Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Home sweet home!


Me and Laura
Our final two homeward bound legs were short. On Sunday we drove a little over three hours to get to my sister Laura’s house in North Aurora, Illinois.
The trip was uneventful, although we ran into a long stretch of construction on I-88 inside Illinois which cost us some time. The freeway in Illinois is a toll road and named after Ronald Reagan, who has a notorious anti-tax guy, probably wouldn’t appreciate having a toll road named after him.

The temperatures reached 50 degrees only briefly during the whole day.
We enjoyed a quiet afternoon with Laura and Philip in their beautiful home and Laura made me my favorite dinner – spaghetti.

Mileage out: 42402
Mileage in: 42606

Time out: 9:02 a.m.
Joan and Laura
Time in: 12:40 p.m.

Monday dawned early and we enjoyed a wonderful day of relaxed touring with my sister Laura who was kind enough to take the day off work to spend some time with us.
Joan has wanted to visit a store called Woodman’s, which is a huge grocery store near my sister. We bought a few things we knew we would need when we got home and crammed the stuff into the few spaces left in the truck.

Later we went to one of Joan’s favorite shopping spots in North Aurora  - a Costco. We wish we had one close to us here in Lapeer, but we usually make a visit with Laura anytime we are in town.
Laura also took us by an apartment complex that my father and stepmother are considering for a new home. It was a beautiful three-bedroom apartment in an apartment complex only a few blocks from where Laura and Philip live. It would also only be about a five-hour drive from here, which would give Joan and I more opportunity to visit with them.

We then shopped at Home Goods, which is a new store for us, but it had a lot of cool stuff.
Welcome to Indiana
In the afternoon we went and saw “My Name is Doris” with Sally Field. We enjoyed the movie, but I had trouble trying to decide whether it was a comedy or drama. Just when I laughed and believed I was watching a comedy, the story suddenly turned dark and ugly. Sally was pretty good in the role, however.

After the movie we headed to Stockholm Restaurant in downtown Batavia for dinner and then back home for a quiet night before our final leg home.
We were up early on Tuesday and out the door by 8 a.m. We caught a little traffic on I-88, but took Laura’s directions and quickly found ourselves away from traffic on I-355 south. In almost no time we were in Indiana and then in Michigan and then home.

It took a couple hours to unpack the car and then unpack the luggage in the house. We headed to dinner at The Lake Inn, which has been totally remodeled while we were gone. We spent our first night home quietly watching sports.
Our trip had us out of Michigan about 100 days. We traveled 8,928 miles and visited 13 states during the process. But there is truly no place like home.
Welcome to "Pure" Michigan


So, for now, Grandma's Recess goes dark until our next adventure. Thanks for following us.

Mileage out: 42461
Mileage in: 42795

Time out: 8:06 a.m. (CDT)
Time in: 2:30 p.m. (EDT)

Saturday, April 9, 2016

The long drive home with a fun stop in Moab, Utah

Our final Tucson sunset
Isn’t it great when a plan comes together?  Seriously!  Everything went according to our plans as we pulled out of Voyager a little after 7 p.m. Monday and started the long trek home.

We spent much of Monday packing the stuff to go home and storing and disposing of things related to the trailer. We did a pretty good job of consuming nearly all of our perishable goods and only had a small amount of stuff to toss out.
Joan finished up the last of the salmon steaks and she dropped the last three eggs and a piece of toast on me for dinner in the trailer just before we departed. She was nice enough to fry up the eggs for me, though.

Some of the coming home luggage
After dinner I finished the process of hooking up the trailer to the Tahoe and then we just waited until the sun went down so we could begin the first leg of the trip towards Flagstaff.
We’ve tried several different times for leaving the park, but we think we’ve hit on a winner this year. When we arrived in Phoenix about 9 p.m. we fueled at our usual spot and then made our way through the city with little traffic.

Phoenix is often a terribly congested place and it makes life tough with a trailer, so finding a time when traffic is light is a definite plus. Temperatures were a little higher than a prefer for the trailer and truck for towing, but as we climbed out of Phoenix the temperatures fell to an acceptable level.
Hooked and ready to go
The climb to Flagstaff starts at about 1,000-feet in Phoenix and ends a little over 7,000-feet in Flagstaff.

Our goal was to reach the McGuireville Rest Area about 50 miles south of Flagstaff and sleep there. Arizona permits overnight camping in RVs at the rest areas and when we arrived there was just one open spot in the truck/rv side of the rest stop. We parked, brushed out teeth by flashlight in the trailer and turned into bed (with no heat) about 11:30 p.m.
We slept well until about 2:30 a.m. when the cold settled in and so we added a blanket and cuddled a little tighter and fell back to sleep until 6 a.m.  Temperatures were in the 40s when we got up. On the way up the rest of the mountain to Flagstaff we had two very healthy coyotes run in front of our rig, headed to a large corral of cattle.

Our "camping" spot at the rest stop
We were up and back on the road by 6:30 a.m. and made the final climb up the hill to Flagstaff arriving at Camper’s World just before 7:30 a.m. and an hour before our scheduled winterization appointment for the trailer. We had enough time to move all the luggage from the trailer to the back of the Tahoe before our appointment time.
I had a moment of anxiousness when I started packing the Tahoe and found I was really short on space. But we crammed all the stuff in and the technicians winterized the trailer in short order. I hooked the trailer back up and we drove the ¼-mile to the storage lot.

Entering Utah
Once inside I discovered our space was a tight one. We had a trailer on one side and a fifth wheel RV on the other, but I was able to back the Laredo into the spot without damaging us or them. It took about 40 minutes to lock up the trailer, cover the tires, remove the battery and generally make sure the trailer was secured for the next nine months.
We left the storage lot (I forgot to take a photo of it parked) and headed to a nearby gas station to fill up for the trip to Moab, Utah.

We averaged just 8.9 miles per gallon on the trip up the mountain, but we quickly improved on that without the trailer being dragged behind. The long hill down from Flagstaff into Navajo country certainly contributed to the 31.1 miles per gallon average we got for the first part of the trip to Moab.
A few dumb "asses"
The trip through Monument Valley was beautiful and the trip was uneventful other than a very strong wind that had us dodging tumble weeds much of the afternoon.

One notable thing happened during our trip to Moab. We passed through the town of Bluff, Utah, which was a place where I spent two weeks doing a mission trip back in the early 1960s. Young people from St. Luke’s of the Mountains and several other Episcopal churches made the trip to help the Native Americans dig trenches for water and sewer lines on the reservation near Bluff.
Sign at Bluff, Utah
It was a place I never thought I would see again and yet, here at 68, I was back.

After arguing with Joan about her concerns over livestock running into the road, a couple of donkeys made a liar out of me by running into the road just north of Bluff. I’ll never hear the end of that now.
We checked into our hotel, showered, cleaned up and then met my sister Pam and brother-in-law Jeff at The Blue Pig for dinner. Moab is a beautiful town that is a mecca for folks with four-wheelers and dirt bikes. The place was packed and after dinner we called it an early night and headed back for a good night’s sleep.

At Arches National Park
Mileage out (Tucson) 40483
Mileage in (Flagstaff with trailer) 40767

Time out (Tucson) 7:15 p.m.

Time in (Flagstaff) 7:23 a.m.

Time out (Flagstaff) 9:49 a.m.
Mileage in: (Moab, Utah) 41105

Time in: (Moab, Utah) 4:40 p.m.
On Wednesday, Jeff and Pam picked us up at our hotel and we spent a beautiful day exploring Arches National Park and all the beautiful vistas it has to offer. It is hard to describe in words the magnificent views it offers, but I’ll put some pictures up to try.

Joan balancing a rock on her head
We did a little hiking and walking and enjoyed a picnic lunch among the great rocks of the park. We drove back to the hotel where Jeff and Pam were staying and enjoyed a leisurely visit on a second floor deck overlooking downtown Moab. Pam put out a nice spread of cheese and crackers and everyone but me sipped a little wine.
About 5 p.m. we headed to Pasta Jay’s next door to the hotel where Jeff and Pam were staying and enjoyed a wonderful Italian dinner. After dinner Joan and I walked back to our hotel, which was only two blocks away, for another good night’s sleep.

Jeff was kind enough to drive all day Wednesday which is a rare treat for me to be able to sightsee from the passenger seat.
On Thursday, I offered to drive so Jeff could enjoy the scenery and we headed out to visit Dead Horse State Park and then Canyonlands National Park.

My sister Pam and Joan at Dead Horse Park
It was another great day among some unbelievable views. The four of us did quite a bit of walking and hiking and Jeff and I made it to the top of Whale Rock which is a monolith of a boulder. We had a picnic lunch in Canyonlands and basically spent the day saying “Wow” every two minutes.
Instead of going back to town we headed out to Red Cliffs Winery and Restaurant. Jeff, Pam and Joan did some wine tasting until it was time for dinner and then we enjoyed a leisurely meal eating on the banks of the Colorado River as it passed by.

The area has been used for dozens of movies and commercials and we spent some time visiting the Movie Museum in the Red Cliffs hotel before heading back to town. Once back at Jeff and Pam’s hotel we hugged and said our good-byes and just recalled how quickly the two days had gone.
Jeff on Whale Rock
It is great to have relatives who are also great friends.

So, too soon Friday morning came and it was time to depart Moab for the long journey home. The parking lot at the Moab Hotel (where we stayed) was packed with off road vehicles, trailers with off road vehicles and generally every manner of truck and rv you can imagine.
We headed north and merged onto Highway 70 where I was pleased to discover the speed limit in Utah on the Interstate was 80 mph.  Those are the kinds of speeds that make getting home much quicker. We made our way quickly to a Love’s Truck Stop in Grand Junction for gas.

Me on Whale Rock
The new traffic interchange really threw me for a loop as the exit and entrance ramps and roads around the interchange are backwards from what we are used to driving here in America. (Think England).  I nervously followed the signs and eventually made my way to the gas station on the “wrong” side of the road.
As I pulled up to the gas pump I heard a wild and scary noise coming from a livestock trailer at the pump next to mine. It sounded like a sick donkey, but the only thing in the trailer were horses so I assume one of them made the strange and awful noise.

Me and the "Duke"
We crisscrossed the Colorado River several times as we traveled west through Colorado and at one point Joan made a strange noise of her own when she spotted a large eagle’s nest in a tree next to the river and then spotted a large bald eagle tending to the nest. The perch was probably perfect as it was directly over the river which is good feeding grounds for an eagle.
The freeway continued to climb into the snow covered mountains until we reached Vail where we were above 10,000 feet and surrounded by skiers and snow covered slopes. Some of the travel was slowed by construction zones, but things picked up when we began the descent from 10,000-feet to mile-high Denver.

Some of the grades were so steep that at one off ramp for a small town there was a sign that read “If you have lost your brakes, stay on I-70, do not exit here.”  In other words, we don’t want your careening, out-of-control vehicle in our town.
80 mph!
Outside Denver we switched from I-70 to I-76 and continued our journey to Ogallala, Nebraska. Our phones both changed time zones, but not the car clock, which usually automatically switches. We learned on arrival to our hotel in Ogallala that we were still in Mountain Daylight Savings time, but would cross over to Central time about 10 miles east of where we stayed.

The hotel was full of young girls in town for a volleyball tournament and other than causing Joan to break out in hives when she spotted all those middle school kids they were quiet and well behaved. Well, except for the girls on the second floor trying to spit on the girls on the first level when we first got there.
Colorado!
We had dinner at The Spur, which was adequate, but not real good.

Mileage out: 41256
Mileage in: 41822

Time out: 8 a.m.
Time in: 4:26 p.m.

Snow near Vail
Saturday morning came quickly and we headed out for what I knew would be a very boring driving day. I have done this section of Nebraska several times and it is like driving 400 miles on the top of a dining room table. Flat and very little scenery. There is the beautiful overpass in Kearney, Nebraska but other than that the only thing around to stop the wind is the barbed wire fences on both sides of the freeway.
We were pleased to learn that Kearney, Nebraska is the place where the Sand Hills we see in Michigan in summer and Tucson in the winter stop to mate during their migration.

Nebraska!
The wind blew a gale all day so I was glad that I was not pulling the trailer today. We spent much of the day listening to Radio Classics on the XM Radio along with Lou Simon’s “Countdown” on the 60s music channel. The radio helped to make the day go a little faster.
When we arrived in Williamsburg, Iowa we checked into our Ramada Hotel only to find out that it was full of boys here for a wrestling tournament. We’ll let you know how that went in our next post.

Although there was a restaurant in the hotel we opted to drive about 15 miles into Amana Village to eat at the Ox Yoke Inn, which was a German American restaurant on the line of Frankenmuth. I had the Sauerbraten and Joan had the Chicken Snitczel. We ended up buying some of the homemade strawberry jelly to take home.
Kearney, Nebraska
We returned to the hotel and crashed for the night. Tomorrow we head to my sister Laura and brother-in-law Philip’s home in North Aurora, Illinois for a short stay with them. My sister is a great cook and I look forward to a good home cooked meal there.

We’ll complete the log of the trip after we get home to Lapeer on Tuesday. I’m hoping the crummy weather in Michigan will move out before we arrive home, but it probably won’t.
Mileage out: 41822

Mileage in: 42379
Time out: 7:17 a.m. (MDT)

Iowa!
Time in: 4:40 p.m. (CDT)

More Moab photos

Arches National Park
A final Tucson sunset
Arches National Park
 
A bend in the Colorado River at Dead Horse State Park
A reflection of the La Sal Mountains in a window
A view from Whale Rock
Me on top of Whale Rock
Arches National Park
Dead Horse State Park
Pam and Jeff and "The Duke"
Pam, Jeff and Joan
Dead Horse Park

Sunday, April 3, 2016

A final hike and good-bye to my brother, Mike. Home beckons

The peak in the middle is Mt. Wrightson
As most of the readers of this blog know, my brother Mike died on New Year’s Day in 2009. He was only 57 and left us all way too soon. After he was cremated his wife wanted his ashes scattered at Grand Canyon because one of his first civilian jobs was at the Watchtower Gift Shop on the South Rim.

Last year as we left Arizona we made a side trip and left the majority of his ashes in the canyon within sight of the beautiful Watchtower that holds the gift shop.
We also left some of Michael’s ashes in the Catalina Mountains at the trailhead of Bug Springs hike that I do every year. Our sister Pam was at that spot when we scattered him there.

But I saved a few pounds of his ashes for a very special spot that I love here in Tucson. Overlooking the whole area is Mt. Wrightson (formerly Mt. Baldy) which is located high over Madera Canyon. It is the highest peak in Southern Arizona and sports a very challenging hike to the top.
Looking down from the trail
It was my intention to hike them up there last year, but for a variety of reasons I missed the hike last year. I have done the hike in previous years, but missed it in 2015. With my illness during much of March it was looking like I was going to miss the Wrightson hike again.

But as my health improved, the thought of keeping Michael’s ashes in the trailer for another year nagged at me. So after taking an 8-mile hike on Monday to Seven Falls and then repeating that very same hike on Tuesday with the Voyager hiking group  I started to feel the tug toward Mt. Wrightson.
Counting the miles I put on the two early hikes, Meet Me at Maynard’s I had already logged more than 35 miles this week, but I was feeling better and better and I told Joan on Wednesday that Mt. Wrightson was calling my name.


Only .9-miles left to the summit
Joan doesn’t like me hiking alone, but this is a hike I prefer to do alone. Alone, because I can do it at my own pace, stop and enjoy the views as I ascend. There are also plenty of folks who take that trail so I would never be more than 15-20 minutes from a passing hiker if something happened.
On Thursday, for Joan’s birthday I dropped her off at the Casino Del Sol for her fun day there while I came home and got ready for my Friday hike. Thursday night I attended my last Bible study class and went to bed to get a good night’s sleep for an early start on Friday.

I was up at 5:45 a.m. and out the door by 6 a.m. and on the trail by 7:05 a.m. It was a very chilly start with temperatures in the high 30s at an elevation of 5,400-feet in Madera Canyon. It got colder and colder as I ascended at by the time I got to Josephine Saddle at 7,000-feet my hands were so cold they wouldn’t work to unclasp my back pack. My fingers were frozen but slowly thawed as the hike slowly moved into the sun.
Mt. Wrightson from the second saddle
The hike up to Wrightson that I take is 7.1-miles and ascends 4,053 feet from the trailhead. Before when I’ve done this hike I have run out of water, so this time I took five full bottles of water, which was a lot of weight heading up. Add to that my usual lunch and snacks and this time my brother’s ashes and I had a pretty heavy pack for a day hike.

I began to feel the weight more and more as I hit a series of steep switchbacks that take you from Josephine Saddle to the next saddle just a mile below the summit of Mr. Wrightson. The switchbacks seem endless and with the extra weight I began to question my sanity. Clearly the recent illness compromised my lung capacity and I could feel it as I got above the 7,000-foot level of Josephine Saddle.
Me on the summit (Tucson is far in the background)
But I took frequent stops to catch my breath and listen to my heart beat. Aside: There is nothing quite as cool as being in a place so quiet and isolated that the only thing you can hear is your own breath and heartbeat. But I continued slogging up the mountain and when I got to the secondary saddle just before 11 a.m. I looked up and saw the looming summit and it seemed a long way up still.

For a moment I looked around and thought that the saddle might be an appropriate place to scatter Mike’s ashes, but quickly decided it would be a failure not to get him all the way to the top. I kept saying to myself “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” but it wasn’t working.
As any backpacker will tell you, every extra pound you carry begins to multiply in magnitude as you head uphill. An extra five pounds feels like 25 pounds in just a few miles.

My new friend Paul at the summit
I did make a good decision at the second saddle. With only a mile to go up the mountain, I off loaded and hid two bottles of water and most of my lunch behind a rock. That saved me about five pounds of weight for the final ascent and it clearly helped.
It is often cold on the top of Mt. Wrightson and eating lunch up there is not always a pleasant experience so I knew I would eat my lunch on the way down. Getting to the top of Mt. Wrightson is another series of switchbacks and included one spot that was snow and ice covered, which presents a challenge of not slipping and falling off a steep trail.

The final mile is not quite as hard as the section between the saddles, but knowing the end is in sight keeps one going. When I took the final switchback turn and saw the summit I spoke out loud to Michael: “We made it.” At the top of the mountain the clouds are just above your head as you can see from the photos.
More summit visitors (check out those clouds)
Once on top I had a few minutes to myself before another hiker arrived. “Paul” was a man my age who was making his first hike up the mountain and he took the photos of me on top. He was moved when I told him why I was there and what I was about to do. He offered to take a photo of the container I brought Mike’s ashes in, but I just didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to scatter his ashes right where people sit and enjoy the view so I walked about six feet down the south side of the mountain, found a beautiful collection of rocks and boulders, said a little prayer and scattered the remainder of Mike’s ashes there. It was a pretty emotional moment for me as this is the last of his remains.
The view from where I left Michael
After returning to the top of the mountain with Paul we were joined by a family of four, two of whom were making their first trip to the top of the mountain. We passed around the log book, which is kept in an Army ammo box with a pen, and signed in for the hike. Someone mentioned there was a geocache at the summit, but I don’t even know what that is. Before I left there were more than a dozen people on the summit.

Paul and I spent a pleasant half hour on the summit, which was surprisingly calm and warm, talking about our hiking experiences and the unbelievable view from the top. You can see almost all the way north to Phoenix and south to Mexico from the summit. Well, maybe not all the way to Phoenix but pretty close.
On the way down (the trail is in the center of the photo)
At this point with temperatures in the low 50s and light winds,  I regretted leaving my lunch behind at the saddle as it would have been a good day to eat on the summit. Too soon it was time to start down and the descent is almost as touch has the ascent because those steep ups and now steep downs and a little tough on the knees. I left ahead of anyone else as I prefer to keep my own pace down.

Back at the second saddle I found my lunch and water, ate and then continued on down. About halfway between the saddles my left leg started to cramp, and cramp badly. In a brief moment of panic I thought about how difficult it was going to be to get down with a cramped left leg. I took off my back pack, guzzled a pint of Gatorade in one of my bottles and the cramp released and fortunately did not return.

Some dainty flowers I found up on the mountain
Going down presents special challenges as you don’t want to fall forward because there is little to stop you along the steep sided trails if you fall. Once at Josephine Saddle I opted for the alternate Old Baldy  trail down. The Old Badly Trail is very steep, but two miles shorter than the less steep “Super Trail” I took up the mountain and being short on time (I was seven hours into the hike at this point) I wanted to get off the mountain quickly.
Even with the shortened miles, my feet and legs were tired and it seemed like forever until I arrived back at the parking lot at 3:05 p.m., exactly eight hours after I started. I immediately called Joan and let her know I was down and safe and told her I would be home shortly after 4 p.m. With our anniversary coming up on Sunday, I told her we could still go to the resort dance Friday night.

I briefly looked back at the Mt. Wrightson summit and said good-bye to my brother again. But I know every time I see Mt. Wrightson I will think of my brother on top. It will be moment of comfort and good feelings for me.
You are only two miles from the top at this spot
Back at the resort, I downed a can of diet Seven-Up and then another bottle of water and then took a shower. We finished the rest of the leftovers in the refrigerator and at 7 p.m. headed to the dance. It was a little challenging to dance after a nearly 14-mile hike, but we pulled it off and had a very good time. It is our last dance at the resort this season.

On Saturday, Joan returned to the casino for the day, while I headed back to the trailer and then went downtown for a real life massage. Man, did a massage feel good after the hike the day before. When the massage was over I headed back over to the casino and we went to dinner at the buffet. It was a Polynesian theme and it was really good. Joan had a buy one, get one free coupon for the dinner so it was pretty reasonable price wise as well.
A little snow near the top
On Sunday morning we headed to our last church service here at the Voyager and in the afternoon we went to a movie at the discount theater to see “The Revenant.”  With all our food exhausted in the trailer we went to dinner at Agave at Desert Diamond Casino (no gambling tonight) for their Sunday night Prime Rib special. We invited Walt along with us as Walt is a widower and fellow Men’s Bible study attendee.

This has become an annual event and one year we treat him and the next he treats us, which I understand isn’t really fair, but he enjoys the company and we enjoy his. This will be my last post from Tucson, but I’ll update you all on our travels home starting Tuesday night.
Our plan is to depart the park Monday evening after the traffic is light, drive to a rest area just south of Flagstaff and sleep in the trailer. In the morning we will finish the final 30 miles to the Camping World in Bellemont, Arizona (just outside Flagstaff) get the trailer winterized and then put it into storage.

After it is stored we will head north to Moab, Utah where we will spend a couple days with my sister Pam, brother-in-law Jeff and tour the Canyonlands. More later.