Munds Wagon Trail

DAY 10:

View of Sedona in the Valley

After a steady rain the last couple of days, we were scheduled to have a break in the weather.  With this information, John and I decided to get a hike in first thing in the morning, before the sun rises over the canyon walls.  If we thought we liked the trail hike around Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte a few days ago, then this was ten times better!  Yes it was muddy, but hey, we're here only a few days.  It 's now or never???  The Munds Wagon Trail is a wilderness trail that zig zags across Oak Creek's dry river bed in numerous areas, except it wasn't dry today.  The creek was filled with running water creating waterfalls and areas that we had to traverse through.   Yes, we got wet but we had so much!!!  The dogs loved the trail too especially having drinking water available as needed.  We turned around after a 1 and 1/2 hour hike one way as we did not know for sure how long it would take to continue the trail all the way around one of the red rock mesas.  The hike back took a little less time probably because we did not stop to take as many pictures.

Forging through Oak Creek

Morning mist

When we got back to the rental car we had to clean the dogs before we could load them up.  Thank-goodness we had thought of brining a bucket with fresh water to put their paws in to clean them up a bit.  We also had plenty of doggie towels spread out on the back seat.  Then, when we got home, we took Da Boyz into the RV shower one at a time to clean them up completely.  Pippa, being a little taller, did not need a shower as her height kept her from dragging her belly in the red clay.  Only after we cleaned the pups did John and I get to shower.  Our red clay-coverd shoes are still sitting outside the RV waiting for their turn.  The washer and dryers at the camp do not permit shoes in the machines, and I understand why! We also found out that the marathon that was scheduled for today was cancelled due to the flooding of many sections of the trail.  Only the half marathon, the 10K and 5K were run.  Apparently this was a very unusual and sizable rainfall for this neck-of-the-woods.

Cathedral Rock

By 12:30 we were on our way to Jerome, a revived ghost town known for its copper mining the first half of the 20th century.  After WWII it was discovered by hippies who have claimed it and have turned it into an artisan town.  John enjoyed going through the museum while I walked the pups.  On our way back to Sedona we stopped  at the infamous Cathedral Rock to get a closer look.  It is supposed to have some beautiful trails around it as well but due to the rain we just didn't get to it.

Delayed Photos of the GC

DAY 8 continued:
I wrote yesterday's entry before we went to dinner with our new neighbors.  So let me just catch up quickly. We dined at the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant in Sedona: Casa Sedona and it was fantastic.  It is not your traditional Mexican food.  It is REFINED Mexican food at it's best!  I had a salad with fresh goat cheese and John had the Spinach/Fennel enchiladas with duck.  The prices were, to us, very high for Mexican food, but for Sedona they were fair.

DAY 9:  Rain, rain, go away.  Come back some other day!  The much needed rain in this region has kept us from going on the hikes we had so looked forward to taking with our pups.  Walking in red clay however, is just not fun.  Besides, it was rainy, misty, and cloudy so we would not have seem much anyway.  We took the opportunity instead to check out the local native artifact vendors that are along Hwy 89A, 365 days a year come rain, sleet, snow, blizzards, etc. We also visited some galleries displaying Navaho and Hopi woven rugs and jewelry.  If you want the real "quality" McCoy, you pay for it though!

                          We finally downloaded some of our Grand Canyon photos.  We've had trouble moving them in an orderly fashion however.   :(

John took this picture of me from an opposing cliff.

Center top corner is trail head down the canyon

Enlarge view of trail down.

  

View of the Colorado River

    

Javelins and the Grand Canyon

DAY 7:

A little statue in Sedona

The first order of business each morning is to take Teddy, Pippa, and Otis our for their "relieve walk."    I do this while John gently sleeps the morning way. LOL.  It has been a little more difficult to take them potty by myself since Teddy needs some extra care.  This morning Otis, as usual, was the first one out of the RV, but it was not as smooth as it usually is.  He darted off under the RV and started to bark wildly.  I had to reign him and settle him down before I could do anything else, but that was easier said than done.  We were surrounded by a herd of Javelins, a native small pig that roam freely in this part of the country.  At first I thought it was just six or seven, and then I saw the whole mob, probably two dozen of them.  I had to pick Otis up and get us both to safety as I had heard that Javelins can be nasty if feeling threatened. Once they were gone, I took the pups for their walk, fed them their breakfast, and proceeded with our day.

The magnificent Grand Canyon did not disappoint! We took our rental car for the two hour drive to see this natural beauty on Wednesday, as the weather was predicted to be clear.  We left our rig by 8:30 AM and got to our destination by 11:00ish.  After checking into the Visitor's Center we approached the canyon cliffs with great anticipation, but we were saddened that the whole canyon was filled with milky clouds.  You could only see the other side of the divide, and we were concerned that we may not get a full impression of the grandeur of this magnificent national park.   We proceeded to take our pups for a three hour walk along the south rim.  As the noontime hour came upon us, the clouds parted and we were able to soak in the beauty that the GC has to offer.  We  ventured out on some of the fenced cliffs to get a more impressive view of the canyon floor.  We did get a peek of the Colorado River between the steep canyon walls.  More pictures to follow.

Apple slices, nuts, and  bottled water sustained us for lunch.  Even the pups enjoyed some fruit.  There were many tour busses loaded with visitors from Japan.  Apparently we were a site to be seen as many of these visitors wanted to take a picture of us with our pups.  Pippa especially seemed to be of high interest.  We were amazed by the attire many of these Japanese people were wearing:  stilettos, dress pants & shoes, shirts and ties, etc.  You would have thought they were going out to a nice restaurant rather than a wonder of nature.  By 3:00 PM all five of us were tuckered out and we were more than happy to get in our little rental and head back to camp in Sedona.  Once we had arrived at our RV and changed our clothes, we headed out for our first dinner in a restaurant at The Golden Goose.

DAY 8:
Squealing during the wee hours of the morning brought to mind the Javelins I saw the previous day.  They were surrounding our RV again and I had to let our pups know that all was okay.  Today was a much needed day of rest.  No long car ride for this family!  Today we just want to stick around "home" and see a bit of the townsite Sedona.  We did take our pups on an hour walk up a dry creek-bed so that we would feel better about leaving them in the car while we window-shopped.  We met some of our neighbors and their dogs, sat on the patio while the dogs chewed on their toys in the doggie kennel, and I did some laundry.  It was nice to just relax.

Teddy and Otis napping outdoors

John and Pippa doing their thing.

So many trails choose from

DAY 6:
Today is our official first full day in Sedona and we couldn't wait to hit the trail, but before we could put on our hiking boots, we had to pick up our rental car.  By the time we were done with the car we realized we had to feed our hungry tummies.  Cafe Jose had been recommended as the place where the locals eat.  We enjoyed our 11:30AM breakfast. It is served all day, and then w went in search of the park pass we would need through-out our stay.  Because one of us is over 62 years, we got a life pass to all national parks for just $10.00.

We chose Bell Rock/Courthouse loop trail for our very first hike.  It was reported to take about two hours and we figured that's all we would have time for today as it was already 2:10 when we got to the trail head.  Bell Rock can also be climbed, but we figured we would just go around it especially since we had our pups with us.  The trail was very nicely maintained and clean (if red dirt is clean).  It was also well marked which is important as many other trails come and merge onto the loop we were taking.   The terrain changed from powdery red dirty, to red boulders, to rocky flats that looked like they have regular flash-floods come over them.  The biggest treat were all the rock formations that could be seen around each new bend.  The colors were the brightest when the sun was directly on the.

When we got back to the car, the dogs as well as the both of us downed some water, and then the pups were more than happy to sleep on the back seat on our way to town. One stop was a must for us.  We had been so consumed with all that we would need for our RV trip that we totally forgot to pack a day-pack to carry bottled water, snacks, 1st aid kit, etc.  We had to stop at a sporting-goods store to get that pack. We all need water on the trails.  We are now back at "home" and all three pups are out for the night.  I think John and I will turn in early as well as we have another big day planned for tomorrow.

We took a bunch more pictures but we're having trouble transferring them to the laptop.  The wifi at the campsite is not the greatest. :(

ARIZONA are you ready for us?

DAY 5:
3:15 AM.  Drowsy with sleep I hear noises followed by Otis and Pippa whining and panting heavily.  I wonder what is going on.  I make my way to the living room were I put on some clothes and shoes.  I am a chicken at heart so I'm not about to go outside without my protective Pippa, and Otis has to come too.  I hear it again and this time I realize that what I've heard: coyotes, and they are very close by.  Our neighbor's dog is going nuts and now Pippa and Otis are all excited as well.  The coyotes are howling followed by a sequence of yapping.  My pups take advantage of being outside and do their business before I drag them back in the RV in order to get some more sleep.  All this excitement happens while John and Teddy sleep through the whole ordeal.  There are definite benefits to being hard-of-hearing!

We have an appointment at 8:00 AM to have Teddy's drainage tubes removed from his neck.  While there we learn that the howling followed by yapping of the coyotes is indicative of them having killed a prey.  We are told that usually coyotes are hard to find during the day but that off-leash dogs who pick up on their scent and chase one, will undoubtably be lead towards the pack of coyotes and then attacked.  Good to know!  The appointment takes just minutes.  I explain that we have no need for other services but we are told that the tubing can only be removed after an examination.  Yea right!  After paying a $50.00 bill and walking back to our rig, I swear I hear howling and yapping coming from the clinic.  We've no doubt been easy prey.

As soon as we cross over into Arizona, the scenery seems to change. Everything is neater, cleaner somehow.  We stop in Kingman for a coffee and inquire if there is a place where we can get good fresh masa.  A few phone calls and we know where we'll need to stop on our way home.  :)  The scenery around here reminds us of central Oregon with its many pines.  It is beautiful.  We turn off I-40 and turn on to the I-17 and then Hwy 89A to Sedona.  It is the scenic route and boy was it ever gorgeous.  The road itself is a steep grade, dropping 2500 feet in about 10 miles with many hairpin turns and in sections very narrow.  It is like driving Hwy199 "narrows" for 10 miles while going down hill. The speed limit in this section ranged from 40 to 10 mph.  Many times we wished we could have stopped to take pictures but there were just no turn outs.  The good news is that tomorrow we get our rental car and we'll go exploring over the next 5 days.

The town of Sedona is so cute.  As we drove through, we noticed that it was crawling with Snowbirds.  We look forward to joining them in window-shoping tomorrow and the days to follow.  The town is said to be very dog-friendly and even has

a restaurant that "caters to our K-9 friends".  We love our campsite at the Rancho Sedona RV Park.  We are nestled in the trees that in the summer will provide much desired shade.  An Airstream pulled in next to us, and would you know it, Kees the owner is from The Netherlands.  He owns his Airstream and truck, keeps it parked in storage state-side, and then comes over for several months at a time throughout the year.  His significant other is Italian, and they met in Spain a few years back.  It is such a small world!  Cheers, Salud, Proost!

Needles, CA

DAY 4:
We left our campsite in Bakersfield this morning in the hunt for a nearby Walmart and Starbucks.  We had finished our case of water and were in desperate need of more, and we needed our morning cup-of-joe to get us over the Tehachapi Mountains. What should have taken 10 minutes to find turned into 40.  We had a good idea as to where this Walmart and Starbucks were supposed to be so we just headed down Hwy 99 until we could see it. The only problem was that the fog was soooo thick that you could barely see the car in-front of you, needless to say a Walmart that was on the opposite side of the road.  We ended pulling off the road and engaged the Apple Maps app.  We now knew which exit to take, followed the directions, got our necessities, and headed over the Hwy 58 to Barstow.  We were grateful that it was a quiet Sunday morning or the detours of the hunt could have been a lot longer.

Our rig has a standard gas gauge and a window that shows how many miles 'till empty.  This window has proven to be very accurate. It stated that we had 243 mile until empty.  Barstow was just under 170 miles down the road so we figured we were good to go!  And, I think we would have been fine!  However, climbing those steep mountains probably used more gas than the little "gas window" had accounted for so, rather than pushing through to get cheeper gas, we opted to be on the safe side and gas-up some 20 miles west of Barstow, the first gas station we had seen in over two hours.  Later we realized that we paid about 35 cents per gallon more at this lone station.  That is not too terrible for a car that takes 12 to 15 gallons, but our RV was thirsty.  It gulped 73 gallons!  Next time we venture across a desert we will have our tanks filled to the rim.

Today's drive from Bakersfield to Needles was pretty much all through the Mojave Desert.  It was beautiful how the color of the mountains change in places, but it was also very barren.  We cruised at 70 mph for much of the first half and saw many of the mountain ridges were covered with windmills. During the second half of the trip we found out for ourselves just how windy it can get there.  The wind kicked up forcing us to slow down so that we would not be blown off the road.  We arrived at the Palm River Resort (http://www.palmsriverresort.com) around 3:00 pm.  Teddy and Otis don't seem to mind the driving too much, but Pippa is not too sure of the whole RV thing.  She sits in the same spot and pretty much pants the whole time we are on the road.  She then reluctantly climbs in after having been outside for a while.  We hope that a few more days of this will get her to realize that this IS fun!

The Palm River Resort is on the Colorado River. After leveling the rig we took a nice stroll along the river's edge with Otis and Pippa before heading back to our home-on-wheels.  We talked to several people that are staying here, and many of them are true Snowbirds, staying from mid December until mid March each year.  There are also quite a few modular homes that "flying Snowbirds" use for their stay, as well as the used as vacation homes.   After dinner I settled down with my computer and John with an atlas, studying our route for tomorrow.

Ready, Set, Go! (Snow-birding Days 1-3)

WE ARE DOING IT!!!  We are finally trying the long-awaited RV mode of travel.  Sedona and Phoenix, AZ here we come!  We are looking forward to visiting friends and seeing natural wonders, including the Grand Canyon of course.  On Tuesday (1/20) we picked up our Newmar Bay Star from Guaranty RV in Eugene and drove it home to Brookings.  Mission completed!  We made it home very uneventfully and felt more confident each mile we got closer to home.  Once in Brookings we spent the next day loading all those items we felt necessary for a four week trip with our pups Teddy, Otis, and Pippa.  We were assisted by wonderful friends who are loaning us a portable BBQ, an outdoor rug, chairs, foldable dog fencing, etc, etc.  Did we think of everything? Oh yes, we have that electric heater that was a must according to Joop & Ine's RV experience.

DAY 1:
Bright and early on Thursday 1/23 we were ready to hit the road.  We had been warned about the difficulty of navigating Hwy 199 with an RV but we did not want to head down the coastal route. We figured that if we went through the "narrows" before the sun was up, we could use our emergency flashers to warn others, specifically semi trucks, that they were about to come upon novice motorhome drivers, and that they would possibly need to give us more than our share of the road to prevent complications.  LOL  Some healthy fear was definitely at work as we headed towards our first hurdle.    Truck traffic was pretty heavy for such early hours, but as we proceeded into the narrow stretch of the road, very slowly I might add, it was as though someone had waved a magic wand and made all traffic disappear.  We had the complete section of the "narrows" all to ourselves.

Our first stop was breakfast at The Teapot on Wheels, a new little restaurant we discovered just weeks before outside Gold Hill, that has great RV parking across the street.  After filling up on delicious food we were now ready to leave our own backyard.  In planning this trip we allowed for potty breaks for all five of us every couple of hours.  The one for this leg of the trip happened to fall just outside of Weed, CA.  Unfortunately we had our first "incident" there.  We had parked the RV, leashed our pups, and were walking to the doggie area when a lady with a male pit-bull broke lose from her grasp, knocked her down, and charged our dogs.  First Otis, who barked and yelped wildly, and then, without notice the pit-bull turned to Teddy,  grabbed him by the throat, and tossed him to and fro like a rag doll.  The owners and we alike attempted to loosen the dog off of Teddy.  John eventually succeeded, but not without Teddy having multiple puncture wounds in his neck.  Needless to say we had to take Teddy to the closest vet, where drainage tubes were inserted in the biggest holes, stitched up, and sent on our way.  We were grateful that the owners of the pit-bull were very sorry and did all they could to make things "right."  They followed us to the vet and they did pick up the $400.00 bill.

Needless to say, we got to our Redding destination later than expected.  Teddy was on my lap, still somewhat sedated.  When I got up I realized that Teddy had lost bladder control, wet through not only the towel he was laying on,  but my pants as well. Pff.  What a way to start the vacation!

On to the positive... the camp space that we were assigned in Redding was a "back in" space surrounded by trees, lamp post, and other RVs.  This was our first test.  Could we back this baby up without hitting anything?  YES WE CAN! It takes two to complete this task; John and I make a great team!

DAY 2:
The next morning we hit the road heading for Sacramento.  Rather than staying at an RV park we opted to park on the street in-front of Nolan and Anneliese's new home.  Thank goodness this was an uneventful day!  We spent the rest of the day visiting with our kids, walking Otis and Pippa (Teddy is to not walk much for a few days), eating at the Indo Cafe in oldtown Sacramento, and going to the movies.

DAY 3:
Another uneventful day, yay! We left Sacramento at 9:00 am, stopped for an hour coffee break around 11:00, and arrived in Bakersfield around 2:30pm. We chose to use CA Hwy 99 which is apparently under construction.  In many places the shoulders were "closed",  lanes were narrow, and truck traffic was heavy. This made driving the RV a bit more stressful as there were just inches between our mirrors and those of the semi trucks next to us.  We took Otis and Pippa for a nice long walk once we were settled in our camp site.  This was refreshing for all of us.  Dinner tonight... a salad with chicken that John had deboned before we left home.  Brrr. The evening is getting cold outside here in Bakersfield.  That heater is coming in handy already.  Better to use the electricity that comes with the hook-up fee than having to pay for propane fill-ups. Thanks Joop & Ine.

Teddy says that the view is nice from the driver's seat.