Habersham Harvest Festival 2024

Lindsay brought the Grandkids and the dogs so that we could all attend this year's Festival. It seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year. We arrived at the carnival as the rides opened on Saturday morning. There were no lines. That allowed me to spend maximum money in minimum time. Jamie was at a NASCAR race in Atlanta so he was not in attendance. Seems like that race is always the exact same weekend as the Harvest Festival. Quite a coincidence. Today is Sunday. We have put the house back together and all is well. Halloween is next. CANDY!

Fort Mill HS Homecoming 2024

Jenny and I were invited to observe the festivities surrounding the Fort Mill Homecoming. Aubrey was in the Homecoming Court and the twins performed as members of the Fort Mill dance team. The football team wasn't successful against Rock Hill but we weren't embarrassed. 

On the way home

 

Grand Canyon day 3

We started our day with a 2 hour guided tour along the rim to Hermit's Rest. After that we visited some of the parks facilities that we hadn't visited yet. This evening was a nice dinner at the Steakhouse followed but a get together at our cabin where we finished off our adult beverages. Tomorrow we all depart. John & Jean and Jerry & Diane head to Phoenix for a flight back to Texas. Jenny and I have an overnight in Phoenix because we have an early flight day after tomorrow. This has been a great reunion that will be hard to top, of course we say that every year.

Grand Canyon day 2

We drove east toward Desert View today.  You can drive on that road as opposed to riding on a shuttle bus and that gave us a little more flexibility. We pulled over at several of the viewpoints to try and absorb what we were looking at. This place is pretty spectacular. After lunch, John and I hiked 1 1/2 miles into the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail. The climb out was what we expected. I am tired. We have one more day here. We have booked a tour to Hermit's Rest tomorrow.

Grand Canyon NP

We have safely arrived at the Grand Canyon. Our route here took us up through Oak Creek Canyon. We pulled over at Slide Rock State Park to get a view of the creek, then we stopped at the top of the climb and checked out the views. There were a few Navajo craft ladies selling Navajo crafts. We now have some of

those. We ate lunch in Flagstaff and got checked into our cabins at around 4. Dinner was at the El Tovar hotel dining room. That was pretty much day 1. Tomorrow we will visit the overlooks on the way to Hermit's Rest.

Sedona day 4

We had no activities planned today. Consequently we didn't do much. We went into town and had some Mexican food. After that the girls and the guys split up. The guys did some day drinking and the girls did girl stuff. This will be our last day here. Tomorrow is Grand Canyon National Park. 

Sedona day 3

Today's big event was the 4 hour, 4 winery, party bus tour. There were 19 of us on the bus. We were all picked up and dropped off at our respective locations so no one had to drive. The drive between wineries got wilder as the day progressed until the ride home was a disco inferno. We were the only group with a house and everyone was threatening to unload with us and continue the party at the house. We convinced the driver to close the door after we got off so we dodged a bullet there. There was a short hike this morning before the drinking began. We have nothing planned for tomorrow. 

Sedona day 2

Today was our area tour. We were in an open van with a canvas roof. There was some wind involved. So much wind that my hat was removed from my head and ended up on the road, never to be in my possession again. RIP! Before that tour John and I climbed the hill behind the house (a bushwack) for some 360° views. Really cool. Lunch was a highly recommended food truck. Tomorrow is a winery tour. 

Sedona

Day 1 is complete. The airlines did their job and we met at the house in time for a spectacular meal. Those pics were taken from our back porch. We have a tour scheduled later this morning. Weather is primo. More later.

Verde Valley AZ

Jenny and I are a day ahead of the Aggie group. We have agreed to meet in Sedona for a few days and then transition to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We flew into Phoenix, rented a car, and headed north for 80 miles to this small town. The Verde River flows through town (See pic) and there was a surprisingly good restaurant. We are only 30 miles from the VRBO and we can't check in until 4 so we are going to have to kill some time. The party starts tomorrow. 

Home

OK, here are some stats from the trip. Jenny keeps a journal and she can pull these numbers out of it pretty easily. We traveled 5,649 miles and we're out for 45 days. You might remember we left a few days late because of my medical issue. We filled up 24 times. There was one leg somewhere out there that there were not any gas stations. We got down to 1/8th of a tank and I elected not to let that happen again so at less than half a tank we started looking and didn't pass a fill-up opportunity. We visited 4 National Parks, 2 National Monuments and 13 State Parks. We stopped at 8 commercial campgrounds, 3 of those were KOAs. We got 1 flat tire and one cracked windshield (the Forrester). The link-up with the kids and Grandkids at Zion was the highlight. Jenny and I both decided that we definitely won't have to hike the Virgin River narrows again. This MP developed a few issues on this trip that we need to address. Our next outing will be Thanksgiving. We have booked the Cidar House again. Davejennyjournal is taking a break. Signing off.

South Point KOA, Yemassee SC

Didn't post anything yesterday. OOPS! We stayed with Pat and Steve. Paula dropped by so we saw everyone. Steve left early this morning to kill some clay pigeons. We stopped here, 30 miles from home, to get the MP ready for storage. My impending Gall Bladder removal is coming up and I need a couple tests and a visit with the surgeon. So I'm having mixed emotions about the end of this trip. We'll get together some stats tomorrow. 

Newport Tennessee KOA

Absolutely nothing to blog about today. There was a car fire that caused a slow down and on the other side there was a parking lot that had to be 5 miles long. We are at Pat's tomorrow. I looked back through the pics and found this one.

Natchez Trace SP Tennessee

The Natchez Trace was a series of indian/animal trails that connected Natchez Mississippi to Nashville Tennessee. It was an important travel route in the 18th century. This park covers 10,000 heavily forested acres. It has 3 lakes, 3 campgrounds, a bunch of cabins and a nice lodge. We are currently in the lodge eating dinner. They have wifi here so I'm going to post from our table. There are tall trees everywhere. Right above the MP is a small hole with a little view of the sky. I was able to move the satellite dish so that we could get a signal through that gap. I am so proud. They have a pretty bad Kudzu problem here. We drove several miles with nothing but Kudzu on both sides of the road. We are in Eastern Tennessee tomorrow. 

Hot Springs NP

Here's a fun fact: Bill Clinton's boy hood home was Hot Springs Arkansas. There's a big sign advertising that fact as you drive into town. The park and the town are sort of intermingled. The hot springs were deemed important enough that they were put on some sort of protected status in the 1800's. Way before there was a Dept. Of the interior or even before Yellowstone was protected. Commercial interests moved in and monetized the springs because the government was clueless about how to do it. There were 2 fires that burned everything and one flood before some government official was able to clean up the mess and take control. The springs were considered so therapeutic that the Army had a hospital here. There is a lot of heavily forested land behind the bathhouses that is what we would consider typical National Park. There are alot of trails, many of them were made in the beginning to facilitate the healing that was supposed to take place here. It was kind of a health resort. Today we rode an elevator up 282 feet to the top of that tower. There was some information about the parks history at the top. We did a scenic drive, stopped at the campground. There is a creek flowing through it. We ate lunch at the oldest bar in Arkansas (1911). There was a significant amount of graft and organized crime in early years of the towns development. The Ohio Club was involved in most of it. We head further East tomorrow. We have 3 one nighters and should be home on the 4th. Pat, we will be staying with you on the 3rd.

DeGray Lake day 2

We really needed to do laundry. We even washed a few things outside in some buckets a few days ago. Laundromats are frequently gross to the point of not being usable. We found one today that had recently opened. It hadn't had time to deteriorate. We went further into town to eat lunch and ended up only a few miles from Hot Springs National Park, so we drove on in. We will go back there tomorrow and do some exploring. An explanation of the pics are as follows: I rode this morning and took a pic of the earthen dam that backs up the Caddo river to form the lake. I'm not a golfer but those geese on the green are probably not a good thing. That spring behind us is 160° water. The historic downtown is lined with bathhouses. 2 of them are still operating as bathhouses, 2 of them are operated by the NPS, one is a restaurant and one is a brewery that uses hot spring water in their beer. More tomorrow. 

DeGray Lake Resort Park AK

Just a quick post. Today was a long ass drive. The nav systems were in wild disagreement. Garmin was 80 miles longer than Google. They were both based on time and it was apparently so slow leaving the Interstate that driving 80 more miles on the freeway would have got us here at the same time. We debated this dilemma for several hours until a decision had to be made. We stayed on

the Interstate. This park has a nice lodge where we ate dinner. I took that pic out of the lodge window. We are here for 3 nights. 

Red Rock Canyon day 2

We spent a good portion of this morning hiking around the canyon rim. The trail map we got at the entrance station yesterday was pretty pathetic so we really were clueless as to our location. We just keep walking and after 4 miles we descended back down into the canyon. There was not a lot of scenery. This is Oklahoma after all. Nothing is going to come close to the views we have had the last few weeks anyway. Tomorrow we get back on I 40 and immediately drive through Oklahoma City. Our out West vacation is kaput and it's back to the slog of interstate driving for most of the remainder of this trip. That pic is the only one I took today. There was alittle climb out of the canyon to get on the rim trail. Once we got up, there was a plant in abundance that I was curious about so I asked my plant identifier app what it was. Turned out it was poison Sumac. We googled that and it turns out it's worse than poison ivy. There was a frigging forest of that stuff on both sides of the trail. Neither one of us is itching. We were able to shower after the hike so maybe that saved us. On a positive note, I now know what poison Sumac looks like. We have a long drive tomorrow, nearly 400 miles. Should be in Arkansas. 

Red Rock Canyon Park OK.

OMG! I had forgotten what humidity felt like. I guess I should start getting ready. This is another one of those Oklahoma parks that used to be a state park and is now privately owned. We don't know if they are all like that but the only 2 parks we have stayed at here have gone private. This place is just outside of Hinton. It is literally a Red Rock Canyon about 100 feet deep, well watered and quite scenic. Its existence was not evident until we got on the road that spiraled down into it. I took a couple of pics to give you an idea of what this place is like. We will hike around some tomorrow. 

Beaver Dunes Park, Beaver OK

This place used to be a State Park. We're not sure what kind of park it is now. The parks phone has apparently been disconnected and there isn’t a headquarters that we could find. We thought we had reserved spot 4 but it was occupied when we arrived. We just pulled into another one. The pic of that pathetic campground is what we saw when we drove up. Jenny immediately said, Nope. Luckily a little bit further down the road was a campground that was more normal. The wind rarely stops blowing here. It has blown a bunch of sand. Not sure where it came from but it is a great place for Okies to ride their ORVs. I did a sand dune walk. Jenny wasn't interested. Can you figure out how I took that shadow pic without using my hands? We leave here tomorrow but will still be in Oklahoma for another couple of days. 

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument

This park surrounds the confluence of the Rio Grande and The Red River. There is one pic of the confluence off in the distance. The Red is on the left. All of the hikes down to the rivers are rocky and steep. We hiked down to the Red River above the confluence. The trail was one switchback after another. After we returned to the top we both decided doing that once was plenty. The town of Red River is only 15, uphill miles, from us. We ate dinner there last night and it was excellent, so we will go back there tonight. Tomorrow we should be in The Panhandle of Oklahoma at a small town called  Beaver. That will be a one night stand.

Questa New Mexico

We use 4 navigation systems to find our way around. I have Garmin and Mercedes and Jenny uses WAZE and Google. If we can get 2 to agree, we will go with that. This morning as we were leaving the campground Jenny's said turn left and mine said turn right. We turned left. So began the adventure. There were no major roads. It was 2 lane mountain roads that were getting increasingly dubious. We finally came upon a sign that read "pavement ends". I calmly and politely asked our navigator how long this condition would exist. There was an alarmingly

long pause and her answer was 30 miles. Oh well, it was full speed ahead (30 MPH). We ended up on pavement in Crested Butte. There was a lot of scenery but unfortunately my eyes were glued to the road. Tomorrow we will visit Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. That is another one of those places I saw on the Atlas when I was planning this trip.

Black Canyon day 2

The north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison doesn't have a lot going on. The scenic drive along the rim is a dirt road. The observation pull-outs are just a wide spot in the road. There is a ranger station but every time we went there, the door was locked. One good thing, we had the trails mostly to ourselves. We did 2 really good hikes. You can get numb to the scenery because it's just unreal everywhere you look. There was a picture worthy scene every few feet. This should be on everyone's bucket list, as long as you aren't afraid of heights. 

Crawford State Park

This park is near the town of Crawford, go figure. We are 12 miles from the North side of The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. After we got set up we drove into the park to get a look around. See pics. The canyon is narrow with vertical walls of over 2000 feet. The Rock is 2 billion years old that was forced to the surface by plate tectonics 300 million years ago. I challenge you to disprove that outlandish statement. We will do the entire scenic drive tomorrow with a couple hikes thrown in.