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WOW we are back our motorcycle to continue with our last 6 or 7 weeks!!! Can't really believe that there is only such a short time left.
We are thrilled to be back to the bike!! It has been 3 months that the bike has been parked in Palm Springs and Rene is dying to know how is favorite toy is doing.
So let's continue the adventure up and around the West Coast
April 27, 2011
We woke up at 3:30 am to the wonderful smell of brewing coffee??? Rene's mom was up already, had coffee made and some breaky waiting on the table. She spoils us rotten!!!
After a quick bite and cup of coffee with the parents, we were off on the adventure once again.
We returned our little car and presented ourselves for check in at the airline. While trying to check in we found out our flight was cancelled. Not just ours, but 7 other flights as well. The airport therefore was a scrambling mess of folks trying to reschedule their plans. We were told to go to the Air Canada info center, so off we went. While standing in line there, we were told we
needed to call the Air Canada office to talk about re-booking. So off we went to find the phone. We called and the very nice lady informed us that we were already scheduled to follow the exact same itinerary as this one, but the following day. That itinerary went like this: Fly from Toronto to Washington, then from Washington to Denver then from Denver then to Palm Springs. We debated staying in Toronto for the day, but in the end choose option 2 for this same day, which was to fly out of Toronto straight to L.A and then onto Palm Springs, but not arriving in Palm Springs until late in the evening. It was going to be long lay over in L.A, but the lady told us to check in L.A to see if we could catch an earlier flight to Palm Springs. We had a pretty uneventful flight from Toronto to L.A except that we were not sitting together. Rene ended up sitting BETWEEN a husband and wife. They were both quite overweight. Rene asked if either of them would like to change seats and they could sit beside each other, but they both declined his offer. So.....
Rene spent the whole flight sitting in the middle. SO FUNNY!!! (well at least I thought it was funny!!)
We arrived in L.A about noon and since we already had our boarding passes to carry on to Palm Springs, we were told to go through the security gates and ask at the gate if we could catch an earlier flight. We did as directed and one of the gals behind the desk told us that we would have to pay an extra $50 each to change this flight. I told her our story of getting messed up early in the morning in Toronto. She then conferrred with her supervisor who waived the fee and we jumped on the 2:08 pm flight to Palm Springs.
After 1/2 hour in the air in a little 30 seater air craft we arrived in Palm Springs, in the beautiful warm sunshine. we hired a taxi to take us to Sky Valley Resort where the bike was.
We located the storage unit where the bike was stored with my gym combination lock on it. Now.... Rene had asked me if I remembered the combination a couple of weeks ago and for the life of me....
I couldn't remember, but I was pretty confident that once I started turning the dial I would remember and it would all be fine. Well.... I started turning the dial and ...... NOT!!! I could NOT remember!!! I stood there for about 1/2 hour thinking and trying, trying and thinking ....but no luck. How frustrating!!! Anyway after some time a nice man came along and first gave Rene a hacksaw and then came back with a bolt cutter and within seconds we were pushing and pulling the bike out of storage. Good thing we were excited or this story may have had a somewhat sad and tragic ending. You know.... maybe some unkind words being spoken???
We unpacked the bags that were stored with the bike and the bags that we had and after mixing them and repacking the bike we were "on the road again"
We didn't want to go far, as it was a long day already, full of all kinds of twists and turns, so we rode only to Desert Hot Springs, maybe about 45 minutes and found a motel where we could crash for the night and make some plans for the following days.
April
Bickle Ranch
Old gold miner's digs28, 2011
We woke up to a wonderul sunny day and were filled with excitment about this next leg of the adventure. We had explored places to stay on the internet and booked 2 nights at a place called "The Cottage Hotel" in Ransburg California. On the way to Ransburg we hooked up in Victorville on a portion of Route 66. (more about that later). Ransburg is a tiny little ghost town in the high Mohave desert of California. It used to be a busy, bustling gold mining town in the 30's, but now only has about 50 full time residents and many others who are weekenders. It is now a dirt biker and off road biker's heaven. Anyway 3 of the full time residents there and the owners and operators of the Cottage Hotel are a man named GOAT, his partner, Skrappy and GOAT's nephew Skater. Never did find out their real names. Anyway these are 3 of the kindest, most generous and likeable people ever. Skrappy welcomed us to the cottage and when we asked her where we could go and eat in town her answer was "no where to eat in this town, but I'm going up
Walsh Cabin
6 heavy cables anchoring the cabin to the ground because of the high winds to the house to make spagetti and Skater will come by to pick you up in about 30 minutes and you can eat with us". After some hesitation we agreed and went to our room to unpack our gear. In 30 minutes, there was Skater at our door. He took us to the house and there we met GOAT, had these heaping plates of spagetti and then coffee and homemade cookies for desert. They we curious about our story and when we told them of our adventures, they were excited to hear all of it. When they found out we were Canadians, GOAT wanted us to watch this documentary on the Ballarat Bandit. Ballarat is also a ghost town about 1 hour away and then just a couple short miles and a ride through the canyon is the "Parker Ranch" where Charles Manson and his crazy "family" hung out., and where Manson killed some of his victims. Anyway long story short, about the Ballarat Bandit: This unknown man was in the California desert, near and around a very small town named Ballarat, stealing food and fluid from other desert campers for 6 months. Everytime the law got close, the bandit
Trona Pinnacles
Huge structures would out run and out wit them. No one could find out who this man was and what he was doing in the desert. Anyway it turns out in the end that he is a man from PEI, Canada and he left his family and home in Canada to figure out his life. He ran in the desert for 6 months and then when he was finally close to being caught he shot himself. Very sad, but true story. GOAT of course thought we would find it interesting as we were Canadians as well. It truly was and is a tragic and sad story. Anyway while we were watching the show and talking, GOAT insisted that we take their Jeep the following day and head out into the mountains. He wanted us to see some of the sights that he loved so much in this desert. We thought it was a great idea and agreed to do so. Rene wanted to do some work on the bike as well, so GOAT and Skater told him he could use their shop.
April 29, 2011
After breakfast, Rene went in search of the guys and about 2 hours later, they had
Trona Pinnacles
Near Ballarat California changed the oil, completely changed the brakes and gave the bike a tune up. Rene was thrilled to be able to have this done and GOAT and Skater were thrilled to be able to help. (That male bonding thing, I guess). Skrappy asked if I wanted to do some laundry and since Rene was busy for the morning and some of our clothes had been packed for 3 months I jumped at the opportunity to clean them. As Rene and I were cleaning up and folding clothes, GOAT comes to the door with the keys for the Jeep and tells us that they had packed a cooler full of lunch. Sandwiches, pop, water, fruit, cookies and a couple of beers. He sat down with Rene and explained where a couple of the 'must see" things in the area were. So..... off we went up high into the Alpaso Mountains. Our first stop was the Burro Schmidt tunnel. This is a 1/2 mile tunnel that William Henry "Burro" Schmidt spent 38 years digging by hand. Everyday with his manual tools chipping away at the mountain. Some call it perserverence and determination, I think I call it CRAZY!!!. I started out feeling
Ballarat California
Can you see the writing on this building?
Jail, Morgue or Hotel when empty!! very brave and followed Rene into the tunnel. As the light from the opening got smaller and smaller, I became less and less brave and finally in a near state of panic, turned around and told Rene he was on his own. I ran back into the light and was all better. GOAT told us that the view on the other side of the tunnel was wonderful, so I decided I didn't want to miss the view so while Rene was going through the mountain, I went OVER the mountain. Took me a whole lot longer and whole lot more energy, but I certainly liked my way better and we both got to behold the view on the other side, which was, very beautiful. Rene told me later that eventually the light disappeared completely and he was in complete darkness for a while. NOT for me!!!
We stopped to enjoy our lunch and then went on to see "Bickle Ranch" This is a ranch way up in the mountains where another gold miner worked and lived and the ranch is being preserved. There is a currrent caretaker there and he showed us around and answered our questions. What hardy souls
Jeep ride to Parker Ranch
Couldn't quite make it to see where Charles Manson hung out those miners and their families were. After exploring the ranch we jumped back in the Jeep and headed for the Walsh cabin. We found the marker where we turned off and started up this VERY steep and VERY narrow little goat path. We had never 4X4ed like that before, so we were both a little nervous, but enthralled. We made it to the top and WOW!!! what a view from up there. The cabin of course was long deserted, but it's former inhabitants had fastened 6 heavy cables from the roof to the ground. I guess the wind gets so strong up there that it was blowing the cabin apart, so they anchored it to the ground. Ingenious don't you think?
Anyway back down the moutain we went. We met Skater on the road and he told us that GOAT and Skrappy had burritos and rice waiting for us at the house. Really..... these people were too much.
After dinner we went back to our room, read some, watch some TV and fell quickly asleep.
April 30, 2011.
Again after some convincing, we headed out in GOAT'S Jeep once again. He made it so easy for us to accept
his offer and we were feeling somewhat guilty to be arguing, so we graciously accepted once again. This time we headed towards Ballarat and Charles Manson's Ranch. About half way there we stopped at Trona Pinnacles. This unusual landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 150 ft, made of some sort of calcium deposits. They now sit isolated and slowly crumbling away near the south end of the valley, surrounded by many square miles of flat, dried mud and with stark mountain ranges at either side. The Trona Pinnacles were made famous in the movies Star Wars and Planet of the Apes. After enjoying another lunch packed by Skrappy, we headed off to Ballarat, to see what and why the Bandit chose that area to "find himself". Ballarat, is a little store of some sort and the caretaker there is named Rocky and he and his faithful best dog friend, Potlicker (great name for a dog!!!) live there. We stopped and chatted with Rocky for a few minutes and gave Potlicker a pet or two and continued up the path to the Parker Ranch. We turned and headed up the narrow canyon that would lead
Death Valley highway
A whole lot of nothing!! us to the ranch, but the narrow road had a portion of it washed out and it was too wet and steep for the Jeep to go all the way. Kinda disappointing, but still quite a trip. Crazy to think that Charles Manson and his freaky family were here and lived such as twisted and wierd existence.
We turned around and headed back to Ransburg. We arrived just in time for the pizza party. I guess every Saturday night when there are guests, GOAT, Skrappy and Skater make these huge pizza's and they get everyone together to share the days' adventures while sharing a meal. After pizza, Skrappy arrived with these enormous brownies, piled high with ice cream and chocolate syrup. They just keep giving and giving. After pizza we sat around the fire and met a bunch of other folks who were staying at the Inn. We chatted for a bit and then excused ourselves to find our camper for the night.
Truth be told.....we were becoming quite overwhelmed with the generosity of GOAT, Skrappy and Skater and tried to pay for some of these kindnesses, but they looked and sounded like they were offended by our offers and
asked that we just let them be kind and generous. They certainly made us feel like we wanted to be better people and share our resources with others. (Our resources are pretty slim to none right now, but hopefully one day we can share)
Sun-May 01, 2011
After waking up in the camper in GOAT and Skrappy's yard we knew that we had to leave Ransburg and continue on our adventure. Before we left our gracious hosts insisted on feeding us once last time. SO after pancakes, sausages, eggs, fried potatoes and coffee, we packed our bags, loaded the bike and away we went. We didn' ride long and we were in Death Valley. We climbed about to 4500 ft and then back down again. Several people we met along the way were talking about the desert being in bloom and we certainly found some flowering cacti and other beautiful desert flowers. Really beautiful. Our ride was short and we stopped in Stove Pipe Wells for the night. It was a resort oasis in the middle of the Death Valley. We were feeling a little out of sorts during the rest of the day. After all the busyness, excitment
Death Valley
Artist's Loop and wonderul people in Ransburg, we were all alone again and although we were looking forward to just being us, we needed to adjust once again. We went out for a nice meal at the resort resturant and had a quiet, early night.
Mon-May 02, 2011
We continued our journey through Death Valley. We stopped at a place called Furnace Creek to top up with gas. We pulled up to the gas station and the pump read $5.99 a gallon. WOW!!! Now speaking about gas, since we have been back in the States we certainly have noticed that the gas prices have increased. But this....it was outragous!! Good thing we just needed to top up to get us through the Valley. With names like Death Valley, Stove Pipe Wells and Furnace Creek, can you imagine how hot is was in this Valley. Well...about 100 degrees or so. REALLY HOT!!! Great when we are moving at 100 kms or so, but when we stopped.... I don't think my helmet and leathers ever came off so quickly. HOT, HOT, HOT. At one point in the ride through Death Valley we were able to take a ilttle side trip on a scenic
Death Valley
Artist's Loop one way road cut through the canyon, called Artist's Loop. This loop was jaw droppingly beautiful. Up and down and through this amazing canyon road, with four or five hundred foot cliffs and down deep again and again. What an amazing ride.
After the loop we continued to drop in altitude until we came to the Badwater Salt Flats. These salt flats were 283 feet below sea level. That low below sea level there was absolutely nothing growing. Just miles and miles of white salt. For us Northerners it kinda looked like a field of snow, except there is no such thing as snow in that Valley. We ended our day in Needles California.
Tues-May 03, 2011
Catching up again on historic Route 66. The old Route 66 is a lengendary 2,448 miles (3,940 km) mile road that is the most famous road in the U.S.A and runs from Santa Monica, California to Chicago, Illinois. All along the road one can find quaint old time diners, motels, other eateries with large neon signs, and now interesting museums filled with Route 66 memorobila. Much of the original road is gone now, replaced by big 4 lane highways, but there is
Badwater Salt Flats
283 ft below sea level still some of this "Road of Dreams", or The Glory Road" left. We decided we wanted to follow this old route road as much as we could (and as much as was on our route) and explore the nostaglia of the road. Several songs have been written about Route 66. Songs such as Nat King Cole singing "Get your kicks on Route 66" and the Eagles song "Take it Easy". Also John Steinback's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" and John Kerouack's book "On the Road" talk about the wonders and adventures on Route 66.
As I mentioned before we started our Route 66 journey in Victorville, California already on April 28th, but then we left it as we headed towards Ransburg, California. After Death Valley and as we headed towards Needles california we caught back up with the "Mother Road" for a few miles just before Needles, California. We stopped on this stretch of highway to make our intials R&C on the burm of the road, just like so many others have done. We are now forever part of Route 66 (well, unless someone steals our rocks to make their own intials or names)
We left Needles and Route 66
London Bridge
Lake Havasu City again to take a quick detour to Lake Havasu City to see the original London Bridge. So... London Bridge really is the London Bridge, from London England. So how is London Bridge from London England now in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, in the middle of the desert??? Well....what does a English man, from London England do with too much money and too much time on his hands and is missing his homeland?? Well he buys a Bridge from the city of London, makes sure each brick is numbered, then has all these pieces shipped to America and rebuilds the bridge in his newly adopted home. How London England allowed this bridge to be sold....I'm not sure how that story goes, but this story is crazy enough for one day!!! It's a great looking bridge and a great story.
So back on the Route 66 at Amboy AZ, towards Flagstaff Arizona. On the way we drove through a little historic, western town called Oatman. Here the main street was blocked as there was a "gun fight" in front of the saloon. After the "bank robber" won the gun fight we wound our way through the streets filled with about a dozen
London Bridge
Moved brick by brick to the desert real donkeys. We had to drive around these rulers of the town to carry on our way. What a fun little interlude. We continued on Route 66 up and around some more mountainous trails. This next part of Route 66 was a narrow little trail winding through the mountains. What a fascinating ride to Kingman. After Kingman we continued on Route 66 through some very boring landscape. Thank goodness for the Burma Shave road signs. Burma-Shave was an American brand of brushless shaving cream, famous for its advertising gimmick of posting humorous rhyming poems on small, sequential highway billboard signs. The 5 or 6 six consecutive small signs are posted along the edge of highway spaced for sequential reading. The last sign was almost always the name of the product. So the signs were placed stratigically (about 1/4 mile for each sign) along the highway and were sayings such as:
Hardly a driver / Is now alive / Who passed / On hills / At 75 / Burma-Shave
It's best for / One who hits / The bottle / To let another / Use the throttle / Burma-Shave, and
Slow down, Pa / Sakes alive / Ma missed signs
/ Four / And five / Burma Shave. It was fun to read the signs as we roared past. Kept us awake too!!!
I have to tell this FUNNY story that happened just outside of Flafstaff:
O.K so.....we had to stop for gas and found this little tiny town, with one lonely gas station and a couple beat up, run down houses. I went in to the station to pay for our gas and got to be part of a conversation between Veronica, the cashier and Peggy, the customer.
Peggy is up at the till with a package of 4 rolls of toilet paper and she says to Veronica. "I need this toilet paper, done run clean out and I need to pay for it with my food stamps". Veronica replys " Peggy, you know you can't pay for that paper with your food stamps, you are only allowed to buy food" "Well", says Peggy "that just doesn't seem right. What do they think happens with all that food we eat and how we 'possed to clean up" Should be that we can finish the whole process with our food stamps" At this point both Veronica and Peggy were laughing
Route 66
R+C on the burm of the highway out loud and as I looked at both of them with their wide mouth smiles, I saw that between the 2 of them, there were only about 5 teeth in total!!!! Well then I started to laugh and they thought I was laughing with them. They were so thrilled with themselves and their joke. After I quit laughing I looked around and saw another fella in the station that was about 6"6, 250lbs, and wearing a belly shirt!!! That's when I got a little worried. I paid for my gas and started back to the bike yelling at Rene "start the bike, start the bike" I laughed about this encounter for days!!!!
Anyway, we arrived in Flagstaff at 5:00 pm. We found the Flagstaff hostel, booked in, unpacked our gear and called Madu. Madu is a new friend we met in January 2010 at the Tucson hostel. He is from India and working in Flagstaff. We continue to stay in contact with Madu and remembered that he lived in Flagstaff, so we wanted to see him again. We met with Madu at the hostel and as we were going to find a bite to eat, we also met Penny. Penny
Oatman AZ
Old Western Town with donkeys in the street is from the U.K and is a lone traveller who is travelling the world for 6 months. We asked her if she wanted to join us for dinner and so we had a great dinner together sharing travelling and life stories.
We had a busy day travelling and were road weary, so after a great dinner and even better conversation we called it a night.
Wed-May 04, 2011
Madu told us the previous night about a couple of sights he wanted to see in and around Flagstaff and as it turned out they were the exact same things that we had been told of that were a "must see" around Flagstaff. SO we made a date to meet at the hostel at 8:30am and explore the area together in Madu's car. Penny had booked a trip to Sedona so off she went there and promptly at 8:30, there was Madu. We jumped into his car of and off we went to our first sight which was Meteor Crater. Meteor Crater is the breath-taking result of a collision between a piece of an asteroid traveling at 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago. Today, Meteor Crater
Flagstaff
Dinner with friends new and brand new! Madu and Penny is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep. It was an interesting place to explore. Madu wasn't very impressed and jokingly thought he should have his money back. After Rene and him bantered back and forth for several miles, with me in the back seat being very amused by the joking and teasing, Madu finally relented and gave up his position and agreed it was marvelous. (I truly think he just relented cause he wanted Rene to STOP talking).
Along the way to the Meteor Crater, we saw a sign leading us to Windslow Arizona. Well.... it was a no brainer, we were on our way to Windslow to "stand on the corner" and see if there was a girl in a "flat bed Ford slowing down to take a look at me" and to see if we could "Take It Easy". Sure enough, there in Windslow was a corner with a HUGE Route 66 mural, a Flat Bed Ford and a statue of Glen Fry, from the "EAGLES" standing on the corner, Taking it Easy. We followed suit, and stopped to take photos, shop in the gift shop and relax and have
Meteor Crater
Near Flagstaff a coffee. What fun!!!
Our last stop of the day was the Sunset Crater Volcano. This crater was born from a series of eruptions sometime between 1040 and 1100. The eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano must have been a powerful event. It destroyed all plants within a 5-mile radius. A fountain of fire, 850 feet high, was visible for miles around. An ash cloud rose 2.5 miles into the sky, and falling ash covered about 64,000 acres. Lava flows and cinders still look as fresh and rugged as the day they formed. But among dramatic geologic features, we found trees, wildflowers, and signs of wildlife – life returned.
Madu dropped us back off at the hostel at about 6:00 after a quick stop for some groceries to prepare dinner. We made a quick omelete. During our dinner, Jamie, one of the hostel staff, told us we should check out "The Green Room". It was "Ladies of the 80's night". Drinks were 25 cents, there was a promise of 80's music (our generation's music) and ladies dressed up in 80's clothing. We were intrigued, so off we went. It turned out that the drinks were certainly 25 cents, but the 80's
music was scarce (only one song in the hour we were there) and the 80's ladies were non-exsitent, rather there were tons of college kids and we were the oldest there by about 20 or 25 years. We did stay for an hour or so hoping to hear or see something interesting, but all we saw were a bunch of drunk and disorderly college kids, so we left and went to bed like old people from the 80's should be doing.
Thurs-May 05, 2011
Happy Cinqo De Mayo Day. It appears that this Mexican holiday is not even celebrated in Mexico, rather it appears to be an excuse for Americans to party. We had a lazy morning and in the afternoon to be part of the celebration, we did stop and have $1.00 taco (we had 2 each) and a shot of tequila. (Rene was on his own for this one). After this "big" celebration we went on a most interesting city walk of Flagstaff. Flagstaff is one of the cornerstone cities on Route 66. Lots of history and fun. We spent the rest of the day checking out the city shops and reading. We made another yummy dinner
Windslow AZ
Standing on the corner in Windslow AZ of chicken stir fry. Then we went for another evening walk and to end the night Rene went out and found these amazing hotdogs. One hotdog, "the Flagstaff", was a tiny little weiner with all the regular fixins plus jalepenos and ranch dressing, the other one, "the Phoenix" was another tiny little weiner with the regular fixins plus nacho cheese and bacon. HMM HMM HMM. Not helping our calorie intake, but I guess we will worry about that when we get home.
Fri-May 06, 2011
We had decided that it was time to leave Flagstaff and continue the adventure. Maria, the hostel manager gave us a a few ideas to check out on the way to Monument Valley, which was the next big stop we wanted to make. Of course on the way we were stopping one more time at the Grand Canyon. We had seen the Grand Canyon already on this trip, but that was back in December, with snow on the ground. We wanted to see it again during the spring season. We left Flagstaff about 9:00 am and followed the same route as in December, except this time there was spring flowers and the pines smelled
Windslow
"Such a fine sight to see" amazing. No snow!! As we got closer to the Grand Canyon we saw signs for helicopter trips through the Canyon. Now this is one thing that has always been on both mine and Rene's "bucket list", so I leaned up and started my suggestion and without finishing my thought, Rene finished it and we decided to stop at the airport and just "see" how much it was going to cost for the 2 of us. well...... within minutes we had signed up, paid our money and were booked on a 1/2 hour helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon!!!! We spent the next 3 hours or so exploring the Canyon again on foot, then at 3:00 pm we were back at the airport to read over the rules and wait for our pilot. We were both sooooo excited. At about 3:20 our pilot Kory invited us to board the helicopter with him. Neither Rene nor I had ever been in a helicopter and so for our first helicopter ride it was a trip over the Grand Canyon!!!! Could it get any better??? Hmmm.... the best thing would be a full tank of fuel in the chopper!! Kory loaded us all (6
Sunset crater
Near Flagstaff of us) in the craft, seat belts on, safety pack secured, earphones on and working, had the helicopter blades whirring and then..... relayed sheepishly to us, that we needed to get out of the craft. I guess there was not enough gas to make the flight. He apologized profusely!! We in turned thanked him profusely, saying that we were more than happy that he had noticed this little detail while we were still on the ground, rather than in the air. What do you think would happen it we ran out of fuel in a helicopter 1000's of feet in the air? I think it would be quite a fall and the sudden stop at the end might be tricky!!! Anway after the craft was fuelled up and we were again securely in the craft we were up and away. It was AMAZING!!!!! The Grand canyon is so big. The human eye just can't comprehend really how big it is and when the guide books and human guides tell you it is 10 miles across and you stand on one rim and look to the other rim, it just seems like it can't possibly be 10 miles across. In the
Sunset Crater
Life returns! helicopter, it appears bigger, but still not 10 miles. In the helicopter looking straight down is something neither of us will ever forget. The Canyon is so truly incredible. SO massive, so wide, so deep and so beautiful. Really unbelievable and we had to pinch ourselves and each other a couple of time just to make sure it wasn't a dream. Kory told us that the Grand Canyon is the 2nd most restricted fly zone in the USA. The first in over the White house. Just the sheer volume of aircraft wanting to go over the canyon makes the government put in the restrictions. There is also a strict flight route that all aircraft can take. NO willy-nilly, go where the pilot wants trips. NO flying inside the canyon either, just over the canyon. Even with all these rules the trip made both of us breathless!!!
After the awesome-ness of the Grand Canyon we rode to a small town called Page Arizona. The ride to Page was also quite amazing. We followed the Colorado River on Native American land. The land everywhere was red soil and rock. Mostly desolate bare and dry land bordered by sheer 100 feet (or more)
Sunset Crater
Some lonely trees red rocky clifts. By the time we arrived in Page we were exhausted. All of our senses were totally drained and we felt that we couldn't see, smell, touch, hear or experience one more thing on this day. We gratefully fell into bed, thankful again for such an amazing day.
Sat-May 07, 2011
Although we felt exhausted the night before, after a good night's sleep we woke fresh and ready to experience even more. Maria, our hostel host recommended Horseshoe Bend Trail and Antelope Canyon. Our first chore of the day was to find a different place to stay. The previous night we stayed at a motel that felt to us, quite costly (about $70.00), so off we went to see if we could find something less expensive, but still clean and cozy. As luck would have it we found "Bashful Bob's Motel". We knocked on the door and met 84 year old Bob. He had one room left he said. When Rene inquired about cleanliness, Bob replied that he made sure the cleaning staff came in about once a month. Ha Ha Ha, not only was Bob bashful, he was also funny!!! We looked at the room and
Sunset Crater
A area where the lava came bubbling out it was very clean and quaint, with a fridge, microwave, coffee pot, TV and even a hot plate and dishes and cost less than $40.00. We paid Bob our money and brought our gear over from the expensive last motel.
After settling in we found the tour company that would take us into Antelope Canyon. Antelope Canyon is a Canyon that is on Navajo land. Everyone who wants to see the Canyon must go with a Navajo guide. The Canyon is a petrified sand dune created by water and wind. During the flash floods that occur during the months of July and August, the rushing water runs through this 150-200 foot narrow canyon, sculpting this incredible masterpiece. We booked the 1:30pm tour and for the next 2 hours were in the hands of Lynette our Navajo guide. 14 tourists pilled into a large 4X4 and rode 20 minutes to the Canyon. 10 minutes on the highway and 10 minutes on the dry sand river bed. Then we walked for the next hour in Antelope Canyon. We weaved through the narrow passages, listening to Lynette and taking pictures. The Antelope Canyon is one of the most sought after photogragh dreams of
profession photographers and many will pay thousands of dollars to spend hours in the Canyon, waiting for the perfect shot that will put their name in lights. (Just wait till they find out, we took the most amazing photo with our little Sony camera: OK maybe not, but we certainly have some great photos)
After our Antelope Canyon tour we came back to our room, read and relaxed some and about 6:00 went to Horseshoe Bend Trail. We parked the bike in a non described parking lot and walked about 3/4 of a mile through dense deep sand to the look off. What we saw was another crazy majestic sight. The deep green Colorado River encircling this great huge rock formation, about 500 feet below. We sat and had our dinner of cheese, meat, crackers and trail mix, while we waited for the sun to set on this yet another awe-inspiring masterpiece of nature. After watching the sun set and ohhing and ahhing for another couple of hours we headed back to our room.
If this rate of sight-seeing and adventures continues we will need to come home and sleep for the next month. There are so many amazing
sights and adventures in this great land and we keep getting to experience them one by one.
We are "doing good" and loving being back on the bike and seeing the sights from our 2 wheel seats.
Still more.......
And so we remain....
In The Grip of Grace
Rene and Crystal
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Jodi
non-member comment
WOW!!!
OH MY GOODNESS! It's a good thing you're keeping this blog since there is NO WAY you'd remember all these adventures! Your pictures are amazing! It makes me want to drop everything and just GOOOO. Now I really need to see the Antelope Canyon. You've met SUCH interesting people. THe Colca Canyon in Peru is 10 times deeper than the Grand Canyon but you can't see it from the air like that. Can you imagine if you could? The Grand Canyon is amazing! Good for you on the helicopter ride! Wow again! The world is an amazing place and I love seeing it like this through your eyes! Keep it up!