Rich & Joan and Murray & Shelle

Today we drove up to Trailer Village CG inside the Grand Canyon National Park to visit Rich & Joan Walters and Murray & Shelle McDole.   We tried last week to make a reservation at their CG but it is full.  It is amazing how busy Arches and now the Grand Canyon parks are.  Just like Arches there are hundreds of small class C rental RVs all over the place.

Here's Rich, Shelle, Murray, Joan, Judy and myself at the south rim.  We rode the park bus to the Arizona Room for lunch.  We sat at their campsite the afternoon catching up since it's been a couple years since we have seen each other, great visit.

                                                Here's Murray checking out the big ditch.

                     Here's Rich with a friend in the background as we sat at their campsite talking.

                                     Joan, Shelle and Judy with a friend in the campground.

This fellow was chasing the ladies who wanted nothing to do with him.  He walked past me 10 feet away, I didn't think he'd come that close.

There was a small elk herd wandering around in the campground eating nuts from the trees.  They were not afraid of anything.  The campers were pretty much ignoring them after seeing them for awhile and they ignored us.  One was licking the water leaking from a rental RVs water hose connection.

Jacob Lake to Williams, AZ

Today we made the 200 mile tow down to Williams after saying good bye to Ron & Roberta and Mel & Dee as they head east toward home.   We have reached the furthest point west on this trip.  We started to break camp and half way through it started to rain so we just went inside and waited an hour.  We caught these pictures of the clouds in the mountains after we descended to the desert at 4000 feet.

As we drove over the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry we spotted a fellow waving his arms as we passed.  Judy thought it was a HitchHiker friend, Sarge and Gill who split their time between the US and England.  Unfortunately we didn't realize it was them until we were a few miles down the road. Wish I would have stopped.

This is our site in Williams at Grand Canyon Railroad RV Park.  The is a train station here that has daily trains up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon\, about 60 miles north.  We'll be here 3 nights.

Grand Canyon, north rim

When we arrived yesterday Ron & Roberta and Mel & Dee were already there.  They had been to Zion and Bryce Canyon national Parks while we were in Moab and Monument Valley.  Good to with our RV friends again.  None of us have been to the north rim so we are looking forward to the experience.

               The trip to the park was through forest and meadows as the aspen trees were turning yellow.

                                    Here's Mel and Dee at the north rim near the visitors center.

This view is from the visitor center & lodge area.  We got lunch at the deli and took it to the porch of the lodge to eat as we looked at the canton.

In addition to the visitor center/lodge area there are two other key viewing areas you can drive to. The pictures above and one below with Judy are from the furthest one out, about a 20 miles ride.  If you click on the picture below to enlarge it you can see people on the top of the cliff jutting out into the canyon.

This is a view as we drove on the narrow road to the second viewing area about 8 miles off the main park road.  The trucks mirror and rear fender hit more than one bush.

On the way back we ran across this heard of bison casually having their dinner.

Monument Valley, UT to Jacob Lake, AZ

Being an early bird Judy was up at daybreak and took a walk around the campground and took some good pictures as the sun rose over Monument Valley.  

                      Then we were off to Jacob Lake to see the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

 

As we traveled through the desert the temperature got up to 90 degrees at about 3900 feet.  as we climbed up to 8000 feet and Jacob Lake the terrain turned from desert to pine forest.  It was raining as we climbed and arrived at the campground.  When we arrived the temperature was 59 degrees and the pine forest smelled great.

Monument Valley, UT

One more arch as we left Moab.......................

OK, on the way to Monument Valley...............

The landscape begins to change................

Mexican Hat Rock................

The tall red "monuments" now appear.......

The "monuments" seem to be clustered for the most part in a relatively small area.  They are miles apart but this area covers  hundreds of miles.

This is our site for the night in Monument Valley.  The campground is in a box canyon.

Judy and I have never seen so many small class C rental RV's.  We see hundreds of them now.  This campground and the roads are full of them.   There are many many large buses with tourists too.

Movie museum

There are many many movies made in this area starting in the late 1940s.  We watched Rio Grande two nights ago with John Wayne which was made in this area.  A lodge about a half hour from Moab on the Colorado River has a museum so Judy and I rode along the river to check out the museum.  After that we stopped and did our laundry and filled up with diesel as we are off to Monument Valley tomorrow.  Moab is quite touristy with ATVs, river rafting, the two national parks, off road jeeps, hiking and the like.  This is a pretty area but we are starting to miss green trees & grass and blue water. The water out here is brown.

                                                          Here's Judy with the Duke.

Remember Thelma & Louise?  It wasn't the Grand Canyon they drove off, it was here.  Here's Thelma, the dummy, that was recovered from the river along with the Thunderbird.  Louise was never found.

Here's a couple pics from a winery patio.  Surprise, Judy tasted but didn't buy any wine!

And here's a couple pictures taken along the river road.

  

Colorado River evening cruise

Last night we had a BBQ dinner followed by a 2 hour evening and night cruise on a very large flat bottom boat on the Colorado River.  After the sunset there was a truck with a generator and large spot light driving on the road adjacent to the river lighting up the rock walls.  It was interesting and perhaps a little spooky.  No pictures after dark.