ALBUQUERQUE, NM It frosted last night! With much anticipation, we were off to Kay’s birthplace, Roswell, NM. She was antsy with anticipation, with high expectations of getting picked up by alien spacecraft for her journey from which her ancestors came. First though, we drove through Albuquerque and witnessed hundreds of hot air balloons flying; this is the time of year for their annual balloon festival.

DEPARTING GRAND CANYON Arizona does not recognize Daylight Savings Time, so we’re 2 hours behind time in Arkansas. Consequently, we are still waking early, and this morning was no exception. We discussed what else there was to do in Grand Canyon within our physical capabilities, and concluded that we had done all we set out to do, except buy souvenirs. Kay took off to do last minute shopping while Donald readied DunnGone for the journey home. Unfortunately, we forgot about the time change and the stores were closed. After waiting some time, she headed back out, returned shortly, and we were headed home at 8:30 AM Arizona time.

ACOMA, NM A 7-hour drive led us to Acoma, NM, site of the Acoma Pueblo, longest continuously inhabited city in North America. Our original plan was to overnight at Blue Water State Park near the continental divide, but we saw wonderful billboards advertising a casino resort with great RV parking. We checked in, and it was really nice, designed perfectly. Regrettably, the spa and swimming pool were out of order, and the shuttle was not very prompt. Following their buffet, we signed up for the "free" slot machine pulls, Kay played enough to pay for dinner with what remained of the "free" money, and promptly lost $10 of her money. Tomorrow we’re off to Roswell, Kay’s "birthplace"; it’s entirely possible she will be beamed up and Donald will return home alone!

SUNRISE After a night with temps in the low 30s, we awoke early to see the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. The ranger giving the interpretive program the night before recommended Yaki Point for viewing the sun rise. We drove the car to a parking area, then walked, and walked, and walked! Finally, after about 3 miles, we found the site, and the sun was already up. A robust discussion ensued about the seven Ps (Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance). Anyway, we made it back to the car with Donald suffering only 2 blisters, one on each foot.

RIM TRAIL Following a big breakfast, we walked the remaining west end of the Rim Trail, adding another 2 miles to our already stiff muscles, but saw some beautiful scenery. Included in the walk was a short jaunt down Bright Angel Trail to observe some pictographs and petrogliphs. Some of the edge was a sheer drop, but Kay made it okay, hugging the wall side.

DRIVE TO DESERT VIEW Driving in, we passed several view points on the eastern edge of the park, and decided to drive back there, some 27 miles, and take a look this afternoon. We drove almost all the way to the East Entrance to Desert View and noted the spectacular landscape from up in the Grand Canyon. From there one can see the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon.

On the way back "down" to our campsite, we were stopped by a number of elk crossing in front of us.

HIKER OVER THE EDGE The sirens we heard yesterday was in fact related to a hiker going over the edge. A 47-year old man from Prescott, AZ, apparently fell off the edge at Desert View, just as one enters the park from the east. He fell 250 feet to his death. It’s amazing that more people don’t fall. We watched dozens upon dozens of folks, many in flip flops, standing on the very edge, with nothing below for several hundred feet. And the pushing and shoving to get a good view…

SUNSET Kay wanted to view sunset over Grand Canyon, just as she wanted to see the sunrise (remember the 7 P’s). Yavapai Observation Station was recommended and it must have been the place, because everyone else was there as well. The sunset was not that special in and of itself, but the colors and shadows cast on the east wall were spectacular. We returned to DunnGone for a brief rest, we drove to Shrine of the Ages for the evening interpretive program, Stories of Phantom Ranch.The ranger did a great job mixing humor with history.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN Today, we leave Utah for good, heading south to Arizona and the south rim of Grand Canyon. There are many sites to see in the Kanab, UT, area; one we missed is Antelope Canyon near Page, AZ. The canyon is on the Navajo Reservation and has unbelievable formations earmarked by swirls and changing colors. The Navajo reservation lacks a lot to be desired. Most families do not have running water, and poverty appears to be widespread. Most houses have hogans in close proximity for family worship, etc. The roads in Arizona are mostly rough, and we banged, clanged, and rattled our way to Grand Canyon in DunnGone.

KARYN’S BIRTHDAY Today is daughter Karyn’s birthday. Happy birthday, Karyn. Is this number 30? Sure! We mailed her card from the North Rim of Grand Canyon. Kay spent a good portion of the morning on the road trying to get in touch with her to sing Happy Birthday, and finally succeeded.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH RIM Everything you’ve heard about Grand Canyon is true. It is deep, and it is wide.

We just weren’t prepared for its awesomeness. Looking over the side, it just goes down, then down again, then down again, etc. After a brief stop at the Visitor’s Center, we hiked most of the rim, and took untold numbers of photos. Kay was a brave soul, but stayed away from edges of the trail where there were sheer, steep drop-offs. During our hike, we heard lots of sirens, and mused that someone had gone off the edge! After the rim hike, we mailed Jenny’s birthday card, from the South Rim of Grand Canyon, hopefully to arrive on October 13.

After a quick supper in DunnGone, we drove over to Shrine of the Ages for a park interpretive program on the Canyon. The ranger was very knowledgeable and had a wonderful sense of humor. They have an interpretive program every night. He did show us pictures of how many people are here on holidays. It was scary!! Here are these jutout bluffs, some with fences and rails and some with nothing at all and these people just jammed against each other! Not for Kay!! Kay just shivers everytime someone steps off the rim trail and walks to the edge to take a picture. The numbers of people here are incredible also. Bus load after bus load pull up every day. The ranger said most people stay about 3 1/2 hrs. and that’s it. No way can one see something of this magnitude in that amount of time. We walked more than half of the rim today and will walk more tomorrow. We are boondocking (no hookups of any kind) and we’re packing on the blankets tonight because they’re predicting a low of 26%.

REVISITING ZION NATIONAL PARK We’re on our own again after an intense week of the Elderhostel Tour. We are opting to go back to Zion National Park to revel in its awesome magnitude and beauty, despite the rain yesterday and some clouds that remain.

Zion reminds Donald a lot of Yosemite in as much as it has 3,000 foot vertical cliffs, and is climbed the 2nd most of any park, next to Yosemite, in the country. Today, we took the shuttle the entire route up the canyon and back, noting the names of places where we took pictures a few days ago. This is a photo of the Court of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We are only spending a few hours in Zion, as we’ve hiked the short trails and seen all the sites. Tomorrow, we’re off to the South Rim, Grand Canyon. Boy, one thing we’ve really noticed is these ‘folks’ from California are really rude and discourteous drivers. We’re not sure if they are mostly ‘foreign visitors’ who fly into CA, rent cars, and come out here or what. I’ll bet there were less than 25% Americans at each park we have visited this trip. All the rest were from Europe – esp. Germany & France; and then from China and/or Japan. Lots of foreigners with money coming here. Certainly is a reflection of the state of our economy.

FLAT TIRE We awoke to a steady rain and a flat tire, again, on the Saturn. This is the 3rd time the front driver’s side tire has gone flat, despite an attempt to patch it. This may be a blessing in disguise as we are both tired, and need a rest day. St. George, UT, is about 70 miles from Kanab, and has a Costco. We departed Kanab about 9 AM, bought a new set of tires, had them installed, did some shopping, and returned to DunnGone at 1:15 PM. We washed clothes, and cleaned the inside of DunnGone. This ought to do us until we return home next weekend.Kay’s sis had given her the info on ‘coloring her roots’ while RVing and she bought the product and it worked okay. She thinks she needs a little darker color next time. Hope she gets it figured out before we’re gone for three (3) months to Alaska next summer. If not, you might not recognize this woman when we return! Hehehe! It was also football Saturday, so we spent the rest of the day cooling it.

GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, UT Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in general, and Lake Powell specifically, really surprised us with unparalleled geologic beauty. Lake Powell is huge, and is known as a houseboat lake because of all the houseboats either kept or rented there. The lake not only provides substantial hydropower, but provides water for large cities in Arizona and Nevada. It fluctuates over 100 feet, and today is down about 60 feet. The tour boat we rode would seat about 100 people, with 40 being able to sit on the open-air upper deck, and 60 people in the enclosed lower deck. Formations forming and along the lake’s shoreline were incredible, highlighted by cross-bedded sandstone (windblown sand having formed dunes, then becoming petrified), and manganese stained vertical cliffs. We actually rode into a side canyon with high, vertical walls and no more than 3 or 4 feet of clearance on either side for the almost 60 foot boat.

RAINBOW BRIDGE NATIONAL MONUMENT Our ultimate destination via the boat tour was Rainbow Bridge, a geologic formation considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. We took a side canyon to a National Park Service dock, unloaded, and hiked the ¾ mile to the landmark. It was great! After several photos, we returned to a box lunch aboard the boat and made our way back to the tour boat dock. The Elderhostel Tour then visited the Glen Canyon Lake Visitor’s Center. This was no Corps of Engineers visitor center; the Bureau of Reclamation must get lots of money, cause it was staffed to the maximum, kept long hours, and had all the bells and whistles. Glen Canyon was dammed when it was found that Lake Mead (Hoover Dam) was filling with sediment at a much faster rate than projected, and consequently could not provide the storage needed to meet water supply requirements.

NAVAJO VILLAGE, PAGE, AZ Following our visit to the visitor’s center, we stopped at Navajo Village in Page, AZ, for a Navajo taco (fry bread topped with chili and beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions, and blue corn chips), and a program on Navajo tradition and culture. This was the terminal event for our Elderhostel Tour, and we returned to Kanab after 10 PM. Who said life-long learning was easy? We did learn that the Navajo prefer to be called the Dine (pronounced de neh). They believe four is a sacred number and believe all important things in life come in fours – the directions, the seasons, life cycles, quadrant man, etc. It was very interesting. We visited a hogan, a weavers’ area, a sweat lodge, and a teepee. We were really tired by the end of this day after starting at 6:00 and getting home around 10:15 p.m.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK, UT We returned to Bryce Canyon National Park under the auspices of the Elderhostel Tour. We opted for a hike all the way down to the canyon floor via the Queens Gardens trail and back up, almost vertically, via the Wall Street trail.

The bark on some of the trees in this part of the country smells like vanilla or butterscotch, depending on your sense of smell. Here’s a shot of Donald smelling a tree.

 FACING YOUR FEARS Kay is afraid of heights – acrophobia, I think. Our instructor offered us three options to explore Bryce via Sunrise Point. One group hiked the rim for two hours. One group did a short rim hike for 1/2 a mile and one group was hiking down into the canyon and hoodoos for what was supposed to be a 1 1/4 mile hike. Donald and Kay chose to go down among the hoodoos with Art our bus driver as guide. Of course, Kay had her walking stick and stuck to the inside wall of the trail especially on the switchbacks. One thing that helped was that another hiker, Mary, from California went on the hike and she was afraid of heights also. Dick, our fellow RVer and friend who had to start down late because he was talking to his son about a medical concern finally caught up with us. The canyon floor was spectacular once we got down and looking up at the hoodoos was fabulous. When we got to ‘Wallstreet’ we started up. I bet there were a dozen switchbacks climbing back up and it was at least a 500 to 600 ft. rise in elevation. Folks, that the equivalent of climbing up a 50-60 story building. Kay tried not to look down, just kept her eyes on the trail. Wow, did we have an appetite when we got to the top and it was time for our picnic lunch which was excellent, by the way. We think we hiked about 2 1/2 miles and we got a round of applause and many attaboys from the rest of the group.

TOO TIRED TO SHOP. After that we stopped at Ruby’s Country Store. This Mormon family owns this entire little town right outside the canyon – motels, restaurants, lodges, RV parks, car repair, etc. You name it, they got it. Didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without! Hehehe!

ZION NATIONAL PARK, UT After another early departure and a one hour drive, we arrived at Zion National Park northwest of Kabab. Zion National Park is an approximately 3,000 foot deep canyon with sheer cliffs on either side. The drive into the park was via a series of switchbacks, the likes of which we have never seen, and a mile long tunnel which was not wide enough for two lanes of large vehicles. They stop traffic for the large vehicles to travel through. Back to Zion, many of the features are named after biblical figures, not by the Mormons, but by a reverend/explorer that visited the area shortly after it was named a national park. We arrived at Zion Lodge, then took the shuttle to the Grotto, Weeping Rock, and Temple of Sinawava where we did the Riverside Walk trail. Along the way we noted the Great White Throne formation.

After lunch, we stopped by the old Zion Lodge and did a hike to Emerald Pools. Water coming out of the mountain has been found to be up to 400 years old, filtering through the rocks all that time. Returning to the Lodge, Donald had his picture taken beside the old, old cottonwood tree on the lawn.

While at Zion National Park, we also saw the Sentinel, Altar of Sacrifice, and East Temple, all over 7,000 feet. On the way out, we stopped to look at Checkerboard Mesa which has both horizontal and vertical planes. Once again, photos do not do justice to the “sheer” dimensions of any of the geologic features.

NORTH RIM, GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, AZ Following a continental breakfast at the hotel hosting the Elderhostel Tour (along with two other tour buses full of people), we departed for the North Rim, Grand Canyon, stopping at a viewing area to see the Grand Staircase. We won’t bore you with the geology, but it is very interesting. Our next stop was the Kaibab Plateau Visitor’s Center operated by the US Forest Service. Finally, we arrived at Grand Canyon Lodge on the north rim for viewing via Angel Point. If you’ve seen any travel shows on Grand Canyon, you may have seen the brass burro in the Grand Canyon Lodge. Here’s a photo of Donald doing the good luck rubbing of the burro’s nose. After lunch in the lodge dining room (a not so good buffet of pasta and salad), we traveled to Inspiration Point for a view of Marble Canyon and another view of Grand Canyon. Most notable about this latter leg were the golden aspen everywhere.