Grand canyon ho

Departing early
Record time for departure 7:30 AM on Easter. Well. It quite but close because we did depart earlier from Texas.

Antelope!
Easy trip. Only 120 miles today The sun at our back side we see a herd of antelope off to the east. Quick get the camera. Oops, in the car. Out I go. Get the zoom lens. They are gone. Hmm. Maybe not. Sraddha hops into the driver seat and me riding shotgun with camera. We drive slowly on meridian over the rise and there they are. Not as good a sun angle but still I take the photo.

North to Ashfork
The Chino valley is se elevation as Prescott so easy driving. Wonder if chino pants were invented here ;) Dry here but some agriculture with fruit trees, green houses. Land still waking up here from winter. We see the cliffs of the Rim in the north of us. Funk we climb up over it. Prescott valley at 5000 ft. Canyon village is closer to 7000 ft.

Prescott Arizona

2 adults, no pets, no kids, like it quiet.  "Oh, you are the ideal RV couple"  said the lady who checked us into the Point of Rocks RV park in NE Prescott.  Wow, really?  Yup!!  Easy to handle.  no fuss, (well as long as its quiet) and no critters running around destroying things.  Ha Ha.

After a beautiful drive over hills (7000 ft) and valleys (3000 ft), we settled into this spot in the granite dells of Prescott where we could roam around the big boulders and listen mostly to the birds instead of the road.  

When I lived here back in 1970 while attending Prescott College, the sleepy town size was about 13,000 and county 39,000 residents.  lovely area.  College was out by the Dells so we would go hiking and bouldering all the time.  Now the town has blown up 3 times the size and the county has almost a quarter of a million residents.  Woah!  still the Dells are preserved and fun to walk around in.  Wish we had more time.  

We did drive over to Jerome and Cottonwood to explore a little.  Jerome was an abandoned mining town turned tourist town and Cottonwood same but where all the workers live who work in Jerome.  We saw the Verde Valley Railroad and walked along the verde river a little.  Too hot.  We headed back over the hill to Prescott and its cooler temps due to higher elevation. 

Now off to Grand Canyon this morning.  

A Desert Oasis

En route north from Tucson we drove through the copper mining country east of Phoenix featuring many huge open pit copper mines.  Our destination was the Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park in Superior, Arizona.  A desert oasis built back in the 20's by one of the copper barons, it features plants native, not only to this area but man similar deserts existing in South Africa, Argentina, Australia.  Interesting to see so many similarities in cactus, and other plants.

The bees and other insects were having a hey day with all the buds and flowers.  We walked the grounds for several hours and here are a few photos.  then we headed further north up into the cooler forested country of northern Arizona staying the night in a little quiet park near Payson.

Mr. Bumble Bee (about 1.5 inches long)  with gold wings

Oasis waterfall

Single Poppy

Largest Cactus Flower I,ve ever seen- 6 inches

Butterfly in Agave

Bee 

Another Bee

Mr Toad and the Dump

Up early this morning. Break camp and pout by 8AM. There ate advantages to
RV over tent camping. Takes about 15 minutes to get going. Of course last night we spent 30 minutes putting away the outdoor mats and chairs etc, which we set up for extended stays.

At the RV dump station ready to dump and hookup

First order of business is to hit the dump station on the way out. When camped we take showers, wash dishes use the potty for liquid wastes so draining is something we need to do every 5-7 days depending on our usage. We rinse out the hoses We had spent 5 nights at Catalina so everything ok now. See picture.

Wow,  I just lost half the blog post.  thank you google.  no way to revert back and I accidentally deleted it.  sigh.






Lessee, where was I?  Not sure so will wing it.  As you can see by photos we are poised at RV dump station.  As I release the black and grey fluids, Sraddha is also connecting up Mr. Toad to the back of the RV.  Takes about 10 minutes.

Our toad hookup.  takes only 10 minutes to connect and disconnect

The hose from the waste tanks is held down by a rock as we wouldn't want any spillage.  There is a water hose to wash things down if needed.  It is also used to rinse out the effluent hose after release.  Oh, yes, in case you wanted to know,  I wear those disposable surgical gloves that we buy at Costco.  Works great!

Dump hose out to relieve fluids. Easy Peasy!

Trains, Planes and Automobiles...(and a ferry)!

We are in Arizona at present and I behind in posting. Was speaking today with a good friend who reads this blog and he mentioned that, while all the photos are wonderful he was wondering where were the trains?  I reflected on this and realized I haven't posted any train shots either of real trains or of model trains during this trip.  Mostly because I haven't been photographing trains on this trip.

I have driven 2/3 the way across USA in motorhome,  thousands of miles in the jeep, flown in airplanes from Corpus Christi through Dallas to Sacramento and back.  Not one train pic.  My main excuse is that most of the time I was driving when the big trains passed by but really it hasn't been a focus.

Until we reached Houston which was the major reason to visit the area, well, possible birds along the beach areas, but you already knew that.

Morning Fog at Bolivar Ferry Terminal

Anyway, I met up early one morning with a friend, Rich, who lives in the Houston area.  I departed the RV about 6 AM in deep dark coastal fog.  About 35 minute drive to the Bolivar ferry which connects with Galveston.  30 minute ferry ride and I snapped this photo as we departed the dock.  Morning fog and the lights made it very eery.

UP Hump yard

We met on south side of Houston near his home and as we drove north to the railroad area, the sun burned off the haze.  We toured an engine maintenance facility and headed up to the main hump yard where inbound freight cars are sorted or classified into trains bound for new destinations.  4 engines were moving a string of cars over the back end. One was a plug with no cab.  Of interest is there is no engineer riding on train.  They copy model railroaders and run it remote control from the tower.

Mainline North South.  This train headed south

The track underneath is actually a north-south track running up Atlanta and south into Mexico.  This intersection used to be a bottleneck back in the 90's during the merger of the Union Pacific RR with the Southern Pacific RR.  Then more track was laid to smooth out interchange of trains and cars.  We saw about 4-5 trains per hour going through this area in all directions.  What a busy intersection.





Next step was a model railroad where we spent the afternoon running tiny trains.  Gordon Briggs has built a beautiful model of the old ATSF, or Santa Fe line between Los Angeles and Chicago.  His era is 1953 where the passenger train was king and trucks and airplanes were still mostly localized.  His scenery is very close model to the real thing in northern Arizona and Midwest.  I spent the afternoon running trains in his Winslow, Arizona yard while mainline trains zoomed by.  What fun.  Below are a couple photos I shot with iPhone and here is a link to a 4 minute video I posted on You Tube

Long day but fun.  Got my railroad fix for the trip.

Santa Fe Freights

El Capitan Eastbound across Arizona