April 28-29 Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona

The Grand Canyon caverns are not at the Grand Canyon, but abut 20 miles as the crow flies on Route 66.

The views as we were leaving Kingman. The butte with yellow wild flowers and Kingman from a distance. We went to Grand Cavern Caverns and camped. The bus in our spot.

There is a dino mini golf and a dinosaur crossing. John on the world's largest dinosaur saddle and a horse saddle. The dinosaurs are bigger. 

Cowboy bathhouse, arizona guard dog, a sign at the trail to the RV park that says rough uneven terrain, proper footwear required. Among other things no high heel shoes. Watch for snakes and holes. Like anyone would go somewhere like that in high heels! We are at a Route 66 attraction.The front of the restaurant/gift shop, caverns tour building. Kingman had the Route 66 park and motel. A lizard in camp. 

John and I in the photo cutout, a certificate that says there is paranormal activity here. We didn't see any. A couple signs from the gift shop, If at first you don't succeed , do it the way your wife told you and I can still remember when I was smarter than my phone. When they first did tours here in 1927 the owner would lower people down on a rope into the natural entrance, down 21 stories with matches and a kerosene lantern. People stumbled around in the cavern and then they pulled them out on the rope. Sometimes if the people were down too long they forgot they were down there and left them over night. The town people called it the Dope on a Rope. Some flowers seen around the campground, include a huge bed of iris.  

An antique fire engine with a sign that says fire truck rides daily. John declined, he said he spent 30 years doing that. You can also spend the night in the cavern, it is pretty pricey.  Rain clouds rolled in so there was no sunset colors tonight. 

Today we toured the Grand Canyon caverns.  You start by taking an elevator 21 stories below the surface. We walked on paved walkways, through tunnels and up and down stairs. The cavern is also a bomb shelter. There are supplies for 2,000 people in the event of a bomb. Some formations in the cave including a rock dog to guard the people spending the night in there.  

The snowball palace and the guide Ethan showing us the inside of one of the geodes that make up the snowballs. They have another tour called the Mystery room tour, where you get to wear hard hats and crawl around in the dark unimproved part of the cave.  

This is the grand cathedral room. It has the bedroom for people spending the night and an area where you can get married with auditorium seats. We saw the petrified bobcat that fell in the cave in the 1850's,  a replica of a great sloth that fell into the cave also. When they found the bones they thought they were dinosaur bones, so they first named the caverns Dinosaur caverns. They were disappointed it was only a sloth.  He left scratch marks on the walls trying to get out. grape clusters, crystals on the walls of the cavern and a sign that says for visiting us in the middle of nowhere and the caverns re an arizona natural wonder in continuous operating since 1927.

This is the Grotto dining room. We bought a package of the tour and lunch in the Grotto with two other couples who were very interesting. Us at our table. We got lunch that they cooked upstairs and sent down on the elevator 21 stories. I had the Cavern burger and John had the jalapeno burger. You also got 2 adult beverages and all you can eat dessert. So we had an appetizer of dessert waiting for our burgers. And our 2 drinks and another dessert. We wanted to get our money's worth. I don't usually have wine with lunch, so we went home and took a nap and listened to rain on the roof. 

I walked around before dinner and saw these plants and things. Agave plant with claret cup cactus in bloom, Many agaves, one with a tall dead bloom and one just starting the big stalk, yuccas, yellow flowers, Mormon tea blooming, and the claret cup cactus blooms. 

Purple flowers, vetch, curved log and a rock on a post. These were on a stalk, the top with the buds and the flowers below. White crypanthia. 

Sunset was a kind of narrow slit below the rain clouds. The sun briefly looked like saturn with it's rings. 

April 25-27, 2019 Hualapai Mountain Park, Arizona

In the mid 80's, sunny and a bit of a breeze.

The neighbor  next door has this pop up telescoping trailer.  Before and after stowing. CCC built stone and log cabins in the park, Oak and cherry leaves in bud and spring green. We are so high altitude challenged here that we just walked around the campground roads. A couple miles, lovely ponderosa trees, cabins and campgrounds. 

View of the housing development near the park. The mountains above the park.  

Looking back at the RV park. The bus is in the left end by the two only trees in the RV park.  Power and sewer, nice price. Nice and quiet so far, maybe this weekend it will fill up.  We went up the road to the Hualapai Mountain resort lodge for dinner. Nice and rustic, not crowded at all. Food was not imaginative, but lots of it and the price was right. Nice to see a new place.  

Sunset from our campsite. Field of yellow sunflowers, 2 single yellow sunflowers. Hedgehog cactus. and single hedgehog bloom. 

Prickly pair starting to bloom, lots of buds still left.single prickly pear bloom, banana yucca and fleabane. I finished this little basket. It is 7 x 1/5 inches and has a green howlite stone in the center. 

 Sunset from our campsite. The newest basket I am working on. A flat rock my friend Kats found when we were walking on the beach in Oregon with copper seed beads.

Evening light on the mountain behind the campground. Last light on the high point of the park.

We had dinner outside with this lovely sunset to watch.

April 23-24, 2019 Cattail Cove to Hualapai Mountain park, Arizona

95 degrees to day, sunny and a bit windy.

Last night I could not get the AC to go on.  In the morning John discovered that the post we plug into for power was dead. Everything else runs on the battery, and the solar keeps it charged up. The rangers came and looked at it, it was burnt out, they replaced the breaker and it works great now. We went out for a short paddle to cool off. It was a bit windy and choppy, but fun. The RV park right next door to the park is torn down and they are expanding the campground there. This wall and marina are about all that is left. 

  

 It is fairly shallow here near the bank. A cove with bullrushes. 

John heading for an outcropping. There is a great blue heron in this bay.  

John floating around. In the bulrushes where there was no wind there were lots of blue eyed darners.  

The waves mesmerize me. Heading back to the beach at the campground.  

Closer to the beach at the campground. These grasses on the shoreline are pretty.

I finished the masterpiece. It is 9 x 9 x 3 inches. It is made of long leaf pine needles. I fused the center from a bunch of earring that I made that did not sell. I wove the beads in the middle as prep for a class I took in Vegas. I wove the beads around the center to match the other beads. The beads are cobalt blue glass hearts. 

Lake Havasu City is famous for having the London Bridge. Mr McCulloch of McCulloch tools bought the bridge from England. All the blocks were numbered and shipped to what is now Lake Havasu City and rebuilt.We didn't stop this time but here are the signs. I like that the London Bridge Resort is located on Martini Bay. We crossed route 66 twice, are still in Arizona, and one of my pet peeves- here we are in a dark and quiet campground and what do they do but put lights on the utility pedestals. They are of course right under the bedroom window. Fortunately you can turn these ones off. We were driving down the highway and saw this sign, area 66, Alien museum, exit now,so we did. 

There are rumors of a UFO crash landing near Kingman in 1953. Also that Ford motor company reverse engineered the space craft for the military and tested it here. The museum only opened 3 weeks ago. We saw exhibits telling us all about it and a movie that was made to look like an old news or military documentary of it. Not sure what my own reality of these events is.  The sign says-Area 66 makes no claims regarding the authenticity  of these events, but rather leaves it to you, the visitor to create your own reality. The white geodesic sphere was originally built for publicity for a housing development going it. It failed, then the dome was a private home. With the Area 66 store selling alien curios. Now the dome is the museum. The alien gumball machine is in the area 66 store. There was this nice joshua tree that was fruiting. We saw them blooming earlier this year.  

Water for sale in the desert. We are now camped at Hualapai Mountain Campground just outside of Kingman. The campground  is at around 6,500 feet high. I can really feel the altitude after spending most of the winter near sea level. But it is blessedly cool, only low 80's when we arrived and down in the 30-40's at night. A nice relief after temps near 100 at Lake Havasu.  The park is in pine trees and has deer, bears and elk. It is a tree island in the desert.  The RV campground is across the street in the chaparral habitat and mostly a dirt parking lot with hookups. There are only two trees in the campground and we snagged a spot right between them. 

 I am working on this masterpiece now.  The center is a piece of blue green howlite. View from our campsite of Hualapai peak. 

 The view looking east down into the valley from the campground.  Sunset tonight.