Wrapping Up

*New critters we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: black bears, grizzly bears, elk, fox, wolf, moose, beavers, groundhog, prairie dogs, big horn sheep, buffalo (bison), white tail deer, chipmunks, pronghorn, burros, pika, moose, Uinta ground squirrel, mountain goats, mule deer, longhorn beetle, otters, northern whiptail lizard, jackrabbit, rock squirrels, collared lizard, Kaibab squirrel
*New birds we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: bald eagles, golden eagles, wild turkeys, osprey, western meadowlark, mountain bluebird, sandhill cranes, Canadian geese, American white pelicans, trumpeter swans, killdeer, common merganser, great blue heron, raven, yellow-headed blackbird, Brewer’s blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, double-crested cormorant, Clark’s nutcracker, common goldeneye, white-breasted nuthatch, Steller’s jay, black-chinned hummingbird, Cassin’s finch, Cassin’s kingbird, peregrine falcon, western scrub jay, blue grouse, gray-headed dark-eyed junco, red-tailed hawk, California condors

This trip had basically been in the works since we hit the road June 2007. We had planned that during the summer of 2009 we’d go out west visiting several national parks. At one point we thought we might have to postpone the trip as diesel prices climbed higher and higher. Then we thought we might have to postpone it for medical reasons…my new doctor was nervous about me being so far away from his services should an emergency arise related to the Crohn’s. But in the end, diesel prices dropped, and the doctor gave me pills to keep the inflammation down, and off we went. As our 3 month "tour of the National Parks of the West" came to an end, we felt a sense of sadness that it was over but at the same time were excited to get to St. Louis to see friends and family.

Since we left on May 1, we traveled 7,398 miles in The Folly and another 3,532 miles seeing the sights in the Saturn. During our 3 months we saw things that were breathtaking, awe inspiring, and downright humbling. In all we visited 30 national parks/monuments plus 4 state parks. We crossed the Continental Divide 16 times, and Russ became quite adept at driving the RV in the mountains, at one point reaching an elevation of 10,612 feet. We became Jr. Rangers at 8 different parks and in the process learned a lot more about those places by doing so. We saw animals and birds that we’d only seen on TV or at the zoo or perhaps only read about in books. And of course we made some new friends along the way.

In our National Parks Passport booklets within each region there are places for “cancellations” (ink markings that record the name of the park and date of your visit), and we collected 78 of them during this trip as many parks have more than one cancellation. For example Glacier NP had one at each of its Visitor’s Centers, and we were able to get 6 of the 8 plus a special anniversary cancellation for Waterton-Glacier.

People have asked us which was our favorite, but each park/monument offered its own uniqueness making it difficult to answer. We were deeply moved at the Flight 93 Memorial, astonished at the rugged landscape of the Badlands NP, awed by the sheer beauty of Glacier NP, amazed at the amount of wildlife in Yellowstone NP, and witnessed the struggle for survival and the circle of life at Grand Teton NP as grizzlies chased herds of elk. Mt. Rushmore filled us with a sense of pride while Arches NP and Goblin Valley State Park filled us with a sense of wonder. The beauty of Canyonlands NP was merely a precursor to that of the Grand Canyon, which never ceases to amaze. Horseback riding in Bryce Canyon NP offered a unique close-up view of the power of wind and water while walking through the river at Zion NP was an experience we’ll never forget.

There is an unlimited amount of beauty in this magnificent land of ours. We have been fortunate to see a lot of it, but there is so much more to see. We hope that one day you have the opportunity to experience it as we have. But don’t put it off too long…life is shorter than you think. In the words of Tim McGraw’s song, “Live like you were dying.”

When Does 11.3 Miles = 5 Hours Drive Time?

*New critters we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: black bears, grizzly bears, elk, fox, wolf, moose, beavers, groundhog, prairie dogs, big horn sheep, buffalo (bison), white tail deer, chipmunks, pronghorn, burros, pika, moose, Uinta ground squirrel, mountain goats, mule deer, longhorn beetle, otters, northern whiptail lizard, jackrabbit, rock squirrels, collared lizard, Kaibab squirrel
*New birds we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: bald eagles, golden eagles, wild turkeys, osprey, western meadowlark, mountain bluebird, sandhill cranes, Canadian geese, American white pelicans, trumpeter swans, killdeer, common merganser, great blue heron, raven, yellow-headed blackbird, Brewer’s blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, double-crested cormorant, Clark’s nutcracker, common goldeneye, white-breasted nuthatch, Steller’s jay, black-chinned hummingbird, Cassin’s finch, Cassin’s kingbird, peregrine falcon, western scrub jay, blue grouse, gray-headed dark-eyed junco, red-tailed hawk, California condors
*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2009 trip so far: 30
*State Parks visited on 2009 trip so far: 4

Though it’s only 11.3 miles across the canyon, going from the North Rim to the South Rim requires driving 215 miles and takes 5 hours. As usual the scenery was beautiful as we passed the Vermillion and Echo Cliffs, the Painted Desert, drove through the Navajo Indian Reservation, and crossed the Colorado River.

After settling into the Trailer Village Campground located within Grand Canyon NP, we caught the shuttle to the Visitor Center. A free shuttle bus operates four routes on the park’s South Rim with a stop at the campground that made getting around quite easy.

Across from the center is Mather Point, the first view most people get of the Grand Canyon after entering the park. Cars line both sides of the road leading to this area as people want to take in that first view, which makes navigating difficult at times, thus the shuttle is a huge benefit.

Wed. morning we caught the blue route shuttle which would take us to Bright Angel Lodge. We planned to get off a stop ahead at the Train Depot but were delayed a couple minutes as the driver had to wait for elk to cross the road. A couple of them had the largest rack of antlers we’d ever seen! After looking in the El Tovar Hotel and the Hopi House, both built in 1905, we walked along the Rim Trail towards Bright Angel. The canyon views at the South Rim are definitely more expansive than on the North Rim, but there are definitely a lot more people. While there were probably only about 300 people at the North Rim, there were thousands at the South.

After eating lunch at the Lodge, we walked back out towards the rim and passed the Buckey O’Neill Cabin. Built in the 1890s, it is the oldest surviving structure in the Grand Canyon. Just past the Cabin is the Lookout Studio. Built in 1914, it is basically a gift shop now but has natural stone stairs out back leading down to an area overlooking the canyon. As we descended, we noticed some people towards the back looking straight down, and discovered there were two tagged condors on a ledge below! We had learned from the condor talk about a website that will give you all the pertinent info on the condors if you know their tag numbers (www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/upload/Condorchart20090718.pdfv/grca/naturescience/upload/Condorchart20090718.pdf ) so we planned to check out #27 and #H2 when we returned to the RV.

After watching them sunning and preening for awhile, we headed back up towards the trail and decided to watch a little longer. From this different vantage point we noticed a young man nearby setting up a tripod and scope, and as luck would have it, he worked for the park service as a condor researcher! He informed us that #27 was the mother and H2 was her chick, how old they were (14 and 1-1/2), and allowed us to view them through his scope. As we watched, mama spread her wings apparently to get some sun and appeared as if she was shading or perhaps protecting her chick.

Thurs. we took the shuttle to the transfer exchange area for the red route that would take us the 7 miles out to Hermits Rest. No cars are allowed along the red route and only accessible by shuttle. Each bus is only allowed to transport 39 passengers from the transfer station to the first overlook stop so there’s room to pick up passengers at that next stop. However, to avoid waiting in the long line, the driver announced that it was a short, easy walk to that first overlook. Well, not exactly! Some work was being done on the walkway, so a temporary path had been created that was not paved, had plenty of rocks, and was actually steep. Once reaching that first overlook, we rested and then peered down into the canyon to see a number of people hiking a long trail below us. More power to them! We hopped back on the bus, stopped at Powell Point, Hopi Point, and of course, Hermit’s Rest, then it was time to head back.

On Sat. our good friend, Mike, and Keith, a friend of the family, drove up from Scottsdale, AZ, to see us. He’s Mikey’s namesake, and it had been years since we’d seen him though we talk weekly. Keith had never been to the Grand Canyon and was awed by what he saw. We walked the Rim Trail, had lunch at Bright Angel Lodge, walked the first few yards of the 9 mile Bright Angel Trail, and stopped at the Lookout Studio with hopes of seeing the condors again, but no such luck. After a brief visit back at the RV, it was time for them to make the 4 hour drive home.




















Most of the next day we hung out at the RV but late in the afternoon we headed back over to Lookout Studio hoping for one more glimpse at those condors. When we arrived, we didn’t see any but did see a female big horn sheep and her lamb on the boulders below. We watched as they gracefully made their way along the ridges, amazed at their agility.

As we began to walk back towards the bus, we spotted some birds in the trees below and stopped to check them out. We determined that they were turkey vultures, and there were about a dozen in one tree. Suddenly a huge black bird came flying by them, and as it landed in that same tree, all 12 of those vultures took off at once, most landing in nearby trees. What a sight that was to see! That big black bird was in fact a condor, #83 (another female who was 4 years old…looked it up later). Guess condors have the right of way! Unfortunately I couldn't get any really clear pictures of this bird. We watched awhile longer as the sun began to set before heading back to the RV.

Mon. it was time to head east to St. Louis, ending our 3 month tour of the National Parks of the west. We drove 1,500 miles in 3 days traveling along I-40, which also doubles as the Purple Heart Trail and follows Historic Hwy. 66, and crossed the Continental Divide again. We made a quick stop at the Petrified Forest National Park (www.nps.gov/pefo) Visitor Center to get our National Park book stamped and spent our first night in a rest area 30 miles west of Tucumcari, NM, watching a magnificent sunset. The second night was spent in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Joplin, MO, and we finally arrived in Eureka, MO, around 2pm on Wed., Aug. 19. While in Joplin, we had dinner with Curt and Linda as they live only 15 min. away. This will be just the beginning of visiting with friends for the next 5 weeks and continuing to enjoy our journey.

The North is Grand

*New critters we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: black bears, grizzly bears, elk, fox, wolf, moose, beavers, groundhog, prairie dogs, big horn sheep, buffalo (bison), white tail deer, chipmunks, pronghorn, burros, pika, moose, Uinta ground squirrel, mountain goats, mule deer, longhorn beetle, otters, northern whiptail lizard, jackrabbit, rock squirrels, collared lizard, Kaibab squirrel
*New birds we’ve seen on our 2009 trip so far: bald eagles, golden eagles, wild turkeys, osprey, western meadowlark, mountain bluebird, sandhill cranes, Canadian geese, American white pelicans, trumpeter swans, killdeer, common merganser, great blue heron, raven, yellow-headed blackbird, Brewer’s blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, double-crested cormorant, Clark’s nutcracker, common goldeneye, white-breasted nuthatch, Steller’s jay, black-chinned hummingbird, Cassin’s finch, Cassin’s kingbird, peregrine falcon, western scrub jay, blue grouse, gray-headed dark-eyed junco, red-tailed hawk
*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2009 trip so far: 27
*State Parks visited on 2009 trip so far: 4

Early Sat. morning we hit the road for the 151 mile drive south to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (http://www.nps.gov/grca). On the way we made a quick stop at Pipe Spring National Monument (www.nps.gov/pisp) located on the Kaibab-Paiute Indian Reservation. The Visitor Center is operated jointly by the National Park Service and the Kaibab-Paiute Tribe and explains the human history of the area over time. We stopped only long enough to get our National Park book stamped and make a quick walk through the museum.

The North Rim is about 1,000 feet higher in elevation than the South Rim and sometimes has been referred to as an oasis in the desert. Only 15 miles “as the raven flies” separates the two, but there is definitely a slower pace to the North Rim, smaller crowds, and a real sense of solitude. There’s only one campground on this side of the canyon, amidst the pine trees and aspens, with amazing views. We had requested one of the premier sites, which are closest to the rim, and we were not disappointed with the view. There are no hookups at this campground, but as we’ve mentioned before, that’s not a problem for us, especially for only two nights.

Surrounded by all this beauty, we spotted the rare Kaibab Squirrel also known as the “Silver Ghost of the North Rim”. This squirrel lives only on the North Rim and nowhere else in the world. It is dark brown or black with a bushy white tail and has tufted ears. Our site was also visited by several gray-headed dark-eyed juncos (a member of the sparrow family), and a family of blue grouse, all simply wandering in the campground looking for food.

After we managed to get the RV leveled and secured satellite reception, we headed to the back deck of the Grand Canyon Lodge just in time for the condor talk given by NPS volunteer, Nancy Varga. Condors are one of the rarest birds in the world, weighing up to 23 lbs. with a wing span up to 9-1/2 feet and not that long ago there were only 22 left in the world. Condors generally lay one egg every two years, but the captive breeding program found a way to trick the mama bird into laying more. As soon as she drops an egg, a researcher will grab it before she knows it’s gone. She thinks she hasn’t laid an egg and will produce another. Gradually they stretched this experiment to taking the second egg the same way, and she actually produced a third. Thanks to this captive breeding program, there are now 362 condors worldwide, nearly all wearing numbered tags and transmitters. They can soar and glide up to 50 mph and can fly 5,000 - 6,000 feet above the canyon rim. When flying, they can easily be mistaken for turkey vultures, but the condor’s wings are straight and rarely flap unlike the turkey vulture’s whose wings are more v-shaped. Besides showing us an example of a condor egg, Nancy held up a feather from each bird, and you can see how much bigger the condor’s is. Seventy condors fly freely around northern Arizona and southern Utah, and our hope was to see one while at the Grand Canyon.

The Bright Angel Point Trail begins behind the lodge and is half mile roundtrip along a paved trail offering spectacular views of one of the side canyons. From a couple vantage points we could see smoke from the still smoldering fires across the canyon that was started by lightning 10 days earlier. Upon our return we wandered through the lodge re-built in 1936 checking out the historical displays, and then we stopped at the Visitor Center to pick up maps, guides, and of course, Jr. Ranger booklets.

The next day we decided to drive to Cape Royal and Point Imperial lookouts. Cape Royal was about 23 miles from the campground to the trailhead, and along the way we passed a number of recently burned areas. In fact, some spots were still smoldering with an occasional flame.

The Cape Royal Trail is .6 miles roundtrip along a tree-lined, paved walkway providing views of the canyon, Angels Window, and the Colorado River as markers along the trail told of the area’s natural history and plant life. Cape Royal Point offered some incredible views though with the smoky haze the colors were not as vibrant.

Driving back down the road, we turned right at the junction to drive another 11 miles to Point Imperial, the highest point on either rim at 8,803 feet. We only walked a short portion of this 4 mile trail which afforded us excellent views of Mt. Hayden (at left) and Marble Canyon.

That night we walked out to the rim, sat on a ledge, and watched the sun set across the canyon. What a beautiful sight!

The next day, as we were leaving, just inside the entrance were a couple dozen buffalo grazing in the field. Several people were out of their cars taking pictures, and we think one person got a little too close, spooking them, because suddenly they all started running towards the trees. Good thing they didn’t run the other direction...towards the road! We were now heading for a week at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.