My Life and Travels
This is how I had my morning coffee.
Today we drove up to Parker, AZ where Richard and Vickie have been all winter. They have a spot right on the river. People wait years to get one of these stops. A friend of their’s who talked them into coming to Parker for the winter was in the park office last fall when someone canceled their reservations. Bobbie called Vickie about the site and they took it. The office person must have been mad at all the other people on the waiting list.
Today’s drive was 298 miles to sunny Quartzsite. There seem to be a lot more people here this year than last year. We have had good weather during the drive down here.
We are here for at least several days. Looking at the weather in California and to visit Richard and Vickie who are setting up home on the Colorado River for the winter/4 months.
Gilbert Ray County Park just passing through on our way to Quartzsite and on to the big house
Great pull-through site C23, this would be a great site to have for a while but we are working our way to Quartzsite so we can spend some time with Richard & Vickie.
Nice sunny day so we went for a drive on some of the local mountain roads
This was the first time I used the Bluetooth function on my IPad and InReach. It works really well, I have the maps down loaded to my IPad and the InReach knows exactly where we are. I could follow where we were right on the IPad without internet.
Today was also Jack’s first day of preschool.
Wednesday we move to Cottonwood Campground at Navajo Dam and will be there until the 24th. Last year we did not have internet at the campground so may not up date this for a while.
Windy sunny day.
My view for most of the day. Went for a 2 mile hike this morning and then spent the rest of of the day working on learning SketchUp 8. One of my goals for this outing is to learn this 3D modeling program, that means I need to spend some time at it.
Nice day at home.
We drove the 45 miles out to the North Rim today.
This monitor was on the wall in the visitor’s center. I thought it gives a good example of the effect of altitude has on tempature. The distance across the Grand Canyon is 11 miles. The south rim is 3 miles from the river and the north rim is 7 miles from the river.
These are just a selection of the pictures I took during the day.
We are enjoying the cool weather here, notice this is heat map is at noon.
Got up to 75 a couple of times and then a short thunderstorm would cool things off. We are getting Phoenix network TV and they were really excited that it was going to be below 110 day.
On a sad note my first IPod finally died today. Since an iPod can/will only link to one computer this has been the one I use when traveling to listen to podcasts off my laptop.
Today’s drive
We were up early, I wanted to get to Jacob Lake before it got hot and to get an open campsite. Arrived at 9:30 and got a large pull-though at the end of the Loop, site 12.
Have good open sky for satellite TV, sat radio and sun for solar panel. Also have great internet
There is an antenna here at the Hwy junction going into north Grand Canyon.
We are also at 8000 feet and the weather is perfect, 77 with a few thunder showers while it is over 100 at Lees Ferry, Zion and Monument Valley. We are going to stay here until the 11th when we have reservations for fishing at Cottonwood Campground at Navajo Dam, NM. It will be a 338 mile day to Cottonwood but the weather is much better here. I have been working on staying at 200-250 miles at day even when we traveling.
This map is the temperature map at 7:30 Wednesday evening, says we made the right call on where to stay.
Made the right call on the pickup battery. It was right at 12.5 volts Wednesday and Thursday morning ( writing this on Thursday 9/5). It is still had for me not to try and get the last usable mile out of every part.
We had to be out of Salmon Cove by 11:00 a.m. today.
Today we start heading south toward New Mexico. It was sad to leave the Garcia’s we will not see them again until the end of November. The next few days will be traveling and nights at rest stops.
I do think we have a change in plans. Our original plan was to spend the holiday weekend at Virgin River Campground which is just inside Arizona between St George, Utah and Mesquite, Nevada. When we got internet today I found out it is going to be hot there.
Look at the daily forecast for the next week. The Virgin River Campground has no hook ups and NO shade, not a tree or a bush in the place. I think we will go to Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada that at least has electricity we should be able to get into on Wednesday.
Today’s travels.
