Mesa Verde National Park

It's been a while since we've posted to the travel blog, but that doesn't mean that we've been sitting around somewhere. It's just that we haven't had internet access until now. So, we'll publish a couple of updates while we're in Grants, New Mexico. Then we travel about 60 miles to Albuquerque to the Balloon Fiesta grounds. I'm sure we won't have internet access there, either, so the Balloon Fiesta posting will have to wait until we find an internet cafe or move to an RV Park with wi-fi.


On Friday, September 28th, we left Spider Rock Campground and headed for Four Corners, the only place where four states touch at the same point. From there, we headed to Mesa Verde Nat’l Park in southeastern Colorado. If you’ll look at the colored state map to the right, you’ll see that Colorado is now colored in. This is the first time we’ve had the motorhome in this beautiful state.

We stayed in a nice campground just outside the National Park. We met our good friends and fellow RV’ers, Bob & Diane in the campground as planned. We decided to go into the nearby town of Cortez for dinner. As we returned to our motorhomes, a bear ran across in front of us. It headed right into the tent camping area, but we didn’t hear any commotion from that section of the RV park, so I guess it ran right through without stopping to check garbage cans or ice chests.

On Saturday, we drove into Mesa Verde and took a half-day ranger led bus trip to a number of architectural heritage sites both atop the mesas and in the cliff dwellings below. The park includes over 4,500 archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. The bus trip included stops at a number of sites. The ranger had a great background, with a degree in geology and a minor in archeology. He is a teacher in Cortez, and has spent the past seven summers as a ranger in Mesa Verde as well as participating in archeological digs in the park.

We stopped at a pit house village on the mesa top. It dates from around 750 AD, and features two Kivas, which were ceremonial rooms built underground. They were probably used for healing rites, or to pray for rain, good crops, luck in hunts, etc. The columns that extend from the wall shelf are pilasters, used to support a pole and mud roof. Entry was by ladder through a hole in the roof, which also served as a chimney for the firepit in the floor.

The highlight of the tour was a visit to Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in the park, with over 150 rooms. After viewing the dwelling from the mesa top, we climbed down a series of stone steps and wood ladders to the dwelling itself.

This ruin dates from the 1200’s and took three years to build. It is of sandstone block construction with mud mortar. Many of the rooms were used for storage, but the living areas averaged six feet by eight feet, enough room for two or three people. The people were primarily farmers, with their growing ground on the mesa top. They also hunted extensively for the game in the area. In the late 1200’s, all of the cliff dwellings were abandoned. The generally accepted reason was due to a prolonged drought that almost totally destroyed their way of life.

After viewing the ruins "up close", it was another climb up to the mesa top and our bus back to the Visitor Center. It was another great day on this trip. From here, we’re off to Durango, CO, to meet some more RV friends and to ride the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge train.

We’ll publish again when we get wi-fi access.

Hubbell Trading Post & Canyon de Chelly

Wednesday morning we left Williams and headed east on I-40. After passing Winslow, you know, "Winslow Arizona, don't forget Winona, Kingman, ....", we headed north and stopped at Hubbell Trading Post, a National Historic Site founded by John Hubbell in 1876.

It is one of approximately 30 trading posts he founded to provide merchandise to the natives and provide an outlet for native-made goods. It is the oldest continuously operating trading post in the Navajo nation. It serves as grocery store, hardware store, etc. to the Navajo, a "tourist store" for native goods, and a museum of native handicrafts.


From there it was off to Canyon de Chelly and a real adventure. We had reservations at a Navajo-owned campground on the rim of the canyon. It is "off the grid", with solar and wind powered generator. Howard Smith, the Navajo owner, hauls water from Chinle, 10 miles away. But even so, it was a great place. Our campsite was large and secluded, and included a rock fire pit and firewood. And, imagine this, wi-fi! Howard turns it on for about 4 hours per day, and it works well.

On Thursday morning we took off in the CRV to explore the canyon with Howard as our guide. Regulations prohibit travel in the canyon without a Navajo guide and a four-wheel drive vehicle. After some negotiating with the Park Service Ranger, a couple from Santa Fe were allowed to follow us in an all-wheel drive Honda Civic with Howard providing commentary by walkie-talkie.


The road in the bottom of the canyon was all sand. For part of the trip we were travelling in a wash that had gotten rain about three days earlier, and that was no problem. Other parts of the trip were in dry sand which was of a little more concern, but the old CRV handled it all with no problem.

The trip was fabulous!! One of the most fascinating sites was called "Newspaper Rock". There are several hundred petroglyphs (the carved ones). This is but a small portion of the rock. The carvings go back more than 1100 years.




The pictograph to the right, done in red vegetable dye was one of many we saw during the trip. Besides the rock wall drawings, we visited several Alcove cliff dwellings. These dwellings were built between 700 AD and 1200 AD by an ancient pueblo civilization known to the Navajo as "Anasazi". There are probably 15 - 20 cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly. The best known and largest in the canyon is White House Ruin. It is a two-level village set into an alcove in the canyon wall. It is the only site that can be reached without a native guide, and then only by a 2-mile trail from the top of the canyon. Because it's a popular site, a number of Navajo craftsmen
set up their wares for tourists to check out and
hopefully purchase. Of course, Debbie found the perfect silver bracelet and talked the artist into posing for a picture with her.
After about 7 hours in the canyon we drove out, after assisting our friends in the Honda Civic get "unstuck" from some deep sand, we headed back to camp. Before finishing our day, we took a road trip to an overlook to view a column called "Spider Rock". Legend has it that the spider woman who occupies the rock taught the Navajo how to weave.

We got there just before sunset and got some great shadows.

All in all, we took about 80 photos, way too many to include in this blog update. To see the rest, you'll have to click on the link to our web album, "Southwest Trip 2007".

From here, it's off to Mesa Verde National Park where hopefully we'll be able to publish another post to this blog.

Train Trip to the Grand Canyon

First, let me say that Williams, AZ is at 6,800 feet, and the nights are cold! It was in the mid-30's when we got up on Tuesday! Our train to the Grand Canyon left at 10 AM, and it was in the low 60's by then, so that's OK.
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Before we boarded the train, all passengers were asked to attend a "wild west shootout" next to the depot. I guess that's so we're all not milling around the train, waiting to board. Four bad guys and the Marshal had a confrontation, after which, only the Marshal was left standing. How about that!



The Grand Canyon Railway has two operating steam engines which they use (along with a diesel helper engine) during the summer. The rest of the year, they use diesel exclusively, so that's what we got. No matter, though, it was a great trip.



There were 13 passenger cars on the train, each had a passenger service agent. Ours was Barbara, who offered us Diet Pepsi which made her special in Debbie's eyes.


The trip took just over two hours and was lots of fun. A singer/musician wandered through the cars and got a little "group sing" going. One of the "shootout" cowboys spent time in each car also, and visited with all the passengers.

Once at the canyon, we grabbed a quick lunch at the Bright Angel Lodge, then spent time walking along the rim.

Like Yosemite, private autos are discouraged, and they have a fleet of natural gas-powered shuttle busses to take visitors along the rim. Debbie wanted to mail some stuff, so we rode a shuttle to the Post Office, then back to El Tovar Hotel before boarding our train for the ride back to Williams.

El Tovar Hotel from Bright Angel Lodge

The trip back was just as nice as the trip to the canyon. We saw deer, elk, antelope, rabbits, squirrels, and lots of cattle. Arizona is a "free range" state, so cattle are not fenced in. If the train should hit one, the company has to pay the rancher $1,000. And if it's pregnant, there goes another $1,000 for the calf.

We were almost back in Williams when train robbers were spotted running their horses along side the train. They must have had an inside track (Ha! Ha!) because the engineer stopped the train and they came through terrorizing all the passengers. Fortunately, the Marshal showed up right after that, and I'm sure the bad guys were corralled at the back of the train.

To see more of our photos, click on the "Southwest Trip 2007" link on the right.

Tomorrow we're off to Canyon de Chelly for a couple of nights. We'll post when we get a chance.

Gilroy Campout and Williams, AZ

Our first stop on this two-month trip was Gilroy. The RV Club in which we are active, Diablo Ramblers, held their first weekend campout of the fall season at the Gilroy Garlic RV Park. And wow, it was easy to tell we were in Gilroy! The strong odor of garlic permeated the area around the park. Maybe some folks were not happy with the aroma, but it just made us hungry! The weather was a bit unsettled. Lots of clouds and a few showers on Friday, heavier rain Friday night and Saturday, then clearing up on Saturday night. Sunday, which was getaway day from the campout, was much nicer. The gathering was pretty small for our club, only nine rigs, but several members are suffering from illness or injury, and several members are traveling in other areas at the moment. Anyway, it was a fun time for those of us in attendance.

After breakfast we packed up and headed out, spending the night in Barstow, in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Wal-Mart is a good place to stop for a few hours after a day behind the wheel. They welcome overnight campers, and we always check in with their security staff, and purchase a few items while we're there.

Monday we got a good start with Debbie taking her turn at the wheel. We arrived in Williams, Arizona about 3 PM, picked up our tickets for the train ride into the Grand Canyon tomorrow, and ordered a pizza for our dinner.

The train leaves Williams about 10:00 AM, arrives at the Grand Canyon about 12:15 PM, leaves there again at 4:00 PM, arriving back in Williams at 6:15 PM. The weather's supposed to be clear and cool at the canyon, so we're looking forward to a great day.

We'll try to publish another post and maybe some pictures tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, 'cause our next stop, Canyon de Chelly, has no electricity, so I believe that rules out wi-fi, too.

Southwest RV Trip

Well, here we go again. We're off in the motorhome on Thursday, September 20th to our monthly RV Club campout in Gilroy. However, instead of returning home, we're heading to the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Mesa Verde, Durango and on to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta the second week of October. From there, we'll head back to Southern California to participate in two RV Rallies, then to Chico for another RV Club campout before returning home around November 11th.

There's a Google map at the bottom of this page of the southwestern US. If you click on "View larger map" it will show our planned route. I don't know why the route doesn't show on the small map, but it doesn't. Maybe that can be fixed as we learn more about 'blogging'.

We'll post to the blog whenever we can get a computer connection to the web. As we did for the last trip, we'll notify you of postings unless you tell us not to. You can always check our postings whenever you want by going to this web site, http://tomstru.blogspot.com/ . Please let us know if you have suggestions for the blog.

Bye for now.