Zion National Park

Leaving Valley of Fire, we finally made it into Utah.  Having planned this spring circuit for several months, it is fun to finally get to the focus of the first part of 2015.  We will be spending two months in Utah, visiting the five major national parks and several national monuments and state parks. The diversity and beauty of the Colorado Plateau is unique in America and we planned to see much of it--though the vast distances and remoteness of much of the area (as well as the impossibility of driving our trailer on most of the unimproved roads) means we will barely scratch the surface in the time we have.  But we plan to make the most of it!

We have heard from many people we've met in our travels that Zion is their favorite national park, and I can see why.  The vast scope of Zion Canyon, the colors and forms of the rocks and the unique influence of the Virgin River all make this a very special place.  I found it hard to photograph and hard to love.  I guess some places resonate more than others and Zion was not my favorite place.  We had fun there, great hikes and got some nice pics, but the crowds were distracting and the sheer verticalness of it was kind of intimidating.  I do have to say that the Angels Landing hike was an experience to remember and I will do a separate post on that experience soon!

Zion Canyon and the Virgin River

On the Emerald Pools Trail

Canyon walls reflected in the Middle Emerald Pool

The Watchman--iconic mountain that was looming right over our campsite

Angels Landing.  More on this amazing hike in a future post.

Valley of Fire

Leaving Lake Havasu, we spent a few days in Las Vegas to clean up, get some chores done and (unexpectedly) replace the brakes on the truck.  On the good side, we visited with my neice and some of her kids and THEIR kids.  Very nice to catch up after a long time.

So we were finally headed to Utah, where we planned to spend nearly two months visiting all the national parks, many state parks and more family.  After living nearly our whole lives in California and visiting Utah several times for family visits, we had never been to Zion, Bryce Canyon or any of the iconic Utah parks.  That is about to change!

One stop we planned before Utah was Valley of Fire state park outside of Vegas.  Highly recommended by people we met in Death Valley, it seemed like a great resting point to keep us under the LeBlanc 200-mile daily driving limit.  What a great idea that turned out to be!

Nevada's first and largest state park, Valley of Fire is like a little piece of Utah in Nevada.  It is still a relatively little-known spot compared to the national parks like Zion and Bryce and it certainly doesn't match their scenery, but for a small park, it has an amazing array of rock formations and absolutely incredible colors.  The pictures don't really do it justice.  We spent nearly a week camping here and had a great time hiking and bouldering. If you ever find yourself in Las Vegas with a day to kill, drive out to Valley of Fire. You can take much of it in in a day with short hikes to many beautiful places. I can't post all the pics here, so if you like what you see below, check out the complete album on Google+ : https://plus.google.com/photos/102201298868233959049/albums/6132408606745626225

Bluegrass on the Beach--Lake Havasu

We always try to hit a couple bluegrass festivals every year and it worked out great that there were two within two months of each other in the Colorado River area.  So after we extricated ourselves from the Good Sam thing, we headed west and north to Lake Havasu on the California/Arizona border.  Not knowing what to expect, we were very pleasantly surprised.  Long loved by boaters for water skiing and partying, Lake Havasu was actually beautiful and the State Park we moved into for the festival was very nice and right on the beach.  We volunteered to help out and got free passes for the festival (works out to about minimum wage, I think) and heard some really great bands--Blue Highway and Junior Sisk among others.  I also found some time to shoot some of the highlights--sunsets on the lake and the London Bridge (an actual 1831 bridge over the River Thames that American billionaire Robert McCulloch bought and had reassembled over a canal dug for that purpose on a penninsula).

Lake Havasu has 4 memorial lighthouses. This one is about 20 feet tall and doesn't really protect sailors at sea.

The Bill Johnson National Wildlifve Refuge, just south of Lake Havasu.

My last Saguaro cactus shot for a while :-(

London Bridge.  He thought he was buying the bridge with the towers until this one showed up. Too late to get his money back.

Midnight pickin' and singin' by the beach

Like most things in Lake Havasu City, the beach is fake too--they have to truck in the sand

Other Phoenix fun

While in the Phoenix area, we revisited the Musical Instrument Museum, which is still one of the most outstanding museums we have ever visited.   Check out my old blog post on this one if you are curious: http://www.travelswithtucker.com/2013/12/best-museum-ever.html

We took a boat ride on Canyon Lake, just outside of Apache Junction and the weather did us a miracle.  We first tried to ride the boat on Sunday, but the weather was cloudy and we decided to wati until Tuesday, hoping the unsettled weather would pass by then.  On Tuesday afternoon we arrived at the lake at 3 PM in a total downpour and clouds covering the sky.  It being our last day in the area, we decided to go for it and hope for the best.  By 4 PM when the boat left, the clouds were parting and we had two hours of glorious late afternoon golden light for our boat trip up the canyon!

Our boat, the Dolly

We saw a bald eagle soaring and several bighorn sheep like this one

The lake and canyon were very beautiful!

 At the tail end of our stay in the Phoenix area we attended our first, and last, Good Sam rally.  The Good Sam club is an RV support organization that provides insurance, trip planning, campground review guides and many more services for RVers.  They are affiliated with the huge Camping World store chain.  They have a big annual rally and we decided to check it out.  We enjoyed some of the workshops and seeing new RVs on display, but camping with thousands of other RVs in a huge dirt parking lot (the rally was held at a major NASCAR track in Phoenix ) was just not fun for us.  So we gladly left that scene behind and headed to Lake Havasu for a bluegrass festival, which was very fun with great music, lovely weather and developing friendships with some fellow RVers.

A sea of RVs at the Good Sam rally!

Hiking the Superstition Wilderness

Less than an hour from the sprawl of Phoenix, the Superstition Wilderness is a gem of a mountain range.  Home to numerous legends of lost gold mines, treachery, hidden caches of Jesuit Gold and fortunes won and lost, the Superstitions are a wonderful and brutally rugged wild landscape.

We hiked one of the most popular and scenic routes in the range, headed up Peralta Canyon to a saddle with a view of the Weaver's Needle pinnacle.  This hike was a bit of a challenge for us, but it's steady climbing ascent and gorgeous views made it the highlight of our week in Phoenix. 

Headed to PhoenixCasa Grande

We reluctantly left Tucson, feeling that we had left many things un-done and un-seen.  It seems that the more we see of this country, the bigger it gets and the more beautiful and interesting places we find that we never suspected were there.

Traveling from Tucson to Phoenix we took a blue highway and passed Casa Grande National Monument and decided to stop there, knowing nothing about it.  It turned out to be a terrific site to visit.  The ruins of a old settlement of the Hohokam people, built around 1400 AD are the centerpiece of this site.  We spent a few hours wandering the site, taking pictures and touring the excellent visitors center.

Cas Grande ruin is 700 years old.

When we started this journey in 2013, we passed through Phoenix and stayed at Usery Mountain Regional Park, which we loved.  It was our first experience of the Sonoran desert and a wonderful park and campground.  This year, we decided to try another highly-rated campground, Lost Dutchman State Park.  This park is further from Phoenix (about 40 miles) and was really great as well.  It is near the little town of Apache Junction and has a lot of things to do as well as gorgeous desert scenery.

View from the Lost Dutchman campground

Another view from the campground.  The poppies are just starting to bloom!

A night shot of the Superstitions lit by the moon

Kitt Peak

Just an hour drive from Tucson, the Kitt Peak National Observatory was something I was really looking forward to.  They have great evening observing programs for the public and we signed up well in advance for the night of the new moon.  It turned out to one of our best spots ever!

The road to the top was one great view after another.

A bit chilly at 6,900 feet!

The world's largest solar telescope extends quite far underground.

Established in the 60's during the peak of the space race with the Soviet Union, Kitt Peak has grown to house the largest collection of professional telescopes in the world, including the world's largest solar telescope and the third-largest reflecting telescope.  We arrived in a mad dash to get there before the closed the grounds and had about an hour to wander (more like race) around to see the 40-meter big telescope and the solar telescope before they closed to the public.  We had a lot of time to spend in the visitor center waiting for it to get dark and getting our orientation.  As a group, we all walked up the hill to watch the sunset from thousands of feet above the desert on a VERY clear night.

After that, we split into groups and our group of 16 went with our astronomer to the observatory and more orientation.  In all we spent about three hours under the most amazing sky of stars and took turns at our telescope observing Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, double and triple star systems, star clusters, planetary nebulae and galaxies.  We even saw comet Lovejoy.  When we weren't actually looking through the scope, we couldn't stop looking at the incredible night sky (except when we popped downstairs to warm up and get a hot drink).  This is a must-do experience if you are ever in the Tucson area and can plan ahead.

That little green blur at the top is Comet Lovejoy