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.

James Robb day 5 (last day)

The reason I think I booked 5 days here is because this area is a mountain bike Mecca and I thought I'd be up for some riding. I planned this trip way before I became aware that parts of me were wearing out. As I said yesterday we found a trailhead not too far from here. I drove there this morning. Not knowing anything about the trails I just took off. It soon became apparent that I should of maybe turned left instead of right out of the parking lot. It was brutal. I did get a good workout, something I haven't had in awhile. There is a small town near here called Palisade. It is well watered by the Colorado River and there are fruit trees and grape vines in abundance. We had lunch at a nice winery. I took a picture of those street signs in town because I thought they were funny. Every street is a 1/3rd or 1/10th. I have no idea how to put something like that into a GPS address search. We leave tomorrow and move a short distance to a State Park, still in Colorado, that is near the north side of The Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP. We visited the South side in 2015 when we still had the original MP.

Colorado National Monument

We went back into the Monument today. There is a 26 mile long scenic drive that is the real attraction in the park. There are pull outs and view points and a few trailheads. The views are breathtaking but the road that leads to the views is scary. It took over 20 years to finish the road and cost 9 workers their lives. The road is narrow enough that there isn't enough room for guardrails so you are driving only a few feet from a 1500 foot cliff. There is no sightseeing while driving. We did a couple of good hikes and we were away from the MP for 6 hours. We found some bike trails not too far from here so I will ride some of them tomorrow. 

James Robb SP

We sort of slept in this morning and after some discussion we decided that a down day was in order. Full speed ahead can only be maintained for so long. Jenny also got another document from the Attorney in San Antonio that she had to print out, sign and send back. We had to find a UPS store. We will drive into the Monument tomorrow using the Eastern entrance. This pic is a view of the Colorado River just  alittle ways below our campsite. Some trivia: Grand Junction  Colorado is named that, because the Gunnison river flows into the Colorado River here forming a grand Junction. 

Colorado National Monument

We spent a good portion of the day in the Monument. I don't remember ever hearing about this place. When I was planning this trip I had the Atlas out and I was looking for a place to stop on our way home. I saw it on the map and googled it and it looked interesting. The Monument was established in 1911. I guess it sort of exists below the radar. We went to the visitors center first and were given several hiking options. It's a pretty neat place. The drive up into the park is pretty hairy. 15 MPH switchbacks zig zag up through the cliff with no guard rails. The potential for disaster was pretty high, especially coming down. We'll go back there again tomorrow. 

James M Robb Colorado River SP Island Acres

There are 5 different locations for this park around Grand Junction. I picked the wrong one when I told Garmin where to go. There was some confusion but Jenny got us to the correct location. The drive here on I 70 was very scenic. There were several places to pull over to experience the view of some place of interest. Those 2 pics were taken at one of those places. We are here for 5 days because we want to explore Colorado National Monument. It's about 25 miles away. Tomorrow we will drive there and get our barings. Our first stop in town was the Walgreens to get Jenny's meds. We sent that pic to  Dr. Trask in Beaufort. The other pic is our campsite. We are about 50 yards from the Colorado River.

Palisade State Park

We are still in Utah near the bustling town of Sterling. This is another one nighter but we had some time to get in a short hike. Tomorrow we will be in Colorado. Jenny has a sore spot on her leg that started out as a small scrape but has blossomed into a worrisome sore. We sent a picture of it to our Dr. In Beaufort and he sent a prescription to a Walgreens in Grand Junction. We'll pick it up tomorrow. The temp here was below 95° all day. The forecast tonight is 59°.

Snow Canyon SP

We only drove something like 35 miles to get here. The park is on the outskirts of St George. The purpose of our stop here was so that we could see the Mountain Meadows Site. A group of California bound Arkansas settlers were besieged for several days by some members of a Mormon militia that were suspicious of them for some reason. The settlers were out of water and ammunition. They were approached by the militia leader carrying a white flag and they thought they were negotiating a surrender. They were divided into 3 groups, men, women and children and marched off in 3 different directions where they were summarily killed. The only people not murdered were children younger than 7. About 130 people were killed and left to rot where they fell. 7 young children were placed with Mormon families. This all occurred in 1857. It wasn't until 1859 that the US Army buried the victims scattered, scavenged remains. That large rock pile is where their remains are buried. 17 years later a grand jury indicted 9 Mormon militiamen for crimes related to the massacre. They all disappeared except for John D. Lee. In 1877 he was brought to the Mountain Meadows site and executed by firing squad. There's much more to this story, all of it awful, except that the children were eventually returned to relatives in Arkansas. We move north tomorrow. 

White Bison day 8 (last day)

We got up early again and headed to the park so that we could get a parking spot at the visitors center. Today is Saturday so when we got to the entrance station there was a very long line to get in. I was pretty sure we were screwed but we weren't. We found a spot with no problem. The only issue we had was that the tour we had booked didn't leave until 10:30 and it was 7:45. We had breakfast again at the Lodge, that's the 3rd time, fiddled around some, did a short hike and worked our way back to the Visitors center in time for our tour. It was interesting. Our Ranger guide was a college History Major so the focus of the tour was the history of the park. I've included a couple of pics of our trip to Kanab and the rest were taken today. We move a few miles further West tomorrow because there is a Monument that I've wanted to visit for many years. I encourage you to google "The Mountain Meadows Massacre". That is where we will be spending some time tomorrow. 

White Bison day 7

The kids and Grandparents split up today. The kids left their respective TeePees at 11:00 and headed for Las Vegas for flights home tomorrow. Jenny and I headed for the laundromat because we had some quarters that were weighing us down. We have booked a Ranger guided tour for tomorrow morning. That will probably be our last Zion activity. We had to break camp briefly today and drive into La Verkin to dump our holding tanks. This place is still trying to get permits for a sewer system for the campground. Our proximity to the Virgin River is holding up the precess apparently. As the kids left we took 3 "parting shots". I have posted all three. Our day tomorrow is our last day here, but we still have a destination that is West of here before we reverse course and start home.

White Bison day 6

This was another one of those days that old people should maybe have second thoughts about participating fully in all of the activities. Our primary adventure was a 3 hour ski boat rental on a small reservoir not far from here. Since the afternoon temps have been hovering around 110° a water based activity made perfect sense. There was a rocky island in the lake where cliff jumping was possible. All of the Grandkids, including Sydney, made several climbs up the cliff so that they could jump off. None of the adults participated. That would be called 'common sense'. The crowd needed to do laundry, so we spent some time in Springdale. While we waited on the drying cycle to finish we visited several tourist centered stores. Lindsay agreed to buy her kids those grass flip flops. I'm fairly confident that they will be the only citizens of SC wearing them. We finished the day with a game of Golf. Jamie won by such a wide margin that we were all convinced he cheated some how. The mob leaves tomorrow. Jenny and I will stay one more day and try to recover 

White Bison day 5

Today was epic. We got up early because the parking lot at the visitors center generally fills up at around 8 o'clock. We parked there and took the shuttle bus to the lodge for a big breakfast. This time of year the only option for seeing Zion Canyon is by using the free shuttle bus system. Finding a place to park at the visitors center makes access to that system a breeze. We did a hike along the river after breakfast and eventually rode the shuttle to the end of the road for a hike, up stream, into the Narrows of the Virgin River.  We were far from alone during that hike. Actually I can't really describe it as a hike. The river had a fairly strong current and the river bottom is covered in large rocks making footing treacherous. It was a challenge requiring pretty continuous concentration. The group rented some water boots that were highly recommended. See the pic. We walked up stream about 2 miles and then turned around. The gorge is very narrow and 2000 feet deep. The scenery was spectacular but for the most part everyone was intensely focused on every step so there wasn't a lot of looking around. All in all today was a good day. I doubt anyone will forget it. Tomorrow we have a boat rented on a nearby lake. Hopefully we can negate the forcast 109° temp by staying wet. 

White Bison day 4

We drove through the park toward Kanab. We visited Coral Pink Sand Dunes SP and then went to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary for a 90 minute tour. The weather has been abysmaly hot. It was 109° for part of the afternoon. Tomorrow is our hike up the Virgin River narrows. I'm curious to see how that goes. I'll let you know tomorrow.