My Trails

Donna

My sister Donna drove her motorhome to Flagstaff a few days ago and camped three days with me in the Coconino National Forest. While she was there we rode on Honda up to Lowell Observatory and took a guided tour of the restored original telescope. It was quite interesting but we both agreed the tour guide was a little too talkative. He told us detailed history of the Lowell family way back to the 1600’s. He also talked way to much about how the observatory was run on donations, and how much he would appreciate it if we could leave some money in the box on our way out. We figured the price we paid for admission was a little high and we had donated enough. We didn’t stay too long because we were both hungry and we worried that Hanna would be hot in Donna’s motorhome.

We stopped at Wendy’s for a baked potato and then headed back to our camp. It was still cool in Donna’s motorhome so Hanna was fine.

North Rim overlook

On Sunday we drove to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, stopping briefly at Marble Canyon and waving hello to the Vermillion Cliffs as we drove by. The temperature through there was brutal so we made tracks to the high country of the North Kaibab National Forest as quick as we could.

The worst part of the drive was the wind. I would never intentionally drive in wind as bad as we saw today. Both our rigs are pretty high-profile and the gusts knocked us around all the way here. The last part of the drive was directly into the wind and I’m sure my gas mileage was cut in half. We were both exhausted by the time we found our campsite and could finally relax.

We are only a few miles from the National Park entrance so Honda will take us the rest of the way in. While we were camping in Flagstaff, we ran into a couple that I had met before in Quartzsite. They had planned to meet us here at the North Rim but so far we can’t find them. There is no cell service here.

When we arrived at our little campsite here in the Kaibab and set up camp, Donna remarked, “No wonder you don’t want to break camp and move every day. You have a lot of stuff to set up!”

She is right. After I find my parking spot I have to get out and assemble my satellite dish, wire and aim it, then carry my solar panels out and run the wires, weight everything down with rocks so they don’t blow away, hook up my propane extend-a-tank, and finally unload my motorcycle. After that I can start working on the inside. She sets out her rug and chair and is pretty much done.

We did meet up with our friends at the Canyon and they joined us for two days at our camp. Buffalo hunting season starts on Friday so it was time to get out of here and head north. Next stop Bryce Canyon National Park.

Rain port

Flagstaff has a few interesting tourist sites in and around the city. I have been to most of them on past visits but I find there are reasons to see them again. First of all, the places are fun to experience again, and secondly, I am building my trust back in Honda as I ride all over the area. And so when Richard suggested we meet up and ride to Walnut Canyon National Monument, I was happy to agree.

We decided to meet at Del Taco, have lunch, and then ride a back road the few miles to Walnut Canyon. It was only about 10 miles for me to our meeting place, but Richard and Dianna had a long trip from their home. We had a nice lunch and then headed down historic Route 66 going east out of town.

Route 66 parallels Interstate 40, and because it is not a main route anymore, understandably gets less attention from the maintenance crews. The road was very rough in places where the blacktop was broken and chipped. I was following Richard and Dianna down the highway when all of a sudden I saw them hit a particularly bad hole in the pavement. Richard’s travel mug bounced out of its holder and hit the road with a burst of liquid and flying parts. We came to a quick stop, parked along the road , and searched for several minutes for the missing lid. Richard finally located the lid up a bank and fit the damaged but usable pieces back together. We took it a little slower the rest of the way.

Walnut Canyon is a preserved site of ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings. The canyon is littered with dozens of stone structures built hundreds of years ago under the natural eroded cliffs. The park service maintains a walkway down 240 steps to a circular path where visitors can see close up the places the Indians lived. It is quite interesting to imagine what it would be like to live the way they did.
The problem with 240 steps down is that they must be climbed again to return to the visitors center. The afternoon was hot and I had forgotten to bring my water bottle. We all were feeling pooped by the time we reached the top. We spent a few minutes looking at the displays in the visitors center and then rode back into town for ice cream. It rained on us briefly on our way back but it actually felt good. We skipped Rt. 66 on our return and rode the busy but smooth Interstate highway.

It was a fun afternoon. Good times!

Trash

You never know what you’ll find while out walking in the woods. The other day I discovered an abandoned, family dump area only a few hundred yards from my camp that held the remains of discarded metal parts and tin cans. A lot of the trash was remains of some broken appliance or car part, but most of it was tin cans of the beverage type with two triangular holes punctured in the top (the sight of these always takes me back to another time.)

Probably the only thing that will recycle this boat is fire, but the forest is slowly swallowing up the rest of the trash pile, covering the metal with falling needles and rusting away the once treasured life of the object, and in a few more decades nothing visible will remain. It always makes me think of the answer an archeologist gave when asked how we know so much about past civilization. That answer he gave was: “We dig through their trash.”

When we lived on the farm we had a place back in the woods where all the trash was dumped. Every few weeks we would load up the wagon with discarded cans, bottles, broken plates, and useless trash that wouldn’t burn, and carry it back to a corner of the property and toss it over a bank. In the woods the trash was mostly out of sight and definitely out of mind. It is what all farmers did and probably do today.

I am camped in the Coconino National Forest just west of Flagstaff, AZ. I have my motorcycle back now and it seems to be running fine. After all this time waiting for it to be fixed it turns out that the main problem was just a faulty ignition switch. The good news is that the repairs were all covered by the warranty. The bad new is that this long wait has interrupted my plans for the summer and caused me to rethink what I will do.

It has been quite hot here in Flagstaff this week. The temperature has climbed into the 90’s each day and I would like to find a place a few degrees cooler. I will probably limit my travels this summer to the four states connected at a common point. There are lots of places in Colorado and New Mexico I have not seen, and I’m sure I can find interesting and temperate places to camp. I had planned on doing a lot of traveling this summer, but I have changed my mind. Even though the price of fuel is low, putting gas in this motorhome can quickly eat through my budget.