Painted Desert and Grand Canyon - South Rim

On the drive to Flagstaff, Arizona, we stopped at the Painted Desert which also contains a petrified forest. Unfortunately, due to time restraints, we couldn't go the full length of this park to see the forest, but did stop and see the desert and a building restored from the Old Route 66 era.

This adobe style building used to serve customers on the hot, searing, desert roads a refreshing cold drink or ice cream. It had a full menu of fast foods from back in the 50's. Many of the menu items were priced at $.10-.20!

Now the building serves as a Ranger Station and museum/book store. 






These little guys were all over. It looked similar to a Pine Lizard and was long and fast!










Have you ever wondered where different sites get their name? This one should not puzzle you at all. It is the grandest of the grand and such a marvel that even though we've been there 3 times now, we still stand in awe of God's wonderful creation here on earth for our pleasure.





I'm going to try a different tactic for the next few blogs that will have a large amount of pictures. I will post some as medium size and most as small. If you click on the first one after reading (if you want to bother :-) about the pictures themselves, you can view them in full size and use the right or left arrow key to plow through them all. It is just too hard to leave this one or that one out.

 

It took about 2 hours to drive into the canyon. The original plan was to visit the south rim this day and the north rim the next. More about how that all went later...

 
And here we are. Revisiting a portion of the hike we did 8 years ago. We hiked with a group from the north rim to the south rim with a 2 night stay in Phantom Ranch by the Colorado River. The views are so spectacular.





The picture here to the left shows a mule train that has just ascended from Phantom Ranch. We encountered large groups of not very well prepared visitors on the path. I wonder about the wisdom of some parents at times.





This is a shot of me from the lower path to show some of the elevation. To the right is a squirrel that was very adept at posing and begging for food. All the squirrels along this path were quite friendly and fat.







We weren't sure what this bird was but it also was begging and friendly. Now the picture to the right shows a deep gorge that was part of our original hike in 2006. Even I have to admit I'm not physically able to do that kind of activity again. :-(


 Here is a condor who was hunting for water. There was a small puddle it spotted from overhead and it circled and landed on a wall. The crowds surrounded it but it cautiously jumped to the ground to sip before taking flight. To the right is El Tovar Lodge.

The next trip in we decided we must take this train to where ever it goes.







This sign says no ATV vehicles allowed. Really? What about this drops off into a deep abyss does anyone not understand you don't want to go there, period?





And then we rode off into the sunset. God couldn't have given us a nicer ending to a nicer day!

Dallas, Texas

Bob's sister, Sherri, lives in McKinney, TX which used to be a sleepy little suburb north of Dallas. The last several years has seen it explode. We enticed Sherri to do a touristy trip one day. We three piled in her car and drove into Dallas to see the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

It is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas in a 15-acre urban park. It covers all aspects of President Bush's terms in office and offers a lot of hands-on interaction. They have a program that connects it to the other 12 Presidential museums throughout the US which is fun. You buy a 'passport' and have it stamped at each location. To read more about this location go to www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu.

Here are a few highlights:

 Hey...I remembered to take a picture as we walked in for a change! (For anyone new to this blog, if you click once on the first picture, all the pictures will come up enlarged for easier viewing.)









This is an actual piece of tangled metal from one of the twin towers of 9/11. Pretty amazing to see it up close and personal.











This is a display case of Saddam Huesam. In the center, bottom of the case you can see the actual pistol he had on him when captured. Eerie!








This is one of the many displays throughout the 14,000SF gallery. There were displays where you could touch the screen and blow up different bits of information. There are volunteers that work and encourage you to touch and learn.

 Here is me trying out the President's chair in the oval office. It was quite interesting to see the details in the replicated room.












 Here is Bob trying out the chair.

Okay, so I had to have some fun with it! We wanted to use the phone to call someone to make a critical decision...well, really, maybe not! It was interesting to see how small the Oval Office really is.

We stayed with Sherri until Sunday morning and then took off for the Grand Canyon. We drove over 600 miles and stayed in a Days Inn (high class, right?) about 30 miles west of Flagstaff AZ so we would have the whole day to visit the south rim the next day.

Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, Mississippi

 
This park "includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of historic trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile tour road, a 12.5-mile walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 em-placed cannons, restored gunboat USS Cairo (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, recovered successfully in 1964), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire. The Cairo, also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. ship in history to be sunk by a torpedo/mine. It was raised in 1964." (Pictures below)

"The Illinois State Memorial has 47 steps, one for every day Vicksburg was besieged." (Pictured at the left). (This information is taken from Wikipedia)










 All of the monuments are made of marble. They are stunning, and some as you can see, are very large. This is the inside of the Illinios.










After breakfast we drove to the park and began the driving tour. We had only a few hours to spend so didn't do a lot of walking. We would definitely like to go back and take a longer time in the future. There are so many monuments and markers throughout the park that it's impossible to stop and read each one.











The front end of the driving tour is primarily Northern state monuments and the half way point is the ship The Cairo. The higher elevated areas were secured by the South and those monuments were on that half of the tour.

This is the ship The Cairo. It was sunk by a mine field 'planted' by the Rebels. It has been partially reconstructed to show where guns were placed and how it was fortified to withstand gun power. Unfortunately, the hull was broken open and it sunk in just a few minutes in less than 40' of water. The structure covering it is quite impressive and there is a museum and gift shop there also.

 Many artifacts were recovered from the ship where it was raised. If you blow up this picture and look at number 4, you will be looking at a Lea and Perrins Worchestershire bottle! Bob found that pretty cool. The label is gone of course but the bottle is virtually the same shape as it is today.

This area starts the examples of the Southern monuments. According to other information I gathered, the Yankees have many more elaborate monuments than the Rebs. The reason for this is the north had much more money after the war whereas it took the southern states many years to recover from the decimation.
















This tunnel was pretty cool. The Yankees dug it out under the road and trenched their way up the hill to the Rebal position in order to dig a mine and start blowing holes in the defenses. The first picture is the tunnel under the road. The second picture is the Rebel position looking down on the tunnel (see the road? look to the right...) and the trenches and continued to bombard the Yankees as they trenched up the hill.





 Here are a couple of single monuments to individuals from the south.

 This monument is from Missouri for the South. The placard read that the iron work was added many years after the original monument was placed and dedicated due to the cost.

This part of our trip was very interesting and like I said earlier, we will return to take more time in the future if we are lucky! From Vicksburg we drove straight to McKinney TX to visit with sister, Sherri.

SweetWater River Park, Douglas County, GA

Our first day out we drove through Atlanta and out I-20 west, stopping in Lithia Springs for the first night. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and drove to the Sweetwater River State Park to take an easy 1 mile loop walk, hoping we'd have time to make the loop twice.










It turns out there are 9 miles of trails, one is bordered by the river, the Red Trail, which also ended at the mill. We started out on the Red Trail and planned on coming back on the White Trail. The Red Trail was more than an easy walking trail. It was a blast as we climbed down rocks and slid across wet areas. At the end of the trail we came to a Textile Mill that was burned during the Civil War. It has quite an interesting history, more than I can recount here.












































We made it to the end and decided to take the White Trail back. Having turned the wrong way, we took the long loop back to the museum/gift shop and hiked 4-5 miles rather than the original 2.



This picture shows what the textile mill looked like prior to being burned by Sherman!

We still enjoyed the hike, checked out the museum and got on the road only 2 hours late. No big deal, we're on our own time and made it to Vicksburg in time for cocktail hour and a dip in the pool.

Destin, Florida

So here we are in Florida at the Destin beach. Several families rented a very large house walking distance to the beach. Bob and I stayed at a hotel nearby. It meant we got to sleep each night, ha!




Wednesday, Thursday, Friday we baked in the sun and surf, ate like piglets and played games or relaxed and chatted with different ones. There were 18 adults in the house and 4 little kids. Insane, right? :)






Our son, Carl, and his wife, Kimberly, turned 40 this year. Carl in May and Kim, well, while at the beach! The kids had some fun.












Saturday we drove back to Dunnellon to began packing for Yellowstone. The details on that
adventure will start very soon. This is the best way to make time go by at warp speed. It's not for the faint hearted! We are having fun though and can't get enough of the traveling.

This is mostly just a quick recap of June. I know I'm behind but will try to stay caught up after a few more posts.

Blessings to all!!

Catching Up

June is a blur! We made a quick trip to Atlanta for Bob's high school get together on June 6, his Mom's 85th birthday party on June 7 and youngest grandson's birthday pool party on June 8. Then back to Dunnellon. Here is the oldest and the youngest that celebrated their birthdays.













June 15 we drove to Knoxville TN. June 16 we rode to Appalachian Christian Camp with our daughter, son-in-law, and 2 teen grands. Christine and I were cabin counselors in a girl's cabin and John and Bob were cabin counselors for the boys. We were all volunteers and as such we were invited to participate in all the activities for the kids.

(Note the 2 girls in the background trying to push over a tree)

Christine and John talking to the kids below

 One day was a hike to some pretty falls, the next we went caving, the next white water rafting (except they put Bob and I in single kayaks), the next was pontoon boats in a large lake in the morning and horse back riding (I use the term loosely as we sat on horses while they walked around in a ring for less than 30 minutes). In between these activities was a large amount of camp pool time, fishing in the large creek, zip line, devotion time, eating outdoors and team building exercises for the kids.

 Pontoon boats on a lake. Very scenic!

 Bob on the climbing wall...












What he was really on :)

Me on the zip line. Hey, grandparents can have fun too! Unfortunately, due to the water aspect, there are no pictures of the rafting adventure or the caving. That was a real shame since we were all covered in mud from top to bottom from the caving!

So that's the first part of this trip.





June 20 we rode back to Knoxville and on Saturday took Casey and Brandon to see Captain America. Another fun hero style movie. Sunday was church and then Dollywood with the kids and Monday another movie.

That's enough you say? You're exhausted just reading this? Ahh, no! Tuesday, June 24 we drove from Knoxville down to Destin FL to join our son, daughter-in-law and family at the beach! Check in next time for the 'rest of the story!'