PART 1: Western National Parks RV Caravan -- Virgin (Zion), UT to Bryce Canyon, UT

Our "Fantasy RV Tours" organized RV caravan started on August 22nd in Virgin, Utah and lasts 34 glorious days exploring the western U.S. national parks with 23 other RVs. Here is the route we'll be doing:

8/19-24: Virgin, Utah

We have chosen to arrive a few days early for our caravan and are pleased to see a few others in our group have done this too. It is always fun to meet new RVers and we look forward to getting to know them better as the weeks go by.

The Zion River Resort RV park in Virgin, Utah, puts us within a short drive of Zion National Park. With the exception of one road that connects through the park to the east entrance, only park shuttle buses are allowed to transit the main park road, so we are all on our own to explore during our days in this area. Due to a flash flood that sadly took the life of a hiker in The Narrows area of Zion a few days before we arrived, the shuttles aren't doing the full park road so we opt to first explore Kolob Canyon on the north end. 

Only a half hour drive north, Kolob has several "wear hiking boots" hikes that we really enjoyed -- the 1-mile Timber Creek Overlook Trail and then there 2-mile Timber Creek Trail where we crossed the same creek 14 times. It was a great use of my hiking sticks! The only negative was the bee that snuck into the back of my shorts and stung me on the butt. Guess the bee didn't like my bright pink shirt? No doubt the other hikers on the trail watching me dance around thought it was hysterical 🙄 In any case, we got a first taste of big red rocks and it is just so hard to grasp how darn gigantic they are! We closed the day with a lovely welcome dinner at a local restaurant and getting to know our travel mates better. 

Jeffrey at the end of the hike at Kolob

The majestic Kolob Canyon

The next day the full Zion shuttle route is open so we head to the park early to beat some of the crowds. At the suggestion of our caravan leaders, we take the shuttle to the furthest point before we get off and do the Riverside Walk at the Temple of Sinawava, about 2.2 miles round trip. We choose not to hike into The Narrows at the top of that walk because it means crossing and walking in the river. 

The view through the open roof vents on the shuttle

End of the Riverside Walk and start of The Narrows

Taking the shuttle back, we get off at The Grotto and walk the half mile trail to the Zion Lodge where we have lunch. Along the way we encounter a small deer herd that has no interest in us. They are obviously used to seeing humans traipsing around. The Emerald Pool trails that link up with the lodge area were closed for maintenance, so we reboarded the shuttle to the Court of the Patriarchs. The overlook there is an amazing view of 3 large rock formations, fondly called the "Patriarchs".

Grotto Trail

The 3 rightmost peaks are the "Patriarchs"

Our last stop is at Canyon Junction where we opt to walk the 1.75 mile paved trail back to the Visitor's Center at the bottom. Our legs are definitely going to be stiff tomorrow! With a big part of the afternoon still remaining, we take our car and drive the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, a slow-going elevation-climbing switchbacking road that goes to the east entrance of Zion. At one point is the "Tunnel" that is carved along the rock face. It has no lights inside -- just a small collection of "windows" cut through the side to help illuminate the interior. 

Interesting arch formation

After the tunnel we encounter several collections of bighorn sheep among the rock formations. One wore a collar so they are obviously tracked. We also saw the famous Checkerboard Mesa formation, named because of the horizontal cross-bedding of ancient sand dunes and vertical cracking due to expansion and contraction of the sandstone during winter.

Bighorn Sheep

Checkboard Mesa

On our final day in Virgin, we stayed in the RV park and did the mundane tasks of RV life -- laundry, clean interior AC filters, regenerate the water softener, and remove tire and mirror covers in preparation for driving to the next campground tomorrow. We also had our first "driver's meeting" plus ice cream social where we gather as a group and cover the travel directions as well as the logistics for the next few days of activities. We are off to a great start!

8/25-27: Page, Arizona

Our first caravan driving day took us 140 miles to Page with an en-route stop at the Pipe Spring National Monument. It commemorates the pioneer Indian life on the southwestern frontier. A fresh water spring on the site provided water for farming and daily life. In 1871 a fort was built by Mormon pioneers who used the water and surrounding rangeland for cattle and sheep ranching. This description oversimplifies the history of the area as there was significant conflict between the various residents --no surprise when there is such a rich and consistent water source in the high desert. 

Pipe Springs Windsor Castle built by the Mormons over the spring to control the water

Our first full day near Page included a 15 mile raft trip in Glen Canyon which included Horseshoe Bend. The canyon walls that surrounded us on both sides for most of the trip were 700-1400 feet tall and a glorious red color that is so typical of this region. A mid-way break near some interesting petroglyphs even gave willing participants (Jeffrey among them) a chance to take a dip in the 67-degree water. The weather ran the gammit of pleasant in the shade to hot in the sun to rain and lightening. Thankfully the storm passed quickly and just grazed us for a few minutes -- and the lightening is very unlikely to extend into the deep canyon. Our guide wasn't concerned so that was comforting.

The start of the raft trip near the Glen Canyon Dam

The Petroglyphs

Canyon fault line

Of special note was seeing the Vermilion Cliffs, which is part of the Grand Staircase of immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers stretching from Bryce Canyon through Zion and this area to the Grand Canyon. Sadly, we didn't get a good picture of these cliffs as the sun didn't hightlight them well. We also spotted a young bighorn sheep bull who isn't yet old enough to fight for his own harem of ladies. 

The bachelor bighorn sheep

Leaving the high cliff walls

Our final day near Page started with a tour through Antelope Canyon. Words really can't describe the experience of color and texture of this slot canyon. We were fortunate to be clear of any flash flood risks which would have cancelled our tour. I'll let these pictures speak for themselves!

This same day we drove back into Page with fellow RVers to see Glen Canyon's Horseshoe Bend, this time from the canyon rim instead of on the river. It was a hot walk but worth the effort. 

8/28-29: Grand Canyon North Rim, Arizona

A short 2-hour drive took us to Kaibab Camper Village, putting us within a 40-minute car drive of the main target for this stop -- the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Another member of our group took this good photo of Max starting this drive:

We spent our first night here playing a game of Cornhole Baseball as a group, odd numbered rigs versus even numbered. It game us a chance to better learn each other's names as we each came to "bat", which is basically tossing bean bags at a special cornhole board. I'm proud to announce that I scored a triple on my first time up and a home run on the second, especially because it was a game of chance mostly. We all had fun and our team won bragging rights 👍

A great view of the Vermilion Cliffs on the drive to Kaibab

The next morning we drove the car to the Grand Canyon, surprised at how wooded and green it was on the north rim areas. We hit all of the major lookouts and enjoyed lunch at the Grand Canyon Lodge with many of our travel mates. 

Angel's Window

Selfie at Bright Angel Point

Point Imperial

Looking North from Point Imperial

Vista Encantada

8/30-9/1: Bryce Canyon, Utah

We had a medium-intensity (lots of ups/downs and curves) but lovely drive over to Ruby's In RV Park in Bryce Canyon City, our home base for the next few days of exploration. We drove into Bryce Canyon just to the Visitor's Center to get the scoop plus maps so we could plan for tomorrow's excursions. This is our first time seeing "Hoodoos" -- weirdly shaped rock spires that look like totem poles and are formed by water. Here are some we saw driving into this area, along with the rock arches we drove through that were barely higher than we were!

First sighting of Hoodoos!

Delicately balanced Hoodoos near Bryce Canyon

Arch #1!

Arch #2!

We used our first full day in this area hiking in Bryce National Park. After taking the free shuttle to Bryce Point, we enjoyed the 1.5 mile hike along the basin rim toward Inspiration Point. It took twice as long as expected because we stopped often to take pictures of the amazing Bryce "amphitheater". 

From there we hiked to Sunset point and then to Sunrise Point, logging another few miles. We celebrated our exercise with a BBQ lunch in nearby Tropic and then rested until our group dinner at Ebenezer's Barn and Grill. Great food and country music entertainment too!

Maren taking a break from the breathtaking views

Jeffrey trying to blend in with his orange shirt

Our wonderful post-dinner entertainment

We started our final day near Bryce by visiting Kodachrome Basin State Park, an area filled with towering sandstone chimneys and red rock formations. We hiked the Angel's Palace and Nature Trails, the former being a bit of a climb to amazing views and the latter being flat with educational signs about the ecology.

Kodachrome Basin's most famous spire -- Sentinel Pipe

Jeffrey making friends

More Kodachrome spires

We then went back into Bryce and drove beyond the main "amphitheater" area to the end at Rainbow Point. A quick mile hike on the Bristlecone Loop Trail and stopping at viewpoints along the way back yeilded more amazing sights. Our cellphone cameras are really getting a workout on this trip!

Never a bad picture in Bryce!

"Natural Bridge" window

The Hoodoo formations often look like castle walls

Our day ended with a group driver's meeting to review tomorrow's drive to Torrey, Utah. Our tour leaders ran a contest on the best RV tips and worst RV mistakes. We won best tip -- always open a door or window when extending/retracting slides. Thankfully we didn't win the "worst mistake" award 😁

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This concludes Part 1 of our Western National Parks caravan, August 22 through September 1, 2022. Go to PART 2 to continue reading about this trip.

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Good News and Bad News

First the good news! We recovered from Covid mid-June and were able to get all of our RV service appointments completed while near the Winnebago factory. The bad news is I cracked a tooth, but the good news is we found a dentist who could squeeze me in for a crown. Oh joy! We are actually pretty lucky that we had so much time in Iowa so we could deal with these unexpected challenges.

We were happy for a change of scenery and moved Max up to the south side of Minneapolis for a week around July 4th and were thrilled to find that -- good news! --the casino RV park we booked had a great free concert and fireworks! The weather was nice too, so bonus good news! While there we also visited the Minnesota Zoo and, though it had no giraffe, it had a number of species we don't see often such as Takin. A tiger actively swimming and playing with his ball is pretty cool too!

This is MY ball!

Takin bull

Our next stop was Rochester to visit Jeffrey's aunts, Margaret and Louise. We were able to help them with a project or two but our time there flew by too fast. We also visited Minnesota State Veteran's  Cemetery where uncle Merlyn's grave is located.

Visiting uncle Merlyn's grave with Margaret

Back to Iowa we went for Winnebago's annual Grand National Rally -- basically a week of fun social and educational events for RVers. We generally try to attend "GNR" every few years and this was our third. There were over 600 rigs of all shapes and sizes. The smaller van-type RVs have gotten very very popular!

Just a partial aerial picture of the Grand National Rally grounds (we are the blue arrow)

Going north once again, we paused a few days on the north side of Minneapolis so I could visit the COMO Park Zoo. They had giraffe, but we could only view them from a distance, so no feeding.

The COMO giraffe

COMO gorilla

A short stop in Fargo as we continued north gave us a chance to see the famous woodchipper featured in the "Fargo" movie. As the picture below suggests, it wasn't used to chip wood!

Jeffrey and the chipper

Turning west, we spent several days in Medora, ND -- first to revisit the Pitchfork Fondue and Medora Musical that we enjoyed on our RV caravan last year, then to visit the "north unit" of  Roosevelt National Park which we'd had to skip a year ago. In addition to the gorgeous views, we got to see a small herd of bison on the move.

Bison at Roosevelt National Park

Our next goal was to get Max to Deer Lodge, Montana, so we could park him and drive the car to Yellowstone for a week with stepmom, Sheila at a local resort. Having never been there, it was an amazing experience! It was a vast park and we could have spent weeks exploring. Between the geysers, mudpots, hot springs, mineral pools, wildlife, etc., it is an amazing place and somewhat alien compared to the rest of the continental U.S. We were busy seeing the sights almost every day, most in the park itself plus a day in West Yellowstone and another to nearby Earthquake Lake. Worth Googling this place. Basically an earthquake in 1959 devastated the area during the height of camping season.

Old Montana State prison in Deer Lodge

Bison who almost ran into our car

Dragon's Mouth dry geyser

Grand Prismatic pool

One of Yellowstone's amazing falls

After dropping Sheila back at the Bozeman airport, we went back to Max and turned him south to Idaho Falls for a quick stop at the Idaho Falls Zoo. My favorite animal there was the Fennec Fox, which barely stood still long enough for Jeffrey to get a picture. 

Fennec Fox

Shy Tiger (this is really zoomed in)

Regal lion

A big stop on our path south was Ogden, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City. We didn't get a chance to be tourists on this visit at all, instead getting the car to Ford for an upgraded battery, getting Jeffrey to an appointment for allergy shots, and getting me to my first root canal. The good news is we found a great endodontist who could see me quickly -- the bad news is that cracked (and newly crowned) tooth had the crack extend into a tooth root, which is BAD NEWS. It is unlikely the tooth can be saved with this condition, but hopefully a root canal will give me some time (and pain relief) to get back to our regular dentist in Texas on Oct 2nd. Oh joy (again).

As I write this, we have just arrived in Virgin, Utah, to begin our 34-day Western National Parks RV caravan. This will be a real treat as we haven't visited anything in this area. It will be extra special to enjoy it with 40+ other RVers (23 rigs). 

So actually the fact that we even made it here after a very challenging 2022 -- and numerous situations where we didn't think it would actually happen -- is good news!

Kicking off 2022 with Challenges

Sometimes life cruises along peacefully according to plan, sometimes there are a few unexpected small speedbumps, and sometimes -- hopefully rarely -- there are big potholes. Unfortunately 2022 started out with several big potholes. I usually save the "RV lifestyle" ruminations for the end of a blog post, but I'm going to reverse it this time since pothole #1 started just before New Year's Eve, thus giving it priority welcoming us into 2022.

We always enjoyed bragging to our fellow RV friends that we've always been able to "start" Max and what a comforting feeling that is. Depending on where we are and where we are traveling to next, a "no start" condition could be a big issue. A few days before New Year's Eve we turned Max's key just so we could move in our big slides and --- nothing. No cranking sound, no clicks, just silence. You both looked at each other with big eyes. Absolutely NOT what you want to have happen right before a huge holiday weekend when no service places are open right before you must move on to the next campground.

Lucky for us, the RV coming into our site in two days was going to be late so we could stay longer if we needed to. Unlucky for them it was because they were stuck in Canada quarantining from COVID. We really didn't want to get towed and there wasn't anywhere we could get towed into since everyone was closed for the holiday. Thankfully, Jeffrey is pretty handy and immediately got on the phone to 1-800-"freightliner". Over several days and several phone calls to test different scenarios (plus the curious input from RVers around us), we were thrilled to find a "workaround" that let us start the engine successfully -- and sleep at night again. A transmission computer needed replacing (hello, extended warranty!) but we now had time to find a service place and drive there on our own power.

Within a few weeks we had this issue fixed and were able to enjoy the rest of our south Florida plans, including flying up to Washington to help Sheila with her own pothole (long awaited back surgery). With Sheila more comfortably back on her feet when we left, we made our annual migration up to the Gainesville area to spend March near Jeffrey's dad. Sadly, we only had a week with him before he went in the hospital with a worsening medical issue and he didn't make it out. He was 93 but somehow we still struggled to accept that he wouldn't be there for several more years at least. Most days he had more energy than we did and even worked out more than we did!

Young Jack Martin

Much of the next few months was focused on handling his affairs and some are still being worked. The labor shortage has affected everyone, so dealing with accounts/etc has been a slow process, but we will be forever grateful for his organizational skills and preparations. He clearly wanted the process to be as easy as possible for everyone.

We next moved up to Gaffney, SC, where we get Max's annual fluid/filter/etc changes done. All was going great until we woke up to our refrigerator no longer cooling. Thankfully we caught it before Jeffrey's allergy serum spoiled and all food in the freezer was lost. Since we couldn't keep the food frozen it was given to new RV friends sharing the parking area with us. Out of kindness, they actually cooked and fed us some of our own food the next day. We'd been through this routine before with a failed cooling unit, so we hopped over to Lowes and picked up a dorm fridge to hold us over. We already had an appointment in Indiana in 6 weeks to replace this unit as we weren't happy with it's ability to cool in hot temps -- and its getting darn hard to avoid hot temps ANYWHERE in the country lately. This pothole got deeper when the mini-fridge itself got temperamental and off we went to Home Depot. Never thought I'd have THREE refrigerators in Max at the same time (2 of them broken)! Mr. Extended Warranty again picked up the tab to fix the main fridge and we are pretty happy with the latest cooling technology.

We hoped this put the potholes behind us and the 2022 road ahead is smoother -- we'd even take a little "boring" thrown in! This may sound like RV life is one big headache sometimes, but the benefits always outweigh the sometimes stressful potholes. There were plenty of fun things sprinkled into these months too. 

For example, after Gaffney we spent a month in the Raleigh NC area visiting family and friends, then moved on to spend 4 days touring the Louisville, KY, area with brother David and his wife (my college friend) Mary. We had fun exploring the city and surrounding area (umm, distilleries). No surprise to any of you that Jeffrey and I even made it over to the Louisville Zoo, though the giraffe weren't interested in being hand-fed. The highlight of that day was a baby elephant. He had no trouble entertaining himself and the crowds that watched. 

Four Florida Gators trying to stay out of trouble at a distillery

The closest I could get

  

Should I crawl out of this mud puddle?

Nope, I'm gonna flop down back into the mud!

Moving up to Indiana, the Fort Wayne Zoo had giraffe but for some reason none of them were outside when we finally got over to the deck overlooking their habitat. We even hung around the area for an hour (okay, there was ice cream involved) in case whatever was up in their barn would be done soon but to no avail. Because of the avian flu issues, all the zoo's birds were not in their outside areas either, so there were lots of empty exhibits. You don't realize how many bird species are in a zoo until none of them are visible.

No giraffe, but a really cool lion right next to the front of the exhibit

One advantage to getting our fridge fixed at the factory in Shipshewana, Indiana, is the huge Amish community that lives there. Once we had a freezer again, I was thrilled to go the Amish butcher and load up on some great meat, cheese, and locally made condiments. You have to be careful driving around all of the horse-drawn carriages, but it is somewhat soothing to hear clop-clop-clop as they go by while you are eating your Amish ice cream cone. Another bonus is an RV surplus store not far away that is worth a visit to explore the many bins of RV parts to see if anything jumps into our cart. I was planning to recover our bed's headboard and was thrilled to find a good replacement upholstery option for a fraction of what I might have paid elsewhere.

Our next stop was to see RV friends near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unfortunately, crummy weather decided to visit for most of our time there so we didn't get to explore the area as much with them, but we at least got in some good visit time before moving on to Forest City, Iowa, where the Winnebago factory resides. We settled Max into the local campground, completed a few projects (bed headboard and new headlights), and packed up for a trip to Las Vegas to visit with Sheila for a week.

The Martins and the Marlins enjoying the one sunny day we had together

The three of us had a fun time walking around and looking at some of the Vegas attractions -- even getting to celebrate Sheila's birthday with her in person for a change. Did I say the potholes were done for 2022? Silly me! We all returned back to our respective homes and then -- wait for it -- COVID! Ugh. After so long dodging this darn virus it got all three of us. I guess what happens in Vegas does NOT stay in Vegas! On the "positive" side, we don't have to move Max for 3 weeks and we so far have been able to move our service appointments and Jeffrey's allergy injection around to give us time to STOP being "positive". We were all fortunate to have somewhat mild cases thank goodness. 

Ozzie the giraffe painting at Lion Country Habitat near Las Vegas

 

Sheila and us "pre-covid" at the lovely Greek forum

Maybe the SECOND half of 2022 will be kinder to us? Guess we shouldn't count that trip to Yellowstone in August as a done deal yet, huh? 

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