Jamestown The beauty of starting here, then going to Williamsburg and then to Yorktown is that you can see American history in a quick succession and be completely immersed in it. Located on the west side of the Peninsula on the James River, the settlement is located on Jamestown Island because it was not inhabited by natives and it provided isolation from same, plus it was far up enough along the river that it would not be visible to any passing Spanish ships. The trouble was the island was not inhabited because it lacked water while the river water surrounding it is brackish, creating a great opportunity for the disease that followed. The settlement was funded by private English investors from London seeking to capitalize on the alleged riches of the new world as apparently accomplished ... read more

Canyon West & the Skywalk Scams At least we got to see a Joshua Tree, but I don't know if it was really worth the amount of dust and aggravation we had to deal with in getting out to the little circus the Hualapai Tribe has created at Canyon West. It is a tourist trap of monumental scale (literally) as I have never seen before. It starts with the fact that they didn't even bother paving most of the road to get out there so there is just dust everywhere and there is no way to keep it out of the car's passenger cabin, a truck that sprays water on the road only showed up late in the day at which point the dust was getting so bad you had to creep along for fear of ... read more

Montezuma's Well Probably the least known of the Sinagua locations we visited today, it is part of the Montezuma's Castle National Monument but located in a separate district of the park some 10 miles away from the main section. The Verde River cuts through what used to be a seabed and has received millions of years of calcium carbonate deposits. Softer layers below were eroded away by groundwater until finally the dome collapsed forming the sinkhole. It is 55 feet deep and about 75 feet wide and over a million gallons of groundwater flow through it daily, historically providing a permanent fresh water source to the Sinagua for irrigation. 200 Sinagua lived here for about 500 years, both on the cliffsides of the sinkhole and in pueblos on the rim. The well and the following castle ... read more

The Sacrifice Continues Generally in Northern Arizona, the average temperature this time of year is 82 degrees and there are 15 days of full sun, 10 days of partial, and 5 days of rain (less than 20 inches annually). We have unfortunately fallen into those last five days and well below the temperature range as the temperature hung between 40 and 45 degrees all day long. We continue to count our blessings for the sun and mild temperatures we have had - amazingly when you are outside of Ohio 45 degrees just doesn't feel as bad as it does back home. We hit up the factory outlets and a Wal-Mart in St. George before Zion so we are well-equipped with cheap outerwear. To further the blessings we have also cut short the stay in Flagstaff to ... read more

Leaving Zion After a day of driving through southern Utah and northern Arizona, we agee that nothing is quite as impressive as Zion Canyon. We crossed the famous mile long tunnel on Route 9 that was constructed as a shortcut to Bryce Canyon at the behest of the railroads. The tunnel was interesting only from a historic standpoint as it was not easy to construct and was the longest tunnel at its time. We had been told by our tour guides that when we crossed to the other side we would enter into a different world and we truly did. Gone were the sheer jagged cliffs cut by the Virgin, in were smooth undulations of thin sandstone sheets. The white and red sandstone was still there but rather than shaved pieces of rock, it looked like ... read more