To the Sun

Well, this just might be the FIRST winter we completely escape the snow ... as true Sunbirds! 

Heather (ROVN TOAD Navigator & Co-pilot) baked us some very comfy looking LOAFin Around slippers for this trip! ... dontya think?

I've never liked using the word 'Snowbird', to describe folks travelling from snowy to sunny climates. That term should be reserved for Californians and Europeans that travel to the Canadian Rockies in the winter to ski. 'Sunbird' describes what we are heading towards, not from ... and for us, that's a more positive motive. Besides, I'm writing this post, so I can call myself whatever the heck I want to. 

GEAR REVIEW: Garmin RV 760 MLT GPS

My Navigator got some new gear for this trip ... the Garmin RV 760 MLT GPS.

Helen does everything from the truck cab while I  J U S T drive ... my job is actually quite simple ... I keep us between the ditches, dirty side down, that's all of it! She researches our daily route, tracks fuel economy using Fuelly.com, monitors upcoming weather and road conditions, searches for the quietest and most economical camping spots and the best places to eat and is always on the lookout for any available wine tours. 

BASECAMP 11.06.14 ... " We Must Be Crazy "

I've always felt the path our lives follow is defined by the decisions we take at critical junctions. 

And, we all make those same decisions. You know what I mean ... like, where would we be now if I had chosen to take that marine surveying job off Seal Island on Canada's East Coast when I was 24 ... but instead, stayed in Ottawa, didn't find work until several months later and stayed at that same job for 30 years. Where would we be if Helen's father hadn't strongly encouraged us to stay at our jobs when we talked about quitting and tried to justify leaving at age 40 or so ... not sure what our plan was in hind-sight, but I'm sure glad now that we stuck it out - Thanks! Earl. Do we take the right fork or the left fork? 

Three Girlfriends Gone Wild ... A 180 Year Celebration

Viva Las Vegas!  Three 'old' friends meet in Vegas to celebrate a major life event - entering into a new decade and collecting our CPP.  Chris flies in from Whitehorse, Yukon, I flew from Ottawa, Ontario and Stella is now a Vegas resident.

Actually, we didn't go too wild, although we did manage to set personal bests for 'hours without sleep'! Since Stella lives in Vegas, she didn't join us for our late late night escapades, which usually involved an interactive slot machine and lots of laughs.

Chris arrives at our hotel.                                                                  Girls - Night 1

A Garden Stroll

We spent the day at the North Carolina Arboretum, a wonderful 400 + acre teaching facility that allows free access to their gardens and hiking trails.  They have some very innovative plantings, water saving techniques that allow one garden's water to flow down to the next, a creative bonsai garden and many, many, eco friendly designs.  Of course they have the hot, humid, long North Carolina spring/summer/fall season that allows everything to bloom to it's fullest.  

OMG, There Was An Explosion At The Canada / USA Border Today!

This day starts out pleasant enough ... La de da de dadeda ...

Autumn is now on it's way to a full colour explosion in our part of southern Ontario but it still needs a couple of weeks yet to reach full bloom. The leaves on our mixed forest property are at about 25% colour now and I imagine when we return will be closer to their peak. 

At Six Tons, You'd Sag & Sway Too !

NO!, I'm not referring to us in this posts title, we're not that fat or worn out. 

I'm referring to LOAF, our travel rig ... driven hard & put away dirty!

We'll be off-line for awhile. 

Adventure Journal TRIP #133: NO bad stuff happened, 2 provinces, 19 states, 60 days, 12000+ kilometres driven. 

We're home now and as is our usual post-trip regime, we'll take a couple of days to do mostly nothing, take many soaks in a hot bath tub, sleep in a king-sized bed and watch some movies on a big screen TV. It's now time for some rest, some rig service and maintenance and several more planned modifications to the truck and camper. 

HIKING REPORT: The 'Badlands' of North Dakota

Lovely day spent in Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  Not as spectacular as Zion, Arches or Bryce - but it has it's appeal.  The main thing was the quiet, no crowds, no noise.  We walked the trails and saw maybe 2 or 3 other people.  Saw a prairie rattlesnake on the trail - no time for a picture.   All together a simply wonderful day.

Prairie Dogs - "OK - you go first"

Wry & Crusty Visit Jellystone National Park

Ok, Ok, OK, OweKay! so it's NOT JELLYSTONE, in fact it's called YELLOWSTONE National Park - who knew?  Being children of the 50's that grew up with Yogi Bear - (hey BooBoo!), we must admit to a certain prejudice against Yellowstone. We fully expected a tacky statue of Yogi to greet us at the entrance and for that theme to be carried throughout the park.  Sooooo, with great trepidation we made our way in.

This is a park for scenic driving, lookouts and overviews, museums and wildlife viewing.

Most travelers will only ever see views from the roadside.

HIKING REPORT: Bryce Canyon National Park

Well Utah continues to amaze!  Just when you think it couldn't get any better - it does! While you spend your time looking up to the magnificent peaks in Zion National Park, you can actually spend your time looking down in Bryce Canyon National Park - or hiking down into the canyon floor and back up to the rim.

Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon but a collection of huge amphitheaters overlooking giant hoodoos that were formed by frost weathering and stream erosion. The red, orange and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular vistas.

We were fortunate enough to share these hikes and views with our new found California friends Bill and Deborah.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.  Hope you enjoy the show.

                 

HIKING REPORT: We Went for A Walk

in ............ ZION    NATIONAL    PARK

TRAILS: Emerald Pools (Lower & Upper),  Kayenta, Temple of Sinawave

           We did a few of the easier to moderate trails in ZION during our first hiking day.

At the main gate to ZION National Park at opening time, us and at least 100 other vehicles. It took 15 minutes to pass through the gate at that time and load us all onto the waiting shuttle buses. This is the ONLY way to access most of the trailheads if you are staying outside ZION. We were at the Emerald Ponds trailhead by 9:00 am. The shuttle service in Zion is superb ... buses run every 10 minutes or so.

Get here early .......    I mean, R E A L   early!    .... as    E A R L Y   as possible  ... set the alarm ... get a wakeup call .... just get here E A R L Y !!!. 

We had the route to ourselves up until 10:30 or so and then the trail filled quickly.

Above Lower Emerald Pond

HIKING REPORT: Part 2 - Exploring National and State Parks

May 13, 2014 - Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park

Another wonderful day to hike.  A side trip to Dead Horse Point State Park lead to one of the most beautiful hikes we've ever been on.  We hiked along the rim of a canyon with amazing vistas, enjoyed a picnic lunch with a never ending view, and concluded the day with a quick trip to Canyonlands National Park to view the Green River from above.

Dann On Top Of The World

HIKING REPORT: Part 1 - Exploring National and State Parks

May 11-12, Mesa Verde National Park

On June 29, 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park to "preserve the works of man," the first national park of its kind.

Ancestral Puebloans made Mesa Verde their home from about A.D. 550 to 1300.  For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls.  In the late A.D. 1200, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away.  Today the park contains over 4,000 archaeological sites including cliff dwellings and the mesa top sites of pit-houses, pueblos, masonry towers and farming structures.  It is a truly magical place that tests your imagination trying to picture the ancient people living and thriving in such an environment.

The Cliff Palace – Contained approximately 150 rooms and 23 kivas (a subterranean structure used primarily for ceremonial or political gatherings).  Experts estimate that it was home to over 100 people.

BACKCOUNTRY: Canoeing the Green River, UT, USA: Labryinth & Stillwater Canyons

It Was A GRAND Trip, But We've Never Felt Dirtier ... EVER!

LOGISTICS (UT, USA) 
Van Shuttle: With Tex's Riverways from Moab > Crystal Geyser, GREEN River

Tandem Canoe: Crystal Geyser > (near) COLORADO R. confluence - Labyrinth & Stillwater Canyons, CI+, 9 days, 189 kms

Jet Boat: on the COLORADO from near the confluence with the GREEN > Potash Landing - 2 hrs, 80 kms

Bus Shuttle: With Tex's Riverways from Potash Landing > Moab

DVD Available: Get copy from Store

View Green / Colorado River(s), Utah, USA in a larger map

HIKING REPORT: These Red Rocks Are For Muriel

We hiked several trails in Arches NP just outside Moab, Utah. A camera isn't capable of capturing the beauty of this landscape. It has to be personally experienced and then archived to memory. 

                   

DESTINATIONS: Four Corners and Hovenweep

A drop down into the San Juan River Valley Canyon and to today's first stop at the Four Corners Tribal Monument ... we're in Utah, Arizona on the left and Colorado, New Mexico on the right.

DESTINATIONS: Cave Dwellings

We drove to the Los Alamos area in the morning and hiked Frijoles Canyon in the Bandelier National Monument. 

From Wikipedia: 

Human presence in the area has been dated to over 10,000 years before the present. Permanent settlements by ancestors of the Puebloan peoples have been dated to 1150 CE; these settlers had moved closer to the Rio Grande by 1550. The distribution of basalt and obsidian artifacts from the area, along with other traded goods, rock markings, and construction techniques, indicate that its inhabitants were part of a regional trade network that included what is now Mexico. 

Frijoles Canyon contains a number of ancestral pueblo homes, kivas (ceremonial structures), rock paintings, and petroglyphs. Some of the dwellings were rock structures built on the canyon floor; others were cavates produced by voids in the volcanic tuff of the canyon wall and carved out further by humans. 

 Driving down into Frijoles Canyon.

DESTINATIONS: Tent Rocks

There's a lot to do in New Mexico if you're interested in outdoor self-propelled activities. Get a Land Management Map - it's the best resource. We only have this one extra day right now but we'll probably swing back after our canoe trip to investigate other areas and places of interest. The landscape, geology, flora and fauna are truly fascinating. At this time of year, the weather is quite pleasant but I imagine, come June until late Summer, the high heat would make some activities difficult and quite oppressive ... Spring and Fall are probably the most favourable times of year to be here.

Kasha-Katuwe is an area well worth doing a half days hike into. We arrived at the trailhead early so the trail was quiet on the way up. On the return, we probably encountered 200 plus hikers, mostly school groups and some families, but few individuals or hiking couples. There is a mostly gentle grade for the first 9/10 th’s of this trail, the final several hundred feet can be steep in places and some scrambling is required. Earlier sections of the trail are through a constricted slot canyon that features unusual rock formations and pleasant walking. The final elevation is at 6760’ ASL, a 630’ vertical elevation gain that affords a panoramic view of the surrounding area and an interesting perspective of the trail just hiked.

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One supports another in a tunnel of high wind.

One Thousand and Thirty - Five Litres

Of fuel. 

We've spent 6 days just driving and we're averaging a little more than 600 kms /  day.  This amounts to a long day in a truck camper - often 6 to 7 hours of driving time. I know it doesn't sound like a great distance - you can do 1000 kms + in a car easily, but we don't move as quickly, aren't nimble on rough roads, don't corner as quickly or climb hills as well as other vehicles. Plus, we're old, we move slowly, take our time packing up and having breakfast, make mistakes and errors in judgement that need to be corrected and accounted for throughout the day ... and quite honestly, we really don't need to do any more than 105 - 110 kms / hour to get where we're going.

We've travelled 3722 kms in total so far and passed through the states of Michigan - Indiana - Illinois - Iowa - Nebraska - Kansas - Oklahoma - Texas and we're now into New Mexico. We'll spend a day or three here before heading out on the last leg of the drive to Moab, Utah. The weathers been mostly good, dry roads, some poor road surfaces, reasonable traffic. We purposely chose a southern route over a northern one across the Rockies in order to avoid any high altitude snow or poor driving conditions across the top of Colorado. We have heard reports of other travellers being stranded for a day or two due to heavy snow accumulation in previous years. This route adds distance to the trip, but it gives us sufficient time to meet the other paddlers in Moab in time for the Green River put-in.

SOME  PHOTOS

The view from our front window on Departure Day: Tim's Lake is still frozen over April 16th.

The snow has mostly disappeared in the bush and LOAF's packed ... we're ready to head out.

BASECAMP 04.11.14 ... " Pre-trip Southwestern USA "

DESTINATION - Southwestern USA

We left early in March and flew to Cozumel Island, MEXICO for a 2 week SCUBA and snorkelling trip. We returned March 21st and we've been busy ever since with preparations for our next LOAFing Around adventure.

The rig needed some attention after sitting since March 5 following our return from the south eastern USA. The Ford had a front hub and u-joint replaced under warranty and the transmission was reprogrammed (also under warranty) to resolve a harsh shifting problem. Additionally, an oil-filter-lube service, transmission flush and a heavy service inspection. The Lance got a front canoe bar and cab-over struts installed. The struts will dampen the tendency LOAF has of 'porpoising' when driving rough or undulating highways.

Front Canoe Bar