Crater Lake - awesome

We headed north into Oregon and found the KOA at Klamath Falls which was small and lovely.  The laundry room was delightful, the site was grassy and Laurie had his own pet duck.

We headed up to Crater Lake only to find, it too is mostly closed due to the heavy snow pack.  The visitor's centre had signs to stay off the roof

!  We were unable to do the circle tour around the lake but I think seeing it with the snow added to the beauty.  It was truly amazing!  This was a real highlight for Laurie - even tears!  He's waited 65 years to see this.

Lava Beds National Park

As we left the campsite at the north end of Lassen NP we headed back up the park road as far as we could.  The snow is still really deep and Laurie was quite disappointed that he couldn't get to Bumpass Hell, which has steam vents, fumeroles, and mud pots.  Guess we'll have to come back!

Then we headed north to Lava Beds National Park, which had a few lava formations and cones, and many, many caves.  The Information Centre screened us for previous caving - if you had used the same hiking boots in any other cave you had to walk through a special foot bath to prevent spread of white nose disease to the bats.  They also provided free flashlights.

I have discovered I am not great in high precipices nor in enclosed long tunnels!   So there are no pictures of inside the caves.  Laurie did venture into several, and I got half way into two larger, well or partially lit ones.  There were several "black diamond" caves for the experience caver with the proper equipment.

More Lassen bits

This is Manzanita Lake, near the campsite, and the red fungi were pretty interesting (seen very high up the mountain).  Look at the size of that pine cone - there were many!  I love to step on and crunch pine cones, but these were so large, they would tip me over when I tried to crunch them.

Lassen Volcanic Day 2

We drove about 150 miles to get to the north entrance and found a lovely campsite - no power, but flush toilets.
We got settled by about 1:00 and decided to do the Crag lake hike - 4 miles round trip - okay, not round but up and up and up and then back down.  The lake was beautiful, but very cold if the shrieks from some brave/crazy hiker who went for a swim were any indication.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

We were able to go up the road to the "Sulfur Works" which included smelly (sulfur) boiling pots, but no further with the truck.  We hiked about 1.5 miles further up the road to see the view and watch a very tame deer.  Then we had to descend back down the mountain and by then it was too late to head around the loop to the North entrance.  So we back tracked to a lovely National campsite, with few amenities (pit toilets, fire pit and picnic table).   It was really nice, and our first campfire of the trip.

Lake Tahoe

From Death Valley, we headed north to Lake Tahoe and found a KOA there.  It was not up to the usual KOA standards, and was double the usual rate!  We were happy to head out again in the morning, planning to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe and perhaps find a nice spot for lunch and carry on to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  What we soon discovered that that particular Sunday was a special bicycle event and there were thousands of bicyclists and cars on the roads.  We could not pull over, nor could we access the lake (although it was a beautiful Royal blue and the white top mountains were a stunning back drop)...the drive was slow and hair raising as the traffic continued in both directions despite the myriad bicyclists heading in the opposite direction to us.

And then we were at Lassen Volcanic National Park.   It was still very snowy and the road through the park to the campground on the north side was closed.  The visitors centre was open, and we were able to see the exhibits.

Death Valley 3

 The top picture is the crater we visited,Ubehebe,  that was beautiful in it's simplicity.  We also learned that they mined Borox from Dealth Valley, and there are many, many uses for Borox (including Laundry detergent, ceramic glazes, soaps, shampoos, food preservatives and in heat resistant glass! - who knew?)
I found the different cacti to be remarkable, sometimes just one little one, other times fields of "trees".  The yellow "bottle brush" was tall, about 3' and attractive - we only saw it in the northern part of Death Valley as we climbed over the pass.

whoops, the top picture is now a "field of cacti trees"...oh well, you get the picture!

Death valley 2

More pictures of Death Valley.  Laurie is posing at the sign for Bad Water (salt flats), the sea level is marked on the rock face above us - we were 285' below sea level.
The colouring and shapes of the hillsides reminded me of Jamoca almond fudge ice cream, sometimes with chocolate syrup on top, sometimes with chunks of almonds.  I think the heat was making me delirious!  After camping at Furnace creek, we continued north through the mountains on a small, gravel road that wound it's way out of the valley.   No we didn't stop at the sand dunes, apparently missed something special.  We did find Zabriskie Point to be worth the hike (any hike at 41 degrees up hill has to be well worth it!)
On to Lake Tahoe.

Death Valley 1

We left Las Vegas and headed for Death Valley.  Made a stop at Shoshone Information Centre and found the lovely lady to be knowledgeable and helpful.  And we found this tiny little building (a long defunct gas station) contained a museum with the some bones and tusks of wooley mammoths!

Yup, that's the screen inside the truck, it was 41 degrees C and we still decided to camp in Furnace Creek.   We did have power, so the A/C was on but it was mighty hot.  We found we couldn't walk outside for long, and if we had to hike up to a view point, it was a very slow stroll.    Supper that night was a salad, but Laurie had to BBQ some chicken because the fridge was unable to keep the temperature at the appropriate level.  

A lot of the desert is gravel, allevium deposits.  It astounds me that some of the plants can even get a toe hold in that hostile climate.   We saw a coyote lope through our campsite this morning, he looked to be managing quite well despite the heat.

Las Vegas!

Seems that one has to put an exclamation mark with the title of Las Vegas.  We have definitely gone through culture shock in the past 2 days.  And we have enjoyed camping here at the KOA.  It's been very warm, 96 - 98 each day, but cooler at night.  We have enjoyed the pool as well as the shuttle service to "see the sights".  The first day we planned to go to "the strip" however the bus available was going to "downtown" so off we went to the Fremont experience.  Quite honestly, we enjoyed it more than the strip.  The Fremont area is  several blocks of the older casinos, with only pedestrian traffic and a high "umbrella" giving some relief from the sun.  There were many street performers, and beggars as well as skimpily clad women and men providing photo ops.  Also there were zip liners sailing high above doing superman poses.  It really was quite fun during the day - probably would have been crazy at night.

Now you can see what Laurie and I look like after 2 days here.

Today, we went to "the Strip" and exhausted ourselves wandering up and down the Boulevard.  It was very hot, and all the casinos were different themed, but all very noisy, smokey,and vast.  We did go up the Eiffel tower (exactly half the size of the real, Paris ET) and could see Bellagio's fountains which performed a song while we watched from above.

We made it as far south as the MGM casino, and here is Laurie with his pet Lion.  

Then were saturated, couldn't really take any more casinos so headed back to catch the shuttle, have a swim and organize for tomorrow's journey to Death Valley.

Laurie's picnic table

This picture is from Canyon de Chelly and some how I missed posting it.  Laurie found this table described on a facebook camping group.  We have had several occasions when there was no picnic table at the site, and this little table is a perfect solution.  It folds up to a very compact box about 4"x 18" x 42" which fits well in the camper (where we have very limited space).  Laurie even designed a stainless steel platform to protect the surface when used for BBQ-ing.  In this picture, it was very windy and we couldn't move the existing picnic table - so this worked really well

, to set up on the lee side of the camper.

So, I wonder if anyone has tried to comment - unsuccessfully I suspect, as there have been very few comments - is anyone looking at this?

Hiking in Kolob Canyon

After we left the North Rim, we headed west for Las Vegas, however we had to follow the roads which took us North from Arizona back to Utah, near Zion National Park.  We had been there before and hated the crowds, but we were told of the Kolob Canyon which is on the "backside of Zion". So we stopped there.  The Park Ranger told us that there was a lovely hike to the double arch and slot canyon, about 6 miles total.  Foolishly, we decided to do this, heading out at 11:30 at 96 degrees at 6000' altitude!   It took us 4 hours round trip, there were *&^%$ 149 stream crossings each way, with many stops to rest and take on more fluid.  Luckily we had lots of water with us.

The hike was exhausting, but worth the effort.   We then continued south out of Utah into Nevada and Las Vegas - three state day!  Talk about culture shock!  The temp was 34, and the right thing to do was go for a swim.  Perfect. 

Arizona landscape

The landscape across Arizona is remarkable as it changes every time you climb a hill or turn a corner.  These pictures give you a taste of some of the views as we traveled along.  They were mostly shot while in transit, but you get the idea.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

So, we have had this on our bucket list for about 10 years now.  Tried to get there once but the road was closed (snow).   But we should have known from our experiences in the past week, that Memorial Day weekend is not the time to visit any National Park.  We left Tuba City after refreshing our bodies with showers, clothes with laundry facilities and souls with wifi and catching up with the world.  We arrived in Jacob's Lake about 11:00 and found a campsite.  We were still about 50 miles to the North Rim but figured we were unlikely to get a campsite any closer.

 We hiked out to the angel point along with a gazillion others, jostled for a picture and then headed back to explore the lodge.  The entire area was full to overflowing, we actually had to park about 1.5 km down the road and hike back.  We then hiked along the rim trail and enjoyed the view and the sunshine.

 Even though we had been told that the North Rim was even better than the south rim, we were somewhat disappointed.  I remember the South Rim leaving me in awe, you could see the Colorado River waaayyyy down at the bottom of the gorge and wave upon wave of incredibly colourful rock formations.  We stayed about 3 hours, and then got tired of the crowds and crazy people.

Did I mention that I have become very nervous about heights - and some of the view points have sheer drops - my red alert system was really humming.

Canyon de chelly 3

 This is from the rim, looking down at Spider Rock.  Beautiful, peaceful, spiritual place.

 Now you can see the White House ruins from the canyon rim.  Can you see the jeeps in the picture?

From Canyon de Chelly, we headed to Hubble's Trading Post in Ganada, and then due west across miles and miles of flat desert with sagebrush.  Occasionally we would find ourselves circling another canyon  and then through Hopi country.