A quiet day in Williams, Arizona

Joan and "The King"

With tomorrow our getaway day from Arizona we spent our time close to home today.

This morning I went for a 3-mile walk to downtown Williams and back and just about the time I was thinking of calling my buddy Kim, he called me and we talked for nearly 45 minutes while I walked the old Route 66. Nice to hear a voice from back home.

Joan did laundry and I began the process of securing the trailer for the week it will be in storage here at the RV park in Williams.

I used to own a 1950 Ford

We are headed to northern California in the morning to visit our two eldest sons and oldest grandchild, Brittany near Santa Cruz. We will also visit my sister-in-law Barbara as well as my cousin Cynthia.

On the way back we’re going to make a quick stopover in Las Vegas before returning here to pick up the trailer and continue our journey to Tucson and my Navy reunion. Today was also the two-week point in our journey west. At times it seems like we just left and other times it seems a lot longer than two weeks.

Joan finally got a chance today to catch up with her favorite soap opera, Days of our Lives. After that ended we decided to take a little walk downtown Williams and sample all the Route 66 gift stores they have.

We ended up buying a couple souvenirs, but we didn’t help the Williams economy much.  The town is located on the historic Route 66 and they have done a good job preserving the 1950s-1960s feel of that time period.

After checking out the shops we made a stop at Dairy Queen for an ice cream treat for later in the evening.

Joan has done a great job of planning our meals and tonight we cleaned up most of the leftovers because when we shut down the trailer tomorrow there will be no refrigeration in the trailer so anything perishable will have to be thrown out or carried to California as gifts to our relatives.

Tonight’s dinner included, hamburger patties, cole slaw, potato salad, the end of the sourdough bread, zucchini and we split the last frozen twice baked potato. It was all good.

There was not much left and we have only eaten out twice and that was with our friend Terry and Sue in Albuquerque. Part of the savings of traveling with an RV is that you can eat in and eat healthy while on the road.

For those of you who are regularly following this blog, there will not likely be another posting until Sunday night as we will be involved with California family until then. If I get a chance I’ll put something up but you won’t miss much if you stay away until Sunday.

We appreciate the interest that so many of you have in our travels. 

Old planes and an old canyon make for a great day

Planes of Fame Museum, Valle, Arizona

Leaving behind the train, we made Tuesday about planes, automobiles and one beautiful canyon. 

As much as we enjoyed the train ride and sightseeing at the South Rim on Monday, we knew we wanted to see a little more of the Grand Canyon at our own pace.

(Scroll down following this story for more photos)

In one of the canyon booklets we found at the visitor’s center in Williams there was an advertisement for a nearby airplane museum called “Planes of Fame.” The ad came with a $1 off coupon and because the museum was on the way to the Grand Canyon, Tuesday was the day we decided to stop and check it out.

An airplane on display

My Dad is a docent at The National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center next to Dulles and a former general aviation pilot so I come by my interest in aviation naturally. My stepfather was a World War II Navy pilot so I got the airplane bug from both sides.

I am not nearly as knowledgeable as either of them, but I do enjoy looking at old airplanes and cars. Besides, I knew my Dad would appreciate a report on another air museum.

World War II German airplane

So we arrived about 9:45 a.m. and with the coupon it only cost $6 each to tour the museum which is also at an airport.

The lady at the admission counter was very nice and explained to us that this was a small version of the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, California. It is at the Chino site that the restoration is done, but she encouraged us to look outside at the jets they have stored behind the hangar.

We spent a little over an hour looking through the indoor and outdoor collection and found it to be small, but worth the cost. Besides the little bit we paid for admission is helping them to continue the work of restoring these rare airplanes.

Joan back at the Grand Canyon

Several of the exhibits came complete with drip pans to catch the oil leaking out of engines. One of the larger exhibits was a Lockheed Constellation which is parked out front and one of my all-time favorite airplanes from a style point of view.

After touring the main hangar and the jets out back the woman directed us to another nearby building where there were additional automobiles and airplanes all very well preserved.

I’d love to see the larger museum in Chino after whetting our appetite in Valle, Arizona.

After leaving the airplane museum we headed north for the rest of the trip to the Grand Canyon, about 30 miles. Armed with my new senior citizen lifetime park pass that I bought for $10 on Friday I was a little nervous when I saw a sign saying there was a $25 vehicle admission charge to the park.

The Watchtower at Desert View

When we arrived at the gate there was a dedicated lane for “passes” and we went through that line and found out that in addition to taking care of our admission charge, the lifetime pass also took care of the $25 vehicle pass. Sweeet. So far the card has saved us $31.

Because it is off season we were not expecting big crowds, but we were wrong. The Grand Canyon Visitor Center was packed and we had to park in an alternate parking lot a fair distance from the Visitor Center.

By the time we arrived we missed the noon showing of the movie “Journey,” which is about the Grand Canyon.

So we took a short walk to Mather Overlook and once again I started snapping photos of the stunning views. When we had soaked up all the views we could from this location we headed back to the center to catch the 12:30 p.m. movie.

Look for the bonnet on thedeck below the tower

We also did a little souvenir shopping at the gift store and this time we found a couple things for family that we purchased.

After the movie, which was quite good, we drove the 25 miles east to Desert View and Watchtower where we started our afternoon Grand Canyon self-guided tour.

The Watchtower is a brick structure from the Grand Canyon’s past and Joan departed from me on the first level while I continued up three flights of stairs to the top of the tower where I knew the views would be even more stunning.

For the rest of the afternoon we headed back toward the entrance gate from where we started stopping a several overlooks and areas on the way.

Joan insisted I post one photo of me

From one overlook we could see (with binoculars) a group of rafters working their way down the Colorado River rapids some 4,000 feet beneath us.

We dovetailed into a tour group at another site and the guide pointed out the area of the canyon where a Lockheed Constellation (how is that for tying together today's activities?) collided with another plane in 1956 and crashed over the canyon.

The tour guide said it was after that crash that the infant Federal Aviation Administration banned all such sightseeing flights by commercial aircraft over the Grand Canyon. I was about nine years old and I vaguely remember that crash, partly because it involved a Lockheed aircraft and my stepfather worked in the Lockheed engineering department at the time.

The Watchtower from a distance

Traffic at all of the overlooks was heavy and we had to take more than one tour of the parking lot to find a place. It finally occurred to us that we were hearing more foreign languages than English, including UK English,  and perhaps the crowds we were encountering were mostly foreign tourists.

The falling dollar may be helping the tourist industry by making travel in America more affordable. We heard lots of French, German and Japanese today.

At one stop we noticed a bus load of really senior citizens, many with walkers and oxygen tanks, headed down a pretty good hill to an overlook. As we passed one of them she said loudly to her husband. “I don’t give a hoot about going down to see THAT canyon.”

Canyon photo

So the magic of the Grand Canyon didn’t infect everyone. By 3:30 p.m. we had exhausted every overlook and vista point on the South Rim and we started for home.

Joan needed to do some shopping so we stopped at the Williams Safeway although we only bought items that do not need to be refrigerated as we are preparing to put the trailer in dry storage for a week while we head to California without the trailer for a quick visit with family and friends.

Look ma, no bonnet!

Once back at the trailer we watched an ESPN documentary I have been looking forward to about the horrible fan reactions to Bill Buckner’s baseball error and Steve Bartman’s interference with a foul ball during the Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins playoff series in 2003.

Joan had spaghetti sauce cooking all day in the crock pot. The sauce was made from tomatoes, oregano and green peppers grown in our own garden. It was delicious. Tomorrow we’re hanging close to home getting ready for our long trip to northern California on Thursday.

More from the Airplane Museum and Canyon

After waiting 2 billion years, The Grand Canyon welcomes Joan

Arizona’s star of the show – The Grand Canyon – was our destination today. From the time Joan and I first started dating in 1995 we have talked about making a trip to the Grand Canyon.

So after waiting nearly 2 billion years, The Grand Canyon welcomed Joan for her first peek into the big hole in northern Arizona. Actually, the canyon is ONLY about 6 million years old, that being the time it took for the Colorado River to carve a groove through thousands of feet of rock and for the wind and water to wear away the canyon walls to make it the beautiful marvel that it is today.

To add a little spice and history to the day we decided to make this visit to the Grand Canyon via the Grand Canyon Railway. Before we boarded the train we were treated to a “Wild West Show” that included two murders and a lot of comedy. It was a cute way to get everyone to the train depot in plenty of time to catch the 9:30 a.m. train to the canyon.

Amber Rose was our coach car assistant and she was fun and entertaining on the way up to the canyon and then on the way back.

Clarence Clearwater, a Native American guitarist and singer entertained us on the way up. As good as his singing was, his corny jokes created loud groans throughout the 1950s rail car. But the trip up was fun and it was pleasant for me to be able to sightsee and not be driving.

There are four classes of train service to the canyon, coach being the least expensive, all the way up to the parlor car service, which is quite pricey. The scenery is nice, but I’m glad we didn’t spend more than we did on the train. We had a lot of fun with Amber Rose and our large windows and comfortable seats made the trip very enjoyable.

We see deer and antelope, but can’t say we saw them actually playing on the range.

This was my fourth visit to the Grand Canyon, the last time in the early 1970s. Not surprisingly, the canyon has not changed much in the four decades since I last saw it.

It was fun to watch Joan get her first glimpse of the canyon first hand and even when you have seen it before it is a breathtaking view and not just because you are more than a mile high. The majesty of it makes it difficult to understand how people don’t believe in God the Creator.

When you stand at the precipice of something 2 billion years in the making and see the beauty that is there and realize that you are on this earth for only a blink of an eye, it is hard not marvel at the glory of Creation. It also helps to put things in perspective in a major way.

Instead of spending more money on a bus tour we opted for simply exploring the South Rim Time Trail, which turned out to be just perfect for the 3 ½ -hours we had at the canyon rim. The trail is about three miles round trip and the vistas were great and the temperature and weather were ideal. It was about 75 and clear except for some nice photographically pleasant puffy white clouds.

 Each step of the trail represents 10 million years of earth history and the park service has put actual chunks of rock from various periods of the canyon's history dating back 1.8 billion years ago. The thin air required Joan to stop and sit every 200 million years or so.
Once again I shot way, way too many photos and spent nearly three quarters of the Dallas Cowboys/Washington Redskins Monday Night Football game editing them.
Joan got to touch lots of geology on the way and we made a stop and visit to the Yavapai Geology Museum on the South Rim which was at the longest part of our hike. After exhausting the exhibits at the museum we started back to the El Tovar Hotel so we would have a few minutes to enjoy the hotel before heading back to the train.

At the hotel we found a nice outdoor table where we enjoyed a beverage and some chips and salsa while we soaked in the beauty of the canyon and hotel at the same time. We took a quick tour around the gift shop at the hotel and didn’t find anything there screaming our name.

At the appointed time we headed back down the stairs to the old Santa Fe Grand Canyon Railroad Depot and waited for our turn to get on the train.

We pulled out right on time and began the 2 ½ hour trip back to Williams. On the way back we had a cowboy serenade by Alan who entertained us with some country and western favorites (not really Joan’s favorite music genre) but he also did a pretty good rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy and the whole car, which included a tour of about 25 people from England, chimed in and we pretty much sang the song for the next 40 minutes.

About 10 miles outside Williams a group of bandits on horseback stopped the train (how does a man on horseback ever really stop a moving train?) and of course they came through each car robbing us for “tips.”

Between the tips and the photos (which we didn’t buy) I am really glad I got the discount rate to make this a more reasonable journey.
All-in-all it was a really fun and enjoyable day. We arrived back about 6 p.m. and Joan had dinner in the crock pot waiting for us when we arrived back at our rolling home.

Most of the rest of the evening was spent editing photos and writing this account. It is almost time for bed. We are headed back to the canyon tomorrow, this time by car, for some more sightseeing. Good night.

Looking up for worship, looking outside for apples and looking down for science

Flagstaff Anglican Church

Today was another full and rewarding day in Arizona. Joan and I miss going to church when we are on the road and often look for a nearby Anglican church to attend.

The Flagstaff Anglican Fellowship, like our own church in Flint, meets in a community center and has the “fun” of setting up and tearing down their service each week.

We were warmly greeted and were very much included in the worship and Bible study that they held during the service in lieu of a sermon. If we find our way here again we will look forward to stopping in and visiting with our new friends at Flagstaff Anglican.

Flagstaff Anglican Church

They had a nice mix of people and some wonderful college students from nearby Northern Arizona University.

Before church we stopped by the Flagstaff Farmer’s Market in downtown Flagstaff. We enjoy fresh fruit and we have found that the local Farmer’s Markets are often the best places to shop for that. Because our plans are taking us away from our trailer for a week starting Thursday, we bought just a few apples and a fresh loaf of Sourdough break to get us through until we travel to California without the trailer.

Flagstaff Farmer's Market

At the Market someone had converted an old ambulance into a coffee wagon and painted “Coffee 911” on the side. Very clever, I thought.

After church we headed east on I-40 to visit Meteor Crater, something that is very special to Joan as she often taught her students about the crater during her 8^th grade science classes.

Coffee 911

I had the nagging feeling during our visit that I had stopped there before, but I’ll have to wait to hear from my father (a faithful reader of this blog) whether or not it was possible that we stopped at this attraction during one of our trips back to the Midwest in the 1950s and 1960s.

Once at the crater we had our lunch in the car and then headed through the gate. Dang, I forgot the coupons I clipped, but we still got a $1 off each for being old.

The Meteor Crater is a private monument, one the government had a chance to buy many years ago, but at that time, according to our tour guide, the federal government felt “one big hole in Arizona was enough for the government to own.”

Meteor Crater

Joan was pretty much blown away by the size of the crater. It is 2 ½ miles around, nearly a mile across and 550-feet deep. At one time it is estimated the crater was 700-feet deep with the rim currently rising 150-feet above the prairie. Wind and water erosion has shrunk the overall size of the crater during the past 50,000 years.

At one point I asked Joan if the crater was what she expected from her studies. “It is much bigger than I thought,” she said.

It is truly amazing to stand at the top of the observation deck at one of the highest points of the crater and realize that at one time the area was level with the ground around it. Level, that is, until a 150-feet meteor crashed into the earth at about 40,000 mph leaving a gaping crater in the earth.

Eduardo our tour guide to Meteor Crater

Our tour guide was Eduardo, who Joan recognized as one of the narrators of a science film she used to show to her students. Eduardo was very impressed that Joan recognized him from the video and said he was recently interviewed and filmed for a coming IMAX movie.

His one-hour tour was informative and light and we learned a lot about not just the crater, but the history of how it became a tourist attraction instead of an iron mine.

Joan and Jim, photo by Eduardo

A mining engineer, Daniel Barringer, figured out that contrary to previous speculation, the crater was the result of a large meteorite and not volcanic activity and purchased the crater property more than 100 years ago. His idea was to mine the rich iron he suspected would be buried in the center of the site with the intact meteorite.

While Barringer correctly determined that a meteor had caused the crater, he incorrectly assumed that the remaining meteorite would stay intact. It did not bury itself as Barringer believed, but rather it smashed into a zillion pieces and basically vaporized.

Later his family and some other investors mined a different kind of activity out of the site – tourists. In addition to the Museum and Crater Tours, the company operates an RV Park near the site.

As mentioned earlier, the federal government had the opportunity to purchase the property as a monument early on – probably after Barringer discovered there was no rich iron to mine – but declined. Later the government did name the site a National Landmark in 1968.

Looking back at Flagstaff from the crater rim

Astronauts involved in the Apollo moon landings trained at the site because scientists believed its terrain would closely approximate what the astronauts would see on the moon. There is an American flag and astronaut figure at the bottom of the crater in honor of that training. Old mining equipment also remains on the floor.

One thing that is not on the floor are tourists, who are not allowed to climb down into it.

Meteor Crater is considered the best preserved of all known meteor craters on earth.

We spent about 2 ½ hours at the site enjoying the film, tour and museum at the attraction. The view from the rim of the crater of the surrounding Arizona countryside is stunning to say the least.

Once home, Joan fixed us breakfast, which was really a full breakfast. Pancakes, eggs and bacon make for one of my favorite dinners. On top of all that our two favorite football teams, The Detroit Lions and the Buffalo Bills, came out winners today. So all is good.

Now a few tidbits that have been rattling around in my head.

Joan on the platform overlooking the crater

The weather in northern Arizona has been great. Days are in the low 80s and the nights fall into the 40s. Each day has been filled with sunshine and we had a little spit of rain for less than a minute on Saturday as we drove back from Oak Creek Canyon. We also had a little spit of rain today.

I love the early mornings when the air is crisp and clear and the only noise I can hear is a distant train engine.

Sometimes amidst all the beauty that surrounds us, Joan and I will simply stop and thank God for the blessings we have. The gift of family, good friends, travel and health occasionally overcomes us with gratefulness. We wish the same for everyone.

The only real problem I am having is the urge to take pictures of everything I see. Sometimes when I return to the trailer at night I’ll download the photos and find out I’ve taken 150 shots. Obviously that would not have worked in the day of film, but there is just so much beauty to see here.

Joan still on the platform overlooking the crater

Everywhere we travel in the Southwest reminds me of trips I made with my Dad and stepmother back in the 1950s and early 1960s. I see side roads that remind me of the times my father took my brother, me and a trusty JC Higgins, single-shot .22-caliber, bolt action rifle out into the desert to shoot army men.

You know, those little green plastic artillery men who were either standing or crouched in a shooting position. Mixed in were small tanks, jeeps and artillery men. They came in a large bag and we would mutilate them until they could neither stand nor be recognized any more. I can still smell the sweet scent of gunpowder as we would eject each shell and load the next shot.

Of course, we never shot any American army men, we imagined they were Germans or Japanese soldiers, likely due to the proximity of the last Great War to our time as children. Probably not politically correct, but the term, fortunately, had not been invented yet.

The astronaut and flag at the bottom of the crater (center-r)

Here’s a free tip for you: If you can possibly avoid it, never, and I mean ever, buy gas in Williams, Arizona. We have crossed Arizona on I-40, driven up and down Highway 89 and through several towns and never found gas prices as high as they are right here in Williams.

Fortunately I discovered that fact before I ran so low on gas I was forced to buy here. For example yesterday when we traveled to Wupatki and Sunset Crater Volcano we saw gas prices ranging from $3.45 to $3.59 in and around Flagstaff. In Williams, it was $4.09 for regular. One station off the freeway and downtown had it for $3.81. Today I filled up for $3.39 a gallon at a Pilot just outside Williams, where the gas remained at $4.09.

The best gas prices we have seen so far on this trip was the $3.19 a gallon we saw in Oklahoma.

Sad that a city that sees itself as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon and a tourist destination would so blatantly gouge the very people they want to come here.

Another fun tidbit that has no relation to what we have been doing here is the weather forecasts from Phoenix. Our cable service at the RV park features a number of Phoenix network stations.

They were so excited that fall had arrived and that temperatures were going to drop into the double digits. “It’s going to be only 98 on Sunday,” the attractive weather person said. And she was serious.

Of course when you have regularly been at 108 I guess 98 does seem cool. But don’t forget: It’s a dry heat.

Joan is my rock star - our visit to a volcano and two ancient pueblos

Today was a contrast of geology and geography. It was also a day that started relatively early for us.

Joan in front of the Sunset Crater Visitor Center

During the last several years of Joan’s teaching career, she taught 8^th grade science. She not only taught her 150-plus students each year, she taught me by osmosis because I often sat through the education videos she previewed at home.

We were showered by 7:15 a.m. and out the door by 8 a.m. for today’s adventure.

Knowing her interest in all things natural, I found an interesting geological site just about 45 miles from our camp. Sunset Crater Volcano and the Wupatki National Monument share roughly the same geography north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Sunset Crater Volcano

They are quite different, but linked through history by an explosive eruption about 800 years ago that likely changed the lives of the native people living at the Wupatki Pueblo and other pueblos in the area.

On the way up the mountain outside of Flagstaff we climbed above 8,000-feet and passed dozens of bicyclists participating in some kind of rally.  From the elevation and the grade, the folks involved in the contest were obviously very well conditioned folks.

I was excited to be able to use my senior pass, which I just purchased yesterday, only to find out that today was “free fee day” for all federal parks.  Either way, it was a free day for us.

Joan doing her touchy-feely thing

We started the day at the Visitor Center where we picked up a map and some information on hikes and we headed to the Bonito Lava Flow Trail. We were also warned that souvenir rock hunting carried a pretty stiff penalty - $250 per rock.

Following the well groomed trail we descended down into the Sunset Crater where we used the self-guided book to learn about the effects of the eruption and the recovery of the area over the past 8 centuries.

The rivers of lava reminded Joan of our time on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The eastside of Sunset Crater Volcano

Ponderosa Pines grow out of what appears to be rock and volcanic ash. Wildflowers and other plans grow out of places that look very inhospitable. We took about 45 minutes to complete the 1-mile hike around the crater. Even Joan said she learned a few new things, which seems impossible because she already knows everything.

We continued along the 35-mile loop off Highway 89 to several overlooks on our way to the Wupatki National Monument. We stopped at the Cinder Hills Overlook and the Painted Desert Vista and a couple stops that aren’t even on the map.

Joan with the Wupatki Monument sign

As we descended the mountain on the east side the scenery changed from a pine forest to a stark desert in a matter of about 10 miles. Everywhere we looked there was black cinder, the obvious result of the eruption in the 1100s.

When I was a youngster, my grandmother, Ethel Smith, was an admirer of Native American culture. She had framed pictures of Tribal Chiefs throughout her Hollywood Hills home and she often talked to me about the history of Native American tribes.

She admired their culture and deplored the way they had been treated by our government.

Joan and me in Wukoki ruins

It is with that information as a backdrop that I looked forward to visiting the ruins at the Wukoki Pueblo and the Wupatki Pueblo today. The idea that people, without any of the conveniences we take for granted, could create a community in such a hostile environment as the desert of Arizona has always fascinated me.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, pot collectors and souvenir hunters did terrible damage to these sites, but with some enlightenment the destruction of these sites was stopped with the designation of them as National Monuments in the 1920s.

Interestingly, the native peoples are opposed to the reconstruction of these sites. In their culture the life cycle of people and dwellings should not be interrupted or changed. Still, the native people continue to come to these sites to connect in their own way with their ancestors.

We adhered to the rules of not straying from the path, but were excited that we were allowed to ascend the Wukoki Pueblo and have our picture taken in the “living room.”

The Wupatki ruins

Even folks with the primitive tools they possessed did an amazing job of building structures with the available materials. The integration of existing rock formations with walls made from stones from the surrounding area could be the envy of Frank Lloyd Wright.

At one point today, I marveled to Joan that perhaps the Anasazi people, which is the umbrella term used to describe the Hopi, Navajo and Zuni people of the area, were the inspiration for Wright.

The mountains ear Sedona

We spent more than two hours visiting the two small sites, which are within one mile of each other. The temperatures reached into the mid-80s, nearly 10 degrees higher than it was in the crater just a few miles away. A little hot and tired we decided to explore the area of Oak Creek Canyon, which runs south of Flagstaff, about 30 miles to Sedona and a little beyond.

Apparently we were not alone in that idea. Traffic was fairly heavy along the 89A route which parallels I-17, but we were in no hurry, so no problem.

With all the stops I made to take photos it took more than two hours to make the 89A loop through Sedona. The beautiful rock formations, winding river and trees made it a stunningly beautiful drive.

Scenery south of Sedona

With advice from a lady at the Oak Creek Canyon Visitor Center, I abandoned my plans to take a two lane road from Sedona back to Williams. She strongly suggested that if we wanted to get home before the witching hour we should find our way back to I-17 and head home, which we did.

Sedona was wall-to-wall people and a solid line of traffic through town. It looked like a beautiful place, but we were simply too tired and hot to try and find a parking place and stop today. We did see some beautiful homes that had some incredible views.

It took us less than half the time to find our way back to the trailer after getting back on I-17 south of Sedona. The ride home gave us a little preview of what our trip will be like in a couple weeks when we head south through Phoenix to Tucson. Looks like it will be almost all downhill. That is a good thing.

One of the advantages of our type of camping is that we have most of the comforts and conveniences of home. So before we left this morning, Joan tossed the beef stew she had been preparing the night before into the crock pot with some frozen stew veggies and set it on low.

When we arrived home we had a nice hot meal waiting for us. I flipped on the television and we watched the prime time college game on ABC. The air conditioner is going as well. So we’re not really roughing it.