Fall 2006 Trip to Indio California

Fall 2006 Trip to Indio California October 7th to November1st

As we start to write this blog entry we are busy getting our motor home packed and ready for the trip south. I am still providing care to my father. He is starting to fight back to normal health and hopefully by next week he can be more on his own. We plan to return at Christmas to enjoy a family time which will include my sisters family and my dad.

As our plans are now we will leave on Saturday October 7th and spend the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend with Alan and Jen in Kelowna BC. Andrea and Andrew will join us. The balance of that week we will spend with Bob and Beth Thurston in OK Falls on Skaha Lake, play some golf, visit some wineries and make sure the motor home is ready for the trip south.

On Friday October 13th we will head for Spokane Wash to meet up with Bill and Margaret Reaugh. We will motor together down I15 with major stops at Salt Lake City, Bryce and Zion Canyon, (maybe Las Vegas) Sedona, Phoenix, Casa Grande then on to Indio CA. We anticipate arriving no later then November 7th.

Every week or so when we have good e-mail connection we will update our travel progress so stay tuned.

We had a great week with Bob and Beth Thurston (Thank You). Bob and I did odd jobs around the house and yard … jobs he needed two hands. We played golf on Wednesday at his course Fairview Mountain. Marilyn and Beth shopped, walked and tried to visit some winery.

On Thanksgiving Sunday we went to Al and Jen’s in Kelowna. Andrea and Andrew had arrived on Saturday. We had a great time with the family and a good thanksgiving. Jen had her mother and sisters for dinner. It was great. Jen and Alan thank you for your hospitality.

Our trip to Coeur d’ Alene, ID was great. We took the route down Hwy 97 then over the mountains to Grand Coulee dam. We arrived at the RV Park within 3 minutes of Bill and Margaret Reaugh. Could not have been that accurate if we had tried. We did not have a lot of color in the trees as our route was high plains. Bill and Margaret came over Hwy 2 and had lots of color in the trees. We are sitting on the Spokane River at the entrance to Coeur d’ Alene Lake. Great site and the Sun rise is wonderful which should be a good day for some site seeing. We will leave on Sunday for points south. Will update the blog in a few days.

Well here we are in Salt Lake City. We are planning three days here which should be fun and give us a good overview.

But first back to Coeur D’ Alene, ID. Friday night we had a great meal of smoke Alaska Black Cod with lots of good wine.

We spent a leisurely Saturday morning by relaxing then taking a drive down Lake Coeur D’ Alene. A beautiful drive beside the lake with lots of undeveloped shore line to see. We saw the small lumber mill town of Harrison then did a loop back up Hwy 3 to Coeur D’ Lane. Once back in town we spent some time in the downtown area stopping for a late lunch. We spent the balance of the evening talking about a rough plan for the balance of our trip. This of course was with a great BBQ Rib dinner and some wine.

Sunday morning we woke to Rain. This is the first rain we have seen in quite some time. We were on the road, in the rain, by 9 am. The rain stopped by early afternoon and we were back in a mix of sunshine and cloud. The trip this day down I95 was in forest then great high plateau plains to Lewiston, ID. At that point the mighty Snake River appeared and it was with us for the next three days. After Lewiston the road went in and out of the canyon. We understand from Bill and Margaret, who drive this route some 30 years ago, it was a very twisty road with lots of switch backs. Now the road is a very good road with long up hill and down hill stretches. We stayed Sunday night 10 miles south of Riggings ID. The campground was right on the Salmon River which is famous for its great catches of Steelhead. A lovely spot to spend the evening and enjoy a BBQ Chicken dinner and of course some wine.

Monday morning was could at about 8 C. The day improved to sunshine as we came out of the canyons on to high plain. The plain the wagon trains headed west on some 150 + years ago. This is why we drove a shorter distance to Fruitland ID near Ontario OR. We had crossed into the Mountain Time Zone late yesterday but we decided to keep our time on Pacific as we were going to drive west on I84 to Baker OR. Bob and Beth Thurston had told us about the Oregon Trail Interpretative Centre in Baker, OR so we decided to drive the 75 miles to visit. The trip was well worth it and we enjoyed learning about the hardships of the settlers who took the Oregon Trail west from Independence. IN. This is a trip of some 2000 miles which most of them walk taking 150 days. Yes it was good to see the Oregon Trail Interpretative. We then went to downtown Baker, OR to see the restored buildings and had a lovely dinner in a local brew pub. We got back to Fruitland about 8 pm which immediately came 9 pm Mountain Time in time to check e-mails and get to bed.

Tuesday we got away about 8.45 am and thought we could get into Utah. We are now going SE on I84 a 4 lane highway but after a review at lunch realized that our goal was not attainable but no towns existed until we got down to I15 north of Salt Lake City. This was too far to drive so we stopped earlier in Dedol, ID. The scenery on this road is very flat dull parries which made us think of the settlers who drove their wagons on this Oregon Trail. We finished the day with some motor home checks and minor repairs and a lovely dinner of BBQ Buffalo burgers and you are right some wine. The evening finished with a great sunset over the planes. This red sky indicated to us the next day would be great.

We awoke this morning to rain puddles of solid ice. It was cold over night. My outside temperature gage shower -1 C when I woke at 6.30 am. The trip out of Idaho and into Utah was great. The first part of the tip was the usual flat plains for growing Idaho Potatoes and as we crossed into Utah we started to see the snowed capped mountains.
We are located in Sandy UT about 15 miles south of downtown Salt Lake City. Will up date in a few days.. …….. Bill and Margaret went into Salt Lake City on an exposition to investigate the city. Marilyn and I went shopping in Sandy and did a wash.

Our first day in Sault lake city was good. The downtown is simple and of course the Church of the Later Day Saints is big. We viewed all that, went for a drive out to Antelope Island National Park in the middle of Salt lake and finished the day going Little Cottonwood Canyon. Dinner was homemade Pizza and of course wine. The Blogspot will be updated in a few days as we visit the 2002 Olympic Ski Village tomorrow and it is on to Bryce Canyon on Saturday.

Still on the Road to Indio
Friday October 20th to October 23rd

It got cold! We woke up Friday morning to temperature in the 29/33 F area and the outside temperature gage showed -1 C. The sun is shining so we can not complain. I finally got connected to a phone line to be able to download my e-mails. A couple staying this park who are traveling in their motor home full time helped me. In fact if you want to see some pictures of Salt Lake City and area have a look at their site:
http://www.joyandphil.blogspot.com
Go to their October 19 post to see the pictures. Thanks Phil and Joy for your help. I will have to learn the picture feature so I can post the odd picture on my site.

Getting connected again brings us up to date with what is happing by e-mail. A sad note is I received an e-mail from my sister Eleanor that my Dad Gordon has had another TIA .
It is hard being away. Dad we are thinking of you and I know you would enjoy revisiting this are of the USA. We dedicate this trip to you.

To day we drove up I80 heading to Park City the historic silver mining town which is not the centre of the ski area. I80 leads across Utah to Cheyenne WI which was interesting to know. We only went about 30 miles to get to Park City which is the Whistler of the 2002 Olympics. Park City is much closer to Salt Lake City then Whistler is to Vancouver. The drive up the Sea to Sky Highway is much more beautiful then the I80 drive to Park City and the whole see once in the mountains near the 2002 Olympic Village can’t compare to our Whistler. People will be impressed with Whistler.

The historic Park City town is like any tourist town with all the usual shops (similar to Whistler). This was a silver mining are at the turn of the last century so the older part of town reflects this time. Cabins and homes with your usual hotels in between are spread over the hills. We viewed the Olympic site but could only see the massive ski jump area and the bobsled run which is used in the summer as a ride. After leaving this area we headed back to Salt Lake City going to the west side of town to see if we could find the Brigham Copper Mine which had a tour. We got lost and never found the mine. We got back to the campground about 3.30pm for happy hour and a lovely dinner.
We again got up to a cold morning (colder then yesterday). We are now going to head for Bryce Canyon. I had looked up the temperature in Bryce and found out at night it was going to go down to 21 F. Bill and Margaret did not want to go to that cold an area. Bill phoned the campground and found out all water was turned off as it would freeze. They wanted to go on to Saint George (quite a bit warmer) and stay a few days and drive back and into Bryce Canyon. We had a compromise and are staying is Cedar City which is closer to Bryce.

On the Road to Indio “The Canyons”
October 22 to October 25, 2006

Our trip to Cedar City was uneventful. We arrived in mid afternoon in a KOA. Good campground but expensive. We took it easy the balance of the afternoon and into the evening having dinner in our own rigs.

We were up early Sunday morning to drive up to Bryce Canyon. The decision to stay in Cedar City a little closer to Bryce was a good one. The trip up to the canyon and I mean up was good. I believe we were at 3 to 4 thousand feet in Cedar City by the time our day was over we will have traveled higher then 10,000 feet above see level. As we hot on the high plateau all looked like a prairie. We stopped at Ruby’s Inn to have coffee and look around. This is the place we were going to stay if we had driven the motor homes. The campground looked great and the daytime temperature was good in lots of sunshine. I will make just one comment about Bryce Canyon National Park and that is spectacular.
I can’t describe what we saw other then to say bright red rock canyons with lots of Hoodoo’s. Bryce you look down into. We had brought our lunch and stopped at a picnic table after visiting the first of nine overlooks. All were different and great in their own way. I will now put in one of my favorite pictures. We spent all day at over 9000 feet. We had so much to do we could have stayed for days. At the end of the day we drove east on hwy 12 towards the flats Kodachrome State Park but after we got to the town of Tropic we realized it was too far and we had better get back to Cedar City. On the new route back we climbed to over 10,000 feet and were in the snow. We were heading to Cedar Breaks National Monument another great canyon, and it was except most of the steep cliffs were covered with snow. We got back to the camp ground at about 7pm. Quite a day which leaves one awestruck.

Our drive to St. George the next day was short and we were set up by lunch time. Both couples went their separate was in the afternoon. Marilyn and I went sight seeing and some shopping for dinner. One of the things that happened today is that we dropped about 3000 feet and the temperature was not 70 plus degrees. Our thermometer showed it as 25 C. It was now the weather we were looking for and when we got back to the motor home we set up our chairs and relaxed.

Today (Tuesday) we woke to cloudy skies. We headed off to Zion National Park which has two separate parts Kolob Canyon and the main park. We drove back up Hwy 15 and visited Kolob Canyon which was a canyon of beautiful red cliff. In fact the pavement was red. The difference between Bryce and Zion is that in Brice you are looking down at the beauty and in Zion you are looking up at the beauty. After Kolob we drove and hour to the main Zion National Park Visitors Centre. The town is Springdale where we signed up to see a 50’s show on Thursday night. Today we got on shuttle buses and toured the canyon. A great was to see the various sights. As I said earlier we looked up and up tall, tall read sand stone faces 5 to 6 thousand feet high. I have to say that after Brice Canyon, Zion Canyon was a bit of a let down but once you took in the sheer size of these cliffs it took on its own beauty. Apparently this is the second favorite cliff climbing area in the USA. There were a number of pairs climbing and the interesting fact is they will take three days to get to the top. They spend the nights on ledges. We had a great day and are going to return tomorrow and do two of the hikes. As we returned the hour back to our motor homes it started to light rain.

We are again today Wednesday in Zion National Park. We arrived about 11am had coffee and drove up Hwy 9 through a tunnel that was 1.1 miles long and built in 1930. The drive to the tunnel was great but the interesting part is that on the west side of the tunnel we were in sunshine having a good time taking pictures. We went through the tunnel to the other side of the mountain arriving to a hale and thunderstorm. Quite a contrast as we turned around and drove back through the tunnel. The weather had also turned bad on the west side. We decided to go to the visitor centre and board a buss for a drive up to the northern most stop in Zion. The trip took about 45 minutes and by the time we arrived at Temple of Sinawava the sun was out. We had a good 90 minute walk on the Riverside Walk in the narrow part of the canyon. This prepared us for our walk to the Emerald Pools. We took the buss back to Grotto stop and although Margaret Reaugh was a little reluctant to hike the Kayenta trail up to the pools we all agreed to give it a try and if it got too steep we would turn back. We did not have to turn back and we spent the next 90 minutes walking up to the upper Emerald pool. We were high and right up against the high cliffs. This hike was a great experience and both Marilyn and Margaret made it too the top pool. The trip down on another trail was also a great hike. Lots of views. We arrived back at the Lodge buss stop at 4.30 for our trip to the visitor centre. We were back at the motor homes at 6.30 pm. A great day capped off with a happy hour and stake and baked potato BBQ.

Thursday is going to be a more relaxing day. We started off with a lovely breakfast at a local Belgium Waffle and Coffee House. Great breakfast! After that we went our separate ways. Marilyn and I went off to visit Snow Canyon which was another surprise. A whole different canyon from the others we had seen. This is the area where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was filmed. On our way back we visited a high school out in the desert that is totally devoted to the performing arts. It has an out door stage set against the red cliffs. That evening we went back to Zion National Park to see a musical called “Twist the Night Away”. From the title you can see this was a fifties musical. We enjoyed the evening.

Friday October 27 to Monday October 30

We left St. George on Friday morning. We enjoyed our stay and would recommend anyone spending some time in the area. Our trip today takes us on 89A across the north face of the Grand Canyon. We arrived at the T in the road where you take a detour into the North Face of the Grand Canyon. We had lunch and I unhooked the Tracker and we drove to the North Face leaving the motor home back on 89A. The north face of the Grand Canyon is higher at 8000 plus feet then the south face but it is not as spectacular as the south face. I believe this is because the north side gets lots of sun and trees are growing on some of the wall outcroppings so the walls do not appear as steep. We visited two areas and in both cases the view took your breath away. We got back to our motor homes about 4 pm but had learned that Arizona does not go on day light savings and stays on standard time. We gained an hour right then. We needed it as we have quite a drive to find a camp ground that is open. Bill had talked to a lady in and information centre who said we should look at the campground and Lees Ferry in the Marble Canyon. We were going to go to drive to Page AZ where we knew a camp ground existed. It was a long way and the sun was starting to get low in the sky. We went into Lees Ferry and the camp site was great. This is the only area in the Grand Canyon where you can drive down to the Colorado River. We were camped looking at the River. We could also have a campfire so we had an old fashion wiener roast for dinner. Had a good night in this very quiet dark canyon.

On Saturday we drove to Camp Verde on I17 heading towards Phoenix. Our first evening here was quiet. Margaret invited us to dinner to share their roasted chicken. Sunday we decided to go our separate ways. Marilyn and I went to see Montezuma Castle National Monument which is a 700 year old cliff dwelling. We enjoyed the visit. We then went to Sedona and drove through town. It was very busy so we decided not to stop in the main tourist area and went down Hwy 89 to a great restaurant and had lunch, In the afternoon we toured the areas of Sedona, Cottonwood and Clarkdale. On Monday we all went to Jerome an old mining town in the mountains. We had lunch at a restaurant we had visited 3 winters ago. After that we continued on up the mountain and on to Prescott. The mountain road had over 150 switch backs. Quite the road which I did not want travel back on. We did find an alternative route home. In Prescott we toured the town and let the gals shop while Bill and I tried out beer in a local beer specially bar. Prescott is a cowboy town out of the mid to late 1800 and appears to have more saloons than I have ever seen. Some date back to the turn of the century. The ladies had a successful shopping trip and we arrived back at the motor homes at about 6 pm.

Tomorrow on Halloween we are going to Goodyear a suburb of Phoenix. Marilyn and I are hoping we can get settled in the camp site by noon, have lunch then go see our new park model. If all is well with the park model we will leave on Wednesday morning for Indio and Happy Wanderer. I will publish the final issue of this trip on Monday, November 6th which will allow me to give an up date on the new Park Model and or getting settled in California for the winter.