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Elk Flats Campground at Cave Lake State Park, NV – Tuesday June 16, 2015

Got here at 1:00 and we are in site 14.
Did not do anything this afternoon, well not really I did work on the jigsaw puzzle Brian and Christine gave me for Christmas.  Most days when I am driving I’d think about getting started on this puzzle and then after we were stopped I’d forget about it. It is a Shutterfly puzzle Brian had made of a picture I posted on the blog last summer.  I got the outside border done before I had to quit for dinner.
Yesterday while at Cathedral Gorge we had a challenge with the refrigerator.  It seems when the temperature gets over 100 it gets unhappy.  With the sun on the outside of the motor home it had to be between 180 to 200 degrees on the outside of the frig.  This morning while filling up with water I took some temp readings.  At 9:00 a.m.after 20 minutes the shaded side of motor home was 78 degrees, sunny side the fiberglass 110, metal doors 140, steps 124.  The weather channel said it was 96 where we were yesterday. Anyway the temp in the refrig started rising. At 58 degrees it was time to do something. This happened last fall one day at Lees Ferry when the temp got over 100 degrees.  In the fall I worked on it for several hours and made plans to go to Flagstaff to get it worked on. I finally used the electrical disconnect to turn all the power in the coach. This reset the refrig and it worked fine until yesterday.  This worked again, by bed time it was down to 45, at 4 a.m it was 37 and at 7:00 a.m. It was 35, happy refrig, has worked fine all day today.

Jacob Lake, AZ – Sunday June 14, 2015

Left Lees Ferry early so we could get a site at Jacob Lake Forest Service Campground at the north road to Grand Canyon north side. The canyon is still 50 miles south of here.  There were a bunch of open sites and we took site 5 which is where we stayed last Fall.
Really nice day in mid 70’s, Lees Ferry is to be 95 and Hurricane 104.  We will head to Cathedral Gorge, Nv tomorrow where it should be 90. 

Bandelier Natl Park Valley – Saturday June 13, 2015

Pictures from my morning hike into Bandelier Natl Park. 
I got up early one morning and hiked to 1.5 miles down into the valley and then did some more exploring of the valley floor.
Looking across the mesa at the  volcano which created this rock.
The higher area is the caldera which created this area.
Frey trail down to the valley floor.
The information I read at the visitor’s center says this is a parrot.
Couple of years ago a flash flood created quite a mess, here are some of the thousands of trees backed up on other trees.
Trail up to the Alcove Area of the park.
It was a nice morning, I was back to the visitor’s center by 9:30 a.m. to catch the first bus back to the campground.  I did have a jog down the trail a ways to catch the bus.

Our first afternoon at Bandelier Natl Park.

Here are a few of the pictures I took during our first day in Bandelier Valley.
A flower that was all over the valley.
An open Kivia.
This shows here some of the houses were built extending from the wall.
Looking up the valley at where the homes are placed.
Showing the homes in the holes in the rock wall.
In the middle you can see the railings and steps up into the homes.
More of the railings between houses.
This rock is just full of holes and is relative soft.
This cool flower again.
You can see people in the middle of this picture.
Here is a herd of Rangers.
The homes on the valley floor.
More of the railings and people looking at homes.

The logs go all the way back into the rock wall to form a roof for the lower unit and floor for the upper home.  Later I’ll have pictures of the log holes in the rock wall.
The holes in this rock is just strange.
See the railings and people.
Couldn’t get enough  of these holes.
Homes down in the valley floor.
Shows homes under an over hang.
Long row of homes.
The small round holes is where the roof and floor supports went into the wall, the homes were three stories.
Roof and floor support holes.
 Abert’s squirrel, look at the ears.
This is from inside the museum, shows how they constructed the homes.
This is from the road leaving the valley.   It was a nice morning.

Santa Fe, NM – Friday June 12, 2015

These are some of the pictures I took while in Santa Fe.  We spent 6 hours walking around the central area of Santa Fe.  Looking at three churches and a bunch of high priced jewelry stores.  We had a good time however my  feet where tired.
Some amazing stain glass windows.
This is the Lorette Chapel, the story is here
The front of the state museum is where many navajo sell jewelry.
This picture of hail was taken 30 minutes after the above picture of the plaza.
Lady of Guadalupe Church of Santa Fe.
Hand carved door header.
Think this is some of the original bricks.

Lees Ferry Natl Park – Thursday June 11, 2015

Today we drove 300 miles to Lees Ferry National Park just below Glen Canyon Dam and the place where people start their trip floating the Grand Canyon.  The drive out from Navajo Lake added a little interest to the trip.  At 5:00 a.m. this morning a THUNDER storm came through the area so there were several places where there was mud across the road.  The highway folks had already been out and bladed the road however in a couple of spot the mud was still at least a 1/2 in thick.  To say the car got dirty would be an understatement.  We stopped at Kayenta to get gas and I could at least get some of the dirt off the windshield so I’d be able to drive the car after we got to the campground.

When we got to Lees Ferry campground both of the river view spots were taken.  We first moved into site 44 and then moved to 46 which is right next to 44.  We moved because site 46 actually angles into site 44 this way hoping no one would camp to close to us.
A little after 5:00 the people who were camped in one of the view sites showed up and left.  They had left there trailer in the site all day and then left at 5:00 p.m.  Rude on their part good for us, we moved into one of the front view sites, number 47.
This is site 47.
View form site 44, the first site we were in.
This is the view from our picnic table with the large metal cover to keep the sun off ME.

View to the right from the picnic table.

It is going to be warm here 85 to 95 during our stay.  Plan is to leave Sunday for Jacob’s Lake, Az or Sand Hollow State Park by Hurricane, Utah.

 

Navajo Lake State Park, Tuesday June 9, 2015

We were on the road early today for a 300 mile drive to Navajo Lake State Park in northwest New Mexico.   The drive turned out to be an extra 50 miles.  I took a wrong turn just 8 miles before we would have gotten to the Pine Area campground.  I saw a Navajo Lake Campground sign and I turned left.   Had to drive all the way to Aztec, NM (14 miles) before I could find a place to turn around.  There are two challenges in pulling a car: 1) you CAN NOT back up, not even a foot, 2) getting gas, finding a station I can get into and out of without backing up, and I have to decide as we drive by, it can be a REAL pain.

We are in site 58, our third site of the afternoon.  The sites are all laid out backwards.  Power and water should be on one side with the door and table on the other, most sites have the power, water and table on the same side, or the power/water are on the side where motorhomes and trailer have there door.   The first site I could not get level without our slide being within 10 inches of the next sites BBQ (really 10 inches).  The second site was a pull through marked a reserve site on the exit side of the pull through and an open non-reserved site on the entry.  When I pulled into the site and started setting up the RV the camp host (really nice guy) came by and asked me why I was setting up in a reserved site.  I said because the post over here says the site is open.  Dan (the host) said it’s a reserved site and he had actually never seen the non-reserved site post I saw.  He went a got a garbage bag and put it over my post really fast.  He than took me around the park in his John Deere tractor and helped us find a site.
Here is the drive for today.
Here is a close up of the area we are in:

Notice the dam at the lower part of the lake.  Can you see where the blue line goes across the face of the dam.  Yes, the road starts at the bottom of the dam face and we drove up across the face of the dam to get to the top of the dam.

 

 

Valdaz Caldara, NM – Monday June 8, 2015

I got up at 6:15 and hiked the Frey down into the valley to see the ruins.  My goal was to hike further up the valley than Jean and I had done on Friday to see the “Alcove”.  To get to the Alcove it requires climbing 3 ladders and a bunch of steps for a 140 climb.  Jean was not interested in going up the ladders.  It was a nice hike.  I was alone all morning, saw the first person 3/4 mile for the visitor’s center about 9:15.  ( I’ll post pictures when I get them formatted. )

The track line on the right side without any dots was the bus ride back to the campground.

Drove the 15 mile up super volcano and into it’s caldara today.  It really is a large volcano, the road across is 13 miles.  When we get some internet access it’s on my list to learn more about this volcano.  It is currently a national preserve (since 2000) and will become part of the National Park System this October.