No More Victoria's Secret Modeling For Me....In My Dreams

My bike accident on 4/2 has left me with a long-lasting bruise on my right thigh, hence the "no more modeling" title---not that I was doing that anyway----just always wanted to.  Just a note to the queezy:  the following pics are not very pretty (or flattering).  This is how my leg looked 7 days after the accident.

"These bruises make for
better conversation"

7 days after the accident on 4/9/14
It still hurts!

METEOR CRATER

4/3/14  After we left Cave Springs Campground at 9:30 (36 degrees and snow on the ground) we stopped in Flagstaff at 10am for groceries, gas and propane.  We traveled about a 45 minutes after leaving Flagstaff and arrived at Meteor Crater at 12:45.  We fixed and ate lunch in the RV.  It only took us an hour to see all we wanted to see without taking the hour long guided tour.  They do not allow anyone to walk into the crater anymore.  Greg says his family visited here in the 60's and they could go everwhere.  His mom even took movies of their trip.  (He's going to look for those movies when we get home.)  It is a really BIG hole...2 miles in diameter and over 500 feet deep.  Our pictures don't do it justice because we just couldn't get anything to show a perspective.  We left at 3 and at the KOA campground in Holbrook by 4:15 (there is a laundry and free showers--- Cave Springs cost $4.00 for 8 min. shower which I used twice).  We took it easy for dinner....pizza in the oven since we have power....saving the grillin' for nights we don't have power.

Meteor Crater

CANYON de CHELLY (pronounced Canyon "d Shay")

Friday 4/4/14   Left Holbrook AZ at 9am heading toward east AZ and Canyon de Chelly in the Navajo Nation reservation.  Greg says it was 33 degrees at 7am.  The canyon is about 2 hour drive from Holbrook.  We made a stop half-way at Ganado AZ where we checked out the Hubbell Trading Post (135 years old and the oldest trading post still in business).  Lots of nice native crafts; art, jewelery, rugs.  We left there at noon and headed toward the town of Chinle AZ and the Canyon de Chelly.  We camped in the canyon at Cottonwood campground.  Got there at 1:30, ate lunch, then took the 37 mile round trip drive around the "south rim".  We stopped at several overlooks.  You can't walk down in the canyon without a native guide.  We did walk around at some of the overlooks.  The canyon rim extends 7000 feet in elevation with some of the canyon walls are 700 feet tall.  There were lots of ancient Puebloan cliff dwellings but we could only see them with binoculars.  After seeing Gila Cliff Dwellings this was not too spectacular.  We got back to the campground at 5:30.  It had been breezy and upper 50's all day.  Predictions are for 30's tonight.  We have no power hookups so we're grilling shrimp, pineapple, green bell pepper K-Bobs with sides of rice noodles and veggie egg rolls.

Cliff Dwellings

Spider Rock

Canyon Bottom

Greg at the edge

                                                                                                                                                                      SATURDAY 4/5/14

My leg is killing me (from the bike accident on 4-2).  I didn't sleep well last night, couldn't sleep at all on my right side.  I'm thinking all the sitting in the RV and driving didn't help me.  We left Cottonwood campground at 8:40 heading today towards Glen Canyon National Park, about 40 miles north of Page AZ.  Our drive today took us through Navajo Monument Valley (we stopped there from 10:45-12:00).                  

                                                                                                               

   After driving through Monument Valley we headed to Page AZ on Hwy 89 (we detoured into Tuba City first and got gas, there was nothing here really to see and it was getting late.)  We are going to go to Glen Canyon National Park and get a campsite at Lee's Ferry Campground on the Colorado River.  We have made arrangements to get a guided tour tomorrow outside of Page in Antelope Canyon to see the rock formations there.  Page is only about a 45 minute drive from Lee's Ferry. ......SO WE THOUGHT!!!!!  Unbeknownst to us, HWY 89 into Page from the junction of Hwy 89A into Lee's Ferry has been closed for over a year due to a road errosion!!!  We will have to double back and drive over 2 hours to get to Page instead of 45 minutes.  We immediately cancelled our tour guide for Sunday, made one for Monday and now plan to stay at Lee's Ferry for 2 nights instead of 1.  Whew!!! got that situation under control.  We walked around a little untll it got dark (we arrived at the campground at 5:30).  I made chili with leftover hamburgers and I heated up jalapeno cornbread that I made a few nights ago (when we had power).

Nobody told me there was a beach at the Colorado River!
Too bad it was windy and cold and it was 5:00 at night!

LEE'S FERRY AND GLEN CANYON

Sunday 4/6/14  We hiked from the RV starting at 9:15.  About 1/2 mile from camp was the Lonely Dell Ranch which we walked around for a little while.  Old cabins and a pretty large house where the settlers lived.  Further on was the Paria river trail that we hiked for about a mile.  There was a river crossing that we just couldn't figure out where to make our entrance and exit plus I didn't have on water-proof shoes.  We baled on that hike and walked back to the main road (the hike was from 10:20 - 11:15).  We walked down to the Colorado River and watched some commercial operations launching really big rafts that we figured were going to haul people on down the river into the Grand Canyon.

Paria Trail

Greg checking for any usable parts

Part of the Paria River Trail

Rafts for going on into Grand Canyon

Colorado River along the edge of Glen Canyon

         We took a drive from camp up to Jacobs Lake and to the turnoff for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  It was 44 miles one-way.  We left the campground at 2:30, got back at 5:00.  Stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks and once back to Lee's Ferry turn-off, stopped at Historic Navajo Bridge over the Colorado.

Drive to the North Rim closed until mid-Ma

The bridge on the left is the old Navajo bridge built in 1929
the one on the right is the new and improved bridge