route 66. 

Our last stop for the day was Walnut Canyon National Monument.  A beautiful canyon with several Cliff Dwellings.  Nice hike along the rim.

The next day we headed north to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and the Wupatki National Monument. 

The Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument protects over 3,000 acres of lava fields, cinder deposits and archaeological ruins. It is the youngest of the Colorado Plateau volcanos erupting around A.D. 1085.  We hiked several of the trails through the lava fields and viewing the cinder cones.

Wupatki National Monument is one of several sites preserving pueblos (villages) of ancient peoples, there are many ruins scattered over a large area of desert northeast of Flagstaff. The pueblos all have a distinctive deep red color and were made from thin, flat blocks of the local Moenkopi sandstone.  This was a wonderful surprise and change of architecture from the Cliff Dwellings. 

 

Our last supper in Flagstaff was at Fat Olives, a great Italian/Pizza restaurant.  The food was fantastic.