Just what ARE we doing?

We've been visiting and camping in some of the most perfect fall weather, ever.  Jenn and Greg came to the Cliffside Campground with their boys' tent and girls' tent and their "cooking" screen room.  We had some wonderful, sunny, warm weather.  It rained during the night Saturday, but Sunday was sunny, again.

We sat around

We walked



We posed for pictures - Grandpa with Emma, Grace and Sam

We went swinging

 It was a good camping weekend, all around.
On Monday, it was back to work and school, as usual

Jenn didn't work on Monday so we came to visit Momma and Grace during the day.  Grace and Grandma played the piano together.


Grandma and Grace (do you recognize Grandma's old piano?)



We'll be leaving Milwaukee on Wednesday to start our way back across the country.  We're not sure of the route, but we're leaning toward a warmer, southern route.  Stay tuned for updates on our progress west, just don't hold your breath if something isn't posted right away.

Catch-up

After northern Missouri, we decided to stop in Pekin, IL where we have previously lived.  We drove through the corner of Iowa and crossed the Mississippi River at Burlington.  Illinois was covered with fields of corn and beans, some ready to harvest, some already cut. 

 



Crossing the Mississippi River - scene from RV

 

 We called several people in Pekin to see if they were going to be around.  This resulted in lunch on Sat with Jim and Linda Moore and supper Sat evening with Glenn and Dee Ioder, including a boat ride around the Pekin Lake where they live and where Nicole and Jennifer have skied with Glenn. They have sold their ski boat but found that they can ski behind the pontoon on which we were riding.  And yes, for those of you who know Glenn, his 90th birthday was in August and he went water skiing with his kids and grand kids on that day. They were on their way to Czechoslovakia  on Monday and were glad we called while they were still in town.



West view of  Pekin High School (for those of you who attended here). A new addition included a pool.  The real entrance is still on the north, where it always was. There is a sign here that says, "This is not an entrance."  :)



We went to church on Sunday and got to see many people, including Gaye Petty, who invited us out for lunch.  In the afternoon, we went to visit Mary Hobson, who is moving soon to a new house in the Chicago area.  Her hushand, Ken died this year and she is going to be living with her daughter. Nice visiting with everyone.

All the while we were in central Illinois, we stayed at the Kentuckiana Kampground, a very nice full hook-up place, where there is a Saturday night country music concert, free with the site.  We missed the concert, but there were several hundred sites filled with attendees.  We never knew this campground existed just east of Pekin, and has since 1970.  It's only about 15 miles southeast of town, out in the corn fields.

From Pekin we traveled to one of our favorite county campgrounds - Cliffside, in Racine, WI, and only 17 miles from Jennifer's.  We had dinner with the family (we brought Kentucky Fried Chicken, which Jennifer says Sam and Emma associate with Grandma and Grandpa.)  We visited on Tuesday and saw Sam and Emma's Big School and played with Grace on Jennifer's day off.  Today we're relaxing - ahhhhhhhhh!

Moving East and North

After staying in La Junta, CO, we traveled following the Santa Fe Trail most of the time.  Earlier this summer we did many miles along the Oregon Trail.  Many people emigrated along the Santa Fe Trail, but it was a really important route for commerce, with the railroad then following a similar track.  All very interesting.

We stayed in Big Bend, Kansas - that would be a big bend in the Arkansas River. Today we crossed the Missouri River into Missouri and are staying near Eagleville, MO in the north of the state.  We're in a really comfortable campground.  Below is a picture of Bob getting ready to cook dinner under a beautiful old oak tree.  We walked down to a little lake on the property, and now we're enjoying the sun set.

Site #16 at Eagle Ridge RV Park

Wednesday in Taos and a travel day

We left Abiquiu Lake and made our way to Taos, NM with John and Jane.  We shopped around the Old Town, near the Plaza.  It was a wonderful place to shop. We took a picture of the yarn shop below to send to Peg, enjoyed lunch and spent lots of time in a minerals shop (Jane's favorite.)  Then we parted ways.  They are going to visit some relatives in Kansas and we're back on the road to Milwaukee.



Taos Yarn Shop



Then we drove another "blue highway," Colorado 10, to get to La Junta, CO, where we had reservations for the night. As we drove in the high desert, we kept seeing very large spiders crossing the road.  They had to be tarantulas.  We could see them at 60 mph.  When we asked at the campground, they said that the spiders are migrating.  Sounded good, since we saw so many.  When I researched a little on the Internet, I found that people say that they are migrating, but they are really looking for a female with whom to mate.  They apparently live quite long, but I'm thinking they should find a mate on their own side of the road, "cause it's really hard on longevity. 



Male tarantula, on the prowl

 

Tuesday - the Last day at Lake Abiquiui

Tuesday was a quiet day, but we did go to see what Georgia O'Keeffe called the "White Place." aka Plaza Blanca.  They are white limestone cliffs and formations unlike the sandstone scenery everywhere else around here.  We couldn't go earlier in the week because all the rain had made it flooded and dangerous. It was beautiful and haunting.  See pictures below.

Plaza Blanca from a distance



A really craggy northern exposure




A look across at a southern exposure



It looks like buildings

Jane took this with a time lapse shot.  We had a great time



Sunday and Monday

This is one of the only pictures we took at LosAlamos.  That's John standing in front of the Museum. Bradbury was one of the LosAlamos directors after WWII, not the author. It was more information than I could take in, more of the level that Elijah would be interested in and will someday understand.



While we have had lots of rain, it's made for some beautiful sunsets at the campground, looking out over the lake.

On Sunday we went to a canyon not far from the campground called Echo Amphitheater. It is a beautiful formation of sandstone and we walked up the trail, into the "echo chamber" where you could hear you own voice echo. Of course, Bob sang a song.

Up the trail, into the semi-circle of sandstone

A view of the edge of the canyon

A view of Echo Amphitheater from the beginning of the trail

On Monday we went to Santa Fe.  We shopped, ate lunch, and visited a few sites.

This is along the edge of the Plaza where Native American vendors are sitting under the portico with their beautiful wares on blankets in front of them.  I bought a beautiful, black pot and Jane bought a necklace. That's her in the crosswalk, taking a picture.

Inside of Loretto Chapel

The spiral staircase has no support except where it fastens to the balcony and where it sits on the floor. Built in 1873, it is a mystery how it has remained suspended and supports a person on their way up to the balcony. 

Another view of Pedernal Mesa, after the sun has disappeared.

 

Sunday morning

This is the view from our camp site.  It is Pedernal Mesa, a land mark that Georgia O'Keeffe painted many times.  This morning the skies are a little clear and the mesa had a necklace of clouds around it, very pretty.

I couldn't resist finding this image on line of one of her paintings of it.

Yesterday we went to LosAlamos with John and Jane, the secret home of the atomic bomb of WWII. It's not secret anymore, and the National Laboratory is doing all kinds of research.  The museum was very interesting including such things as the evolution of the computer and growing and using algae as a source for bio fuels, and of course, the history of the Manhattan Project.

Did I mention that it's been raining here? historic rains.  All the flooding that has happened in Colorado is coming from the same storms that we have been having.  Last night, a friend of Jane's from Ohio who now lives around here (in fact, she was our tour guide for the O'Keeffe house) came to their campsite for dinner.  John finally got the wet wood lighted for a fire and the veggies and brats were ready to cook over the fire.  The wind picked up, changed direction, and started to move some very ugly rain into our little corner of the world.  We could see the storms all the time, because you can see wide expanses of sky, but they weren't bothering us until we had everything out on the picnic table and the food was almost cooked.  We all voted to change the location for our eating to our RV, on the other side of the campground circle.  We brought everything to the Phoenix Cruiser.  Jane finished cooking the smokey veggies on the stove and we settled in for a nice dinner, much warmer and drier than at the picnic table.  That's the most people we've ever served inside - five.  With Grandma Swain's folding table, it worked out really well.

We're resting a little today, but have several other sites to see in this area.  More another time.

A day in Albuquerque

We drove to Albuquerque and had a very nice lunch with Alexandra Zurkan. Her mom, Linda Cochran, has worked with Bob in a couple of different congregations. Alexandra is going to school in Albuquerque and it was fun to catch up with her. We drove home by a different route and got to see a little more of the New Mexico countryside.

The day was finished with an evening snack in Stoffers' van - coffee, fresh baked cookies and ice cream. The sky is finally clearish, no rain. More travel info tomorrow. (no pics)

Abiquiu Lake and Ghost Ranch

On our way to the Army Corps of Engineers campground at Abiquiu Lake we crossed the Continental Divide.  We believe that this is the 5th time that we've crossed the Divide this summer.

We set up camp across a little gully from John and Jane Stoffer. And then we went to dinner at the Abiquiu Inn.  Abiquiu is a very small town (inn, post office, general store, art gallery, and Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and house.) On Thursday (today) we went back to the grocery store and the art gallery.  In the morning we toured the Georgia O'Keeffe house.  It was fascinating.  She was a very private person and loved living in New Mexico - in Abiquiu during the winter and at Ghost Ranch in a house she owned there during the summer (just a little north of here.) One of her favorite subjects were the cottonwood trees that grow around here where there is a water supply.  The picture below is an old cottonwood that is growing outside of the art museum.

On the grounds of Ghost Ranch, an education and retreat center now owned by the Presbyterian Church USA, some archeology and paleontological digs have taken place. There is a museum that we visited that had some dinosaur bones, including the "State Fossil of New Mexico."

And above some of the buildings is a formation called Chimney Rock as well as many beautiful rock cliffs on the property.  We walked all around.  Visited all the gifts shops and museums, Bob and Jane walked the Labyrinth, and we snooped in one of the old adobe houses built in the late 1800's.  It was a great day all around.  It's been raining quite constantly since we got here, so we had soup and salad, that Jane had made for supper, in the Phoenix Cruiser.


Chimney Rock on the skyline





So much for lunch

It happens that as soon as I uploaded the second picture at our lunch stop (in the Taco Bell parking lot), the computer battery was depleted.  :-(

But, alas, we have a strong signal for the Hot Spot on Bob's phone at our Lake Abiquiu campsite and I'm ready to go again.



This is the sandstone along the canyon walls at a place we walked to a view point




This is the walk down to the view point.  It was a haul, but Linda made it down (and back, you'll be glad to know.)





And this is what we saw - Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado

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Our next day we drove on, through the Four Corners Area, passing from Arizona to Colorado, Southwest to Northeast.  It's an area that has some beautiful scenery.

 

This formation is called Cathedral Rock


 

Bob, standing in four states


 

Linda, standing in four states

   Then we arrived at Mesa Verde and spent all of the following day (I think that was Tuesday) touring the park. The morning was spent on a bus tour and the afternoon was in the Visitors' Center, the Museum, and at the Spruce Tree House.  See pictures below.

Cliff Palace from the top of our trail down. 
Yes, both Linda and Bob did this tour -
100 feet down and 100 feet up

Looking at group ahead of us from our first stop down.

Looking across the front of the cliff houses at Cliff Palace,
the largest cliff dwellings in in North America

Another site we viewed from a view point, the tallest dwelling in the park,
four stories. The parks service is stabilizing this structure, thus the scaffolding around it.

This is a dwelling across from the Museum, the Spruce Tree House.  You can hike down the canyon
and then back up to this one, but it was the end of the day so we just enjoyed it from across the way.



Lunch and internet access

This is a picture of Lake Powell, which has numerous houseboats for rent, even more than were on Shasta Lake, where we rented one with Bill and Barb.  They were all at least 35 feet long. Looked like fun.

Lake Powell from above with marina of houseboats below

Glen Canyon Dam with Lake Powell on top and Colorado River below.

Traveling with a stop at the Glen Canyon and Lake Powell

Sorry for the lack of new posts.  Slow internet connections and impatient editor resulted in no news.  We "camped" in Page, AZ.  It is very near Lake Powell that was created with the damming of the Colorado River as it passes through Glen Canyon.  It had rained the afternoon of this picture and the waterfall in the background just poured over the edge.  I'm sure it's not usually there in this desert environment.



Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam looking through the highway bridge.

 Now I'm having trouble with low WiFi strength (again) and can't seem to get any more pictures to upload.  We're off to Lake Abique in NM tomorrow.  Maybe then I'll be able to finish some posts.

A Day in Zion Canyon

Today was a spectacular day visiting the Zion Canyon part of Zion NP.  The free shuttle stops at all the points of interest, and we did a little of everything.  There are many hikes throughout the park. In fact one popular high and strenuous hike was closed because they were rescuing a person who had slipped and fell the day before (so the rumor mill explained.) We saw the helicopter with a rescue basket hanging from it, including the rescued person (our bus driver said that was a good sign that they were bringing someone out.) There was an ambulance waiting for the chopper at the Lodge.

We didn't try anything but the easy trails.  We got lots of pictures and I'll just share them with you.

The view from our campsite (taken yesterday when the sky was blue)

The Virgin River carved the Zion Canyon

 A general canyon picture



Some great color variations in the rock walls

 

We walked along the Riverside Walk.  It leads to a place where there is only water between the walls, called the Narrows. We didn't go through the water, but many people do.  This looks toward the Narrows.

Bob walked to the beginning of the Narrows and took this picture.

We walked the Weeping Rock Trail to this wall where springs leak water all the time and plants grow abundantly.

 



These pictures show the variation of plant life.  The entire area is a desert environment, but the river and springs allow for an abundant variety of plant life.