Las Vegas, Pahrump & Beatty NV. Death Valley Nat. Park CA

Las Vegas NV April 9 to 16th.

We stayed at the same campground in Las Vegas as we stayed in last. Year.  One day we went to Lake Mead and drove around some of the lake.  The water is way down.  Ate lunch in Boulder City and checked out the shops in old town.  We drove through the strip on night coming back from dinner.  There are always lots of people walking along the Strip and the bright lights are something to see.  One afternoon after lunch we drove the 13 mile scenic drive around Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area which is located west of town.  The red rock formations and mountains were something to see.  There were lots of people taking the loop drive. 

The Las Vegas Strip at night



You can see how low the water is in Lake Mead

Red Rock Canyon

These rocks were called Calico.
People were climbing on them.

more rock formations

Pahrump NV & Death Valley Nat. Park CA, April 17 to 23rd

We move to Pahrump Nevada because it is close to Death Valley National Park.  We leave the campground early with a lunch to spend the day in death Valley.  We drove through Twenty Mule Team Canyon and stopped at Zabriskie Point.  Our first stop in Badwater Basin which is the lowest elevation in the US, 282 feet below sea level.  We drive the side road of Artists Palette and then stop at Furnace Creek.  The campground there is closed and being improved so maybe next time we can stay in the park.  There is also a Death Valley Museum in Furnace Creek that we stop at.  We drive to Stovepipe Wells and stop at the old Harmony Borax Works.

This is Charleston Peak behind our campground in Pahrump

Dick and I at Badwater Basin

Twenty Mule Team Canyon

Artists Drive

Harmony Borax Works

Plant used to refine Borax

On the way back to the campground we stopped at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.  We walked along Crystal Spring and saw the endangered Ash Meadows Amargosa Pupfish.

There are three Pupfish in this picture, they are blue colored and small.

Beatty NV & Death Valley, April 24th

Today we move about 75 miles north to the little town of Beatty so we are closer to the northern part of Death Valley.  After getting settled in the campground we pack a lunch and leave to go into Death Valley to Scotty's Castle.  We take the one way Jeep like road through Titus Canyon.  We climb over Red Pass and the road winds through the enormous straight rock walls that are at a right angle to the road and form a box canyon.  There was only room for a one lane road through the canyon.  We get to Scotty's Castle in time for the 1:00 tour of the house which lasts an hour.  The 1920s era building is decorated with Spanish and Italian antiques, leather furniture, hand-carved redwood beams and iron chandeliers.  The floors are tile and partly covered with handmade Spanish Majorcan rugs.  All the furnishings are original.  The only thing that was never finished is the outdoor pool.  The house was built by Albert and Bessie Johnson but takes it's name from Walter Scott better known as Death Valley Scotty who loved to tell stories and claimed he had a gold mine under the castle. 


Titus Canyon

Scotty's Castle

Courtyard between main house and annex

Living room

Dick in kitchen

Music Room

Old cars

The unfinished pool

Before leaving the park we drove to Ubehebe Crater which is 3,000 years old, 1/2 mile long and 500 feet deep.  The beautiful color of the crater walls are very surprising, the landscape before getting to the crater is very black looking because of the lava rock covering the landscape.



Ubehebe Crater

We saw this sign along the road outside of the town of Beatty.  Dick had a hard time keeping the motor home on the road because of craning his neck to see.

We have had a wonderful trip this winter and have done lots of sightseeing along the way.  We stayed one month in Yuma and 2 months in Mesa and rest of the time visited many different places.  We had a wonderful two week trip to Hawaii this winter also. We are in Winnamucca NV tonight and it is raining.  We leave tomorrow for Parma ID to visit my sister and her husband for a few days.  I need a shopping trip!!  We will then be heading home to Colfax.  Our son, Chad turns 40 May 6th so we are going to his birthday party in Moses Lake that weekend.  Happy Travels, Barb

Oh I almost forgot, Dick and I are going to be volunteers at North Head Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment for the month of July.  We will be camping at Fort Canby State Park and the lighthouse is at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Ocean and owned and run by the State of Washington.  If you are in the area, stop by the lighthouse and say hello.

Casa Grande, Cottonwood Arizona

Mar. 19, 20 & 21st.  Casa Grande AZ

The weather is cold and rainy and snow fell up around Sedona and Flagstaff over the weekend so decided to go to Casa Grande which is a little south of Phoenix for 3 days to wait out the weather.  Our campground is out in the country a few miles from town.  We visited the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument which is an ancient Hohokam farming village built around 1350.  The largest structure is the Great House, four stories high and 60 feet long which is now covered with a canopy to protect it from the elements.  There are other smaller ruins scattered around the Great House.  It is amazing that so much of this structure is still standing today.  It has been stabilized and protected since 1892 when it became the nation's first archaeological reserve.  Our last night in Casa Grande we went to a happy hour and met some nice people from Minnesota.

Four story Great House

The holes were for timbers for a ceiling/floor for a two story structure.

Mar. 22 through April 8th. Cottonwood AZ

The weather is sunny and nice so we go north to Cottonwood which is just out of Sedona.  We camped here last year for a few days and are staying 18 days this year.  There is so much to see and do around this area.  We went to the visitors center and got information on Jeep roads in the area.  In Sedona there are numerous Jeep tours and Jeep rentals available.  When we were out driving these back roads we ran into many jeep tours. 

Coming into Sedona

Snoopy Rock

Monday, March 26th

Today we packed a lunch and headed off to see a couple of ruins and ride a back country Jeep road.  We stopped first at Palatki Ruin.  There are petroglyphs on a cave like wall and a ruin built up against a canyon wall.  We weren't able to get real close to the ruin. Palatki was built by the Sinagua Indians (Spanish for "without water") about 1150 and abandoned at about 1300, not sure why they left but they could have been eliminated by other enemy tribes in the area or vacated due to a lengthy drought.    These same Indians built Montezuma Castle and the Honanki cliff dwellings.  Next we visit the nearby Honanki cliff dwellings which were built by the Sinagua Indians who lived here from about AD 1100 to 1300.  These dwellings were along a cliff and we were able to walk right up to them.

Petroglyphs

Palatki Ruins

Honanki Ruins

Honanki Ruins

view from the Jeep back country road

Tuesday, March 27th

Today we drive to the town on the side of a mountain, Jerome which is an old mining town.  It is now filled with many interesting shops and restaurants.  We eat lunch at the Haunted Hamburger and then start our journey out on a back country Jeep road.  We make a loop and end-up back in Jerome. 

Jerome AZ

Friday, March. 30th

Today we are back in Sedona and drive out Schnebly Hill Road.  It is recomended for high clearance and 4wheel drive but we saw some cars trying to drive the road.  There were lots of Jeep tours out there also.  The road took us 4 miles out into the red rock country. 

Red rocks around Sedona

Saturday, March 31

Today we are meeting friends of ours, Ron and Elaine from British Columbia who we met in Florida last year.  They have Canadian friends with them so we take two cars.  We are going to Crown King which is an old mining town about 50 miles away in the mountains and accessible by Forest Service roads only.  We did some geocaching on the way into Crown King and had a delicious lunch at a restaurant call The Mill.  We checked out the other stores in town and there were lots of people and 4 wheelers in town that Saturday.  It is surprising how many people seem to live in the area, the hills were dotted with homes.  We had a fun day with our friends.

Downtown Crown King AZ

Dick finding a cache

Ron and Elaine

Monday, April 2

Today we are taking Ron and Elaine up to Flagstaff to visit 3 National Monuments.  The first stop is Wupatki Pueblos.  There are five Pueblo dwellings spread over several miles.  They were built in the 1100's when puebloan peoples came together to build a vast farming community.  The first eruption of Sunset Crater helped improve the farming because the thin ash layer absorbed moisture and climate changed to provide more rainfall during the growing season.  By 1180 thousands of people were farming on the Wupatki land and by 1250 most had moved on to establish new homes elsewhere.
We did some geocaching along the way and even found one at the picnic grounds where we stopped for lunch.

Lomaki Pueblo

Wupatki Pueblo has 100 rooms

Wupatki Pueblo up close

Sunset Crater Nat. Mon. was our next stop after lunch.  The black ash and cinders covered the landscape for miles around the crater, carried by wind dusting 800 square miles of northern Arizona with ash.  Erupting sometime between 1040 and 1100 Sunset Crater is the most recent in a six-million-year history of volcanic activity in the Flagstaff area.  A trail and boardwalk over the lava flow went out from the visitor's center.

Sunset Crater

Lava flow in foreground and Sunset Crater

The last stop of the day was Walnut Canyon where we saw many cliff dwellings in the canyon walls.  ArcheologistsSinagua, lived by farming, hunting and gathering.  We had a fun day in Flagstaff and ended the day with dinner together.

Walnut Canyon

We were able to walk right up to the dwellings

With 300 dwellings in the canyon it was almost apartment like.

Wednesday, April 4th

Ron and Elaine came to our motor home to show Dick how to load and log geocaches into the GPS.  After lunch we went to find a few across the highway from our campground.  We ended up finding 9 caches.  We found a series of 5 that were all related and placed by the same person.  We had fun finding the caches so I ordered Dick a hand held GPS for geocaching for his up coming birthday.  Ron and Elaine are leaving for their home in British Colombia tomorrow.  We have had a good time with them.

Elaine taking out the tube to record our find

Ron taking out the last cache, a skull.

Saturday, April 7th.

After lunch we drive into Sedona one last time.  We drive the red rock loop road and see some wonderful scenery of Cathedral Rock.  We stopped at an overlook on the airport road where one of the 4 vortexes are located and some of the trees there are twisted.  From Sedona we drove to Jerome to have dinner at a BBQ restaurant.  We had about an hour to walk around the town.  My favorite store is a kaleidoscope store where they had all sizes and kinds.  Out front of their store they had a basket planted with many colors of live plants and flowers and a kaleidoscope attached. 

Cathedral Rock

Twisted tree at vortex

Looking through the kaleidoscope

Flowers in basket

Two more pictures looking through the kaleidoscopes

We have had a good time visiting this area of Arizona for the last 3 weeks and on Monday we are going to move to Las Vegas for 10 days.  Happy Travels, Barb