Friday, April 20, through Monday, April 30, 2012: In Arizona:
We started out today for the RV park at the Meteor Crater that is 40 miles east of Flagstaff. Midway, we decided to change our plans and go all the way to the RV park at the Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel/Depot in Williams,

so we could more easily visit the canyon and see some old friends. That added 75 miles to the trip, making it a total of 215 miles. We will be here four days, then go on the Verde Valley, which was where we initially expected to spend almost two weeks. (That plan has also changed.) We arrived about 1:00PM, having gained an hour by entering Arizona (which is in the Mountain Time Zone but does not recognize Daylight Saving Time), and set up in a nice site in a virtually empty RV park. (The train, hotel, and RV park are all operated by our old employer, Xanterra Parks & Resorts). We have stayed here previously. It's a new park, very nice, but quite sterile. On Saturday, we ordered some new eyeglasses for me,

and then went to our favorite Thai restaurant in Flagstaff---Pa To (located in the historic---and recently remodeled---Monte Vista Hotel). It was delicious, as usual.

We then filled up with diesel---for less than $4.00 per gallon for the first time in months---and spent the rest of the day relaxing.

Sunday morning, we walked to the depot to watch the train leave for the canyon. The sole reason was that, for the first of only four times each year, they hooked up the very old steam engine to lead the train.

Becky loves steam engines and wanted to see it and take some pictures of it. It was a fun sight. (The ecstacy of the moment was interrupted by the sight of the diesel locomotive just behind the steam engine; the locomotive was actually pushing the steam engine and pulling the ten passenger cars that followed.  So much for the romance of the olden days.)

Becky then took Ramsey on a 5-mile walk, which had the intended effect of tiring him out,

followed by a stop at the local Blockbuster machine to pick up Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which, frankly, was extremely long and incredibly boring.

Monday was set aside to go to the Grand Canyon to see old friends. 

We headed up (110 miles, roundtrip) early, stopping at my last workplace there, The Grand Hotel, first.

Then into the park to Maswick Lodge, Bright Angel Lodge, the El Tovar Hotel, Yavapai Lodge, the Engineering Department, the Transportation Department, and the Accounting office.  We saw a zillion people.  It was great.

Tuesday, we headed for the Thousand Trails preserve in Verde Valley, near Cottonwood.  It's only a 100-mile trek, so it was easy.  We arrived before noon and set up in a nice site.  This is one of our favorite Thousand Trails preserves, yet we realized we hadn't been here in nearly six years.

Wednesday, I actually played pickleball (not very well, I might add), so I was hurting on Thursday.   Fortunately, it was supposed to rain on Thursday, so we planned to spend the day shopping and eating in the Prescott area.  We had lunch at Murphy's, a favorite of ours in a historic building just off the courthouse square in the center of town. 

Then we headed for Prescott Valley to shop at Costco, and to take a look at the RV park at the Yavapai County Fairgrounds, where we might spend a month near the end of next year.

Friday morning, I played a little pickleball again, and in the early afternoon we watched We Bought A Zoo.  I had very low expectations for this film, but was pleasantly surprised.  It was actually a lot of fun. 

At 3:00PM, we went to see some old Xanterra folks from the North Rim in 2006---Priscilla and Roger Lasch and Tom O'Dell---at the Lasch's home in Dewey, near Prescott.  We ate and drank too much, but it was great seeing them again.

Saturday and Sunday were everyday affairs---pickleball for Becky, mostly---and we actually went to the pool (for about a minute) and the Jacuzzi (for ten minutes) on Sunday.

Our last day in the area, Monday, was great:  We took the Verde Canyon Railroad trip into a beautiful and historic area outside of Cottonwood. We kenneled Ramsey for the day, and had a wonderful time on the train.

The tracks have been in place for 100 years to provide freight access for the copper mine that operated in the area. The freight service survived the closing of the mine, and is still in operation. Just over 20 years ago, a new owner showed up and decided to add passenger service since he thought the path of the tracks went through some beautiful country and might attract visitors. He was right. The passenger operation is very nice, and has now eclipsed the freight operation. It’s really a nice way to see the canyon.

Monday, April 16, through Thursday, April 19, 2012: Heading for Arizona---the Long Way:
Monday morning we made the leisurely 140-mile trip to Mancos, Colorado, located about halfway between Cortez and Durango in the southwest corner of Colorado. It's the gateway to Mesa Verde National Park.


(We are on our way to Verde Valley, Arizona, near the Cottonwood/Sedona area. This is one of the stops on the way.)

We are staying at the Mesa Verde RV Park,

a very nice park under new and eager-to-please ownership. Once we set up, we drove the 25 miles to the top of the mesa. It's such a winding road they forbid taking trailers up the hill. The last time we were here (10 years ago) we drove our rented motor home up and down the hill. It was so harrowing that we cancelled our planned second-day visit to the mesa. Since we've been here before, this visit was mainly to get Becky's National Park Passport stamped, and to take a quick look at the scenery. The park itself is pretty amazing---filled with hundreds of Anasazi (now called Ancestral Puebloans by the politically correct folks) ruins of hillside dwellings,


which are really tiny villages. One can access some of the dwellings by climbing ladders and squeezing through small canyon slots. The people generally farmed the flat areas at the top of the mesa and lived on the hillsides below the top. Very interesting.

We had arranged to have our weekly mail delivered to the RV park. In its cleverness, the post office delivered it instead to the office of Aramark, the concessionaire at the national park. Oops! Fortunately, the Aramark office is only a half-mile away, so it was no big deal for me to go get it.

Late Tuesday morning we took a side trip to Durango (40 miles, one-way) and took a little tour of the city (population 17,000). It's grown a lot since we were there 23 years ago on a ski trip. Seems to be a nice place. We had a very nice lunch at Ken & Sue's,


a local restaurant on Main Avenue in the historic district. We had an interesting conversation with the guy next to us who was an environmental consultant from Boulder who was in Durango on business. After lunch, we stopped in across the street at The Strater Hotel, an old place with a magnificent lobby, still in full operation. That pretty much ended the exciting activities during our stay near Mesa Verde. Next it's on to Gallup, New Mexico.

After waking up for the second day in a row to a temperature of 25 degrees, it will be nice to get to a warmer climate---in Gallup and beyond.

The 140-mile trip to Gallup on Wednesday was a no-brainer.


We are staying at the USA RV Park, a very nice place we have stopped at on at least three occasions. It's on "historic" Route 66 and the park and Gallup have a lot of references to the history of Route 66. Otherwise, there's not a lot to recommend this city. That's why we're spending only two days here.


Mostly, we rested here, and got in a little shopping. Thursday night we had dinner at Virgie's Mexican Restaurant & Lounge, about a half-mile from our RV park. The food was very tasty and the service was fine, but we got interrupted several times by Indians walking through and hawking their wares.

Monday, April 9, through Sunday, April 15, 2012: Visiting the Other Utah Parks:
We headed for Torrey, Utah, early on Monday morning. It was going to be only a 100-mile trip so we took our sweet time. We went through some more beautiful Utah countryside, and ended up at Torrey (population: 180) just after noon. We are staying at the Thousand Lakes RV Park.


It’s very nice. (It has a terrific gift shop, so Becky is ecstatic.)

Torrey is the gateway to Capitol Reef National Park, We’ve been here only once before---in 2002, before we became road warriors. We made a quick visit to Capitol Reef Monday afternoon,


as a prelude to really touring the park on Tuesday. We arranged with the RV park to rent a Jeep Liberty on Tuesday so we could take the dirt-road tour of the park.

We loaded up (with Ramsey along) at 9:00 Tuesday morning and headed for the park. Capitol Reef is a magnificent smorgasbord of geological sights. The sedimentary mountains have grown and risen and fallen and folded and eroded over millions of years, and are just fascinating to tour. The tour covered 136 miles.




We got back to the RV park after 4:00PM. (It would have been a little earlier but I had to wash the Jeep before turning it in.) Later, I was able to squeeze in at the next-door barber for a much-needed haircut. We had already planned to have dinner at the Café Diablo, a local restaurant known nationally for its creative menu and delicious food.


We had eaten there when we were here in 2002. We were only the second party there when we arrived, but the place filled up in a hurry. We split a beef tenderloin dinner, a calamari salad, and a cheesecake dessert. Very yummy.

Wednesday morning we headed for nearby Loa to wash our truck and do some grocery shopping---and pick up two movies from the Red Box there.


We watched The Iron Lady and The Descendants Wednesday afternoon. (It was raining, so there was nothing else to do. It was really clever of me to wash the truck this morning.) Both films were well-done, but I liked The Descendants more. It was very complicated, with a plot full of surprises, but riveting. The Iron Lady was a bit disappointing to me because they portrayed Margaret Thatcher as a little wacko even while she was serving as Prime Minister, and they spent too much time showing how addled she is now. (Her present condition is irrelevant to what should be her legacy.) In any event, Meryl Streep definitely deserved her Oscar.

Thursday morning we woke up to a temperature of 34 degrees and a dusting of snow. No problem. We took off early for Moab, a 170-mile trip through more of the beautiful Utah countryside. We arrived before noon at the Canyonlands Campground RV Park right in the middle of town.


We stayed here ten years ago. It‘s a very nice place. I was able to get the truck lubed and its oil changed, and our propane replenished before the end of the day. We also went shopping for food. (It’s nice to be in a town with an array of stores.) We bought mussels for dinner. Yum.

On Friday afternoon, we drove to Red Cliffs Lodge. It's about 20 miles outside of Moab. Red Cliffs Lodge is in a beautiful canyon, along the Colorado River.




It's also home to the Castle Creek Winery.


It was one of the first wineries in the state of Utah. When we worked at Zion Lodge, Castle Creek was added to the dining room's wine list.

Moab (population: about 5,500) is the gateway to both Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, so we will get a twofer for Becky's National Park Passport. We headed for Canyonlands Saturday morning.



It was cold and overcast. Canyonlands is a strange park. You have to drive far into the park to see anything. We went no further than the Visitor Center (a 130-mile roundtrip at that) because it was 12 miles more to get to anything worth seeing. And from pictures we have seen at the Visitor Center and elsewhere, what's in the park is pretty much what you can see outside the park on the BLM land that surrounds the whole area.


And because of the weather, the flat light would not give us a very good look at the colors in the formations. (One more thought that we processed: When we visited the area ten years ago we were advised not to bother with Canyonlands because, we were told, it was pretty much just more of what we would otherwise see in the area.)

Saturday afternoon, we watched War Horse, another Red Box movie. It was a bit disappointing, except for the scenes involving the horse. They were pretty spectacular.

On Sunday, after we had pancakes across the street at the Pancake Haus,


we headed for Arches.


The weather was cold but clear and the scenery was terrific.


There are more than 2,500 arches in the park


(thus, the name) and they are surrounded by fabulous sandstone formations. (The park's signature arch---Delicate Arch---appears on Utah license plates.)


We agreed that Arches is well worth visiting.

The rest of Sunday was just relaxing (and walking Ramsey, of course, and getting ready to leave.

Thursday, April 5, through Sunday, April 8, 2012: At Manti (sort of):
The 200-mile trip to Manti (pronounced Man-tie) was easy. Some high winds were due today, but fortunately didn't materialize until late afternoon, as expected. Manti is on US Hwy. 89, the former main route all the way to Salt Lake City. We came through here with the Wheelers three years ago on our way to Park City for Emily's bat mitzvah. (We remember it because the other patrons---local Mormons all, we assumed---stared at us while we had lunch in a local diner.) It's a small town (population 3,700) with a huge, beautiful Mormon temple



(the third one built in Utah). We were told that their annual "Mormon Miracle Pageant" every June draws 30,000 people to the area from all over the world.

We are here on our way to eastern Utah and several national parks, with a side-trip to Park City (without the trailer) to see Donna, David, and Emily. We will get there on Friday, just in time for Seder.

We are staying at the Temple Hill RV Park, located just behind the temple grounds.


It's a simple but decent place, under new ownership, with very nice people who are anxious to please.

We had a nice dinner at Dirk's Farmhouse Restaurant in town, then settled in for the evening---preparing to leave for Park City on Friday.

The 125-mile trip to Park City was interesting---some snow, some rain, some fog, some blue skies---but uneventful. We arrived at Donna's house about 2:00PM. Park City was very cold, having had about six inches of snow overnight, but the roads were clear.


We had Ramsey with us and had to be very careful to keep him downstairs in our room, to avoid confrontations with Donna and David's two dogs, Norman and Coconut.

Donna had invited others for the Seder dinner, and they started showing up around 5:00PM. Among the guests were some school and volleyball friends of Emily


and a friend of Donna's going all the way back to grade school. In all, there were 15 people for dinner. Donna did a great job and we all had a good time celebrating the first night of Passover.



Some of Emily's friends spent the night.

Saturday morning we headed to Salt Lake City to Emily's volleyball tournament. The gym had 11 courts, all of which were holding games every minute. That meant there were 11 referees' whistles blowing all the time. It was very loud and chaotic, but interesting to watch.


Emily's team wasn't doing very well, losing some very close games. We stayed for about four hours, then went back to Donna's house.

We all went to dinner at a sushi place in Park City. I had a chicken curry dish. Delicious. It was a long day and Emily deservedly fell asleep at dinner.


Later that evening, we risked putting Ramsey and Norman together for the first time. It turned out to be no big deal. They got along just fine, and, later, even Coconut was OK having this new dog in the house. It was quite a relief.


Late Sunday morning, we started the return trip to Manti. By this time, the weather had returned to spring-like. We arrived at Manti to 80 degrees and sunshine. It was welcome after the cold in Park City.