Onward and Northward (that's like upward, right?)

The next few days were spent meandering in a round-about way toward Santa Fe. The part of New Mexico we passed through was populated by very small towns, or ghost towns, and was mostly open valleys with the occasional small mountainous outcropping. The remoteness of the area is what makes it an excellent location for the NRAO VLA (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Very Large Array), with dishes so sensitive they could pick up a cell phone call on Jupiter. The VLA will be familiar if you’ve seen the Jodie Foster movie, Contact, or one of the many other films made there.

We decided to indulge our nerdiness with a visit to the VLA, to see just how big a very large array is. Turns out, it’s pretty big. There are 4 different arrangements for the dishes, using the designations A, B, C, and D. They sit on tracks so that they can move to be clustered tightly together in the D formation, or spread out 22 miles across the valley, in the A formation. According to the walking tour brochure, “each of the 27 antennas in the array weighs over 230 tons, is 82 feet across, and over 90 feet high.” The information from each individual dish in the array is merged to create the same effect as one enormously powerful telescope.

There’s a self-guided tour around the grounds, and the dishes moved several times while we were walking around. It’s a little surreal to look along a line of antennas stretching into the distance, and watch them tilt and rotate with one synchronized motion.

After we satisfied our inner scientists, we headed back down the road to the tiny town of Magdalena to find lunch. We finally found the one place that was still open, and ordered their special, which turned out to be one of the biggest burritos I’ve ever seen. Groaning our way back to the RV, we climbed into the mountains to a little gem of a campground that, according to the maintenance guy, locals try to keep secret. Unfortunately for them, the road atlas people know about it.

 

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns is in the far southeastern corner of New Mexico, with very little around beside the caverns. It’s definitely a destination rather than a, “Hmm, let’s give it a look” as you’re driving by on the way to something else.

The usual way to visit the caverns is by taking an elevator from the visitor center 755 feet underground, wandering the paths through the Hall of Giants and the Big Room, and taking the elevator back up. There’s relatively little elevation gain once you’re at the bottom, and there is a small Jetsons-inspired gift shop and café, bathrooms that have cave rock protruding along the walls, and even a mailbox if you’d like to send a postcard from deep underground. However, last November the elevators broke down.

At the time of our visit, the only option was to go in via the natural entrance, a mile-long series of switchbacks that leads past the nose-punishing stench of the cave swallow nests before offering views of the formations below. It’s actually a great way to get to the floor of the caverns, if a little hard on the knees. It’s a little less great to have to come back up that way.

Natural entrance

Carlsbad Caverns didn’t offer anything new in terms of the actual formations, compared to other caves we’ve been to. What sets it apart is size: it’s mind-bogglingly huge. The lighting is fairly dim and the ceiling isn’t visible in many places. It just recedes into the dark, as do the paths ahead and behind you. At one point you can lean over to look into the feature called the Bottomless Pit, and hope you don’t drop anything, because you’re never getting it back.

We decided not to stay for the bat flight this time, because it was still early enough that they weren’t there in numbers, but if we go back it will be a little later in the year and we’ll schedule a ranger-guided tour to see additional rooms in the caverns. We spent about four hours underground, and probably would have taken even more time if the rangers hadn’t been pushing people out hours before the last posted entry time.

  

We enjoyed our visit, and here are some recommendations based on our experience:

• Go in by the natural entrance, even if the elevators are working.
• If you want to photograph the formations, take a tripod if you can. The lighting is very dim and your shutter speeds will have to be very slow.
• If you’re using the camera on your phone, turn off the flash. Newer phones will actually do pretty well without (see photo above); the flash flattens out the look of the formations, and it doesn’t reach far enough to do more than wash out what’s closest and throw a shadow over anything further back. Plus, I can almost guarantee that you’re blinding someone every time you trigger the flash.
• An exception to not using the flash is if you’re trying to take a selfie/family portrait. Just be a good cave citizen and be aware of who’s around you before pressing that button.
• If the elevator is still out, know that you probably won’t have as much time as you think to explore, so get there early.
• If watching the bat flight is important to you, end of May through summer is probably the best time to go.
• If you have pets with you in a car during the warm months, you will be required to kennel them at the caverns. It’s for your pet’s safety, so either leave them behind, or be prepared to use the provided kennels.

Seeing the light of day was like a mirage after several hours underground

Hello New Mexico!

Rockhound State Park is located in the southwest corner of New Mexico, less than 30 miles from the border with Mexico. It’s a desert location, surrounded by spires of rock, which are reportedly home to imported Ibex, although we didn’t manage to see any.

Trail above the campground at Rockhound State Park, NM

 Like the name suggests, rockhounding is encouraged, and there are several trails into the hills around the campground that we spent many hours exploring. The area is mostly known for jasper, common opal, and geodes, and given our history of rock hoarding, we were pleased with ourselves for limiting our take to less than half a shoebox full. 

Bullock's Oriole in ocotillo cactus

 A note about New Mexico state parks: all the campgrounds are priced the same, a very reasonable $14 for a site with power. While the amenities are different at all the parks, most include free hot showers. Rockhound State Park was especially well laid out and tended, and had the cleanest, nicest showers I’ve seen on the entire trip. When you’re traveling for 3+ months, the quality of bathroom facilities take on an enormous importance.

After a few days spent collecting ballast for the RV rocks, we moved on to White Sands. Unfortunately, unless you hike in to camp in the backcountry, there is no camping at White Sands. Without a tent and other supplies, that wasn’t going to be a possibility, so my dream of photographing a sunset over the dunes was dashed. Of course, the storm clouds that rolled in probably would have made seeing any kind of sunset impossible, so maybe next time.

 

Dunes at White Sands, NM

White Sands is made up of gypsum sand, and is ridiculously white and much finer than ordinary sand. Even with dark clouds obscuring the sun, and wearing sunglasses, hiking into the dunes brought on the kind of dazzle usually associated with the beginning stages of snow blindness. Cooper had a fantastic time running up and down the dunes nearest the parking area, except for one face plant when he jumped directly at the side of a dune and misjudged the softness of the landing. 

Because of the lack of camping options, we decided to push on toward our next destination, Carlsbad Caverns. While crossing a small mountain range along the way, we noticed that the moisture in the air was crystallizing, before turning into a driving snow. Rather than stopping to camp and risk getting stuck if the snow piled up, we kept going and ended up in Artesia late at night. There, we settled in to get some sleep before the last stretch to the caverns.

 

Leaving Arizona

After the Petrified Forest we drove down the eastern edge of Arizona, through the Blue Mountains. It was a narrow windy road, full of steep climbs and harrowing hairpin turns. Vehicles exceeding a certain length are prohibited on the road because of the tightness of the turns, although we passed one very long coach with a tow vehicle that chose to ignore the restrictions.

Once we were back in the lower elevations, one of our last stops in Arizona was Kartchner Caverns. The caverns opened while we still lived in Arizona, but a combination of conflicting schedules and sold out tours meant that we never made it there. I was sad to discover that photos were no longer allowed inside, so I had to content myself with sneaking up on the wildlife in the hummingbird garden outside the visitor center.

The caves are definitely worth a visit; they’ve worked very hard to keep the environment inside as natural as possible, to keep from disrupting the growth of the formations. Where other caverns we’ve been to are mostly dormant, Kartchner is still very much alive. It’s very different to look at a “bacon” curtain when light shines through the thin rippling sheet of stone and illuminates all the shades of cream and red inside, than it is to see a dormant curtain. I’d show you what I mean if I could have taken a picture (sad face).

Roadrunner with lizard

After a night at the nearby campground, we passed through Fairbanks ghost town (very small), Tombstone (just as touristy as you’d imagine), and Chiricahua National Monument (a surprise tucked into the eastern edge of the state). After taking in some of the highlights of Chiricahua, we drove into New Mexico, and found ourselves a state park that seemed designed just for our grubby little rock collecting souls: Rockhound State Park.

Kingsnake

Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, Arizona

Even though we had visiting the Petrified Forest on our list before the trip started, we weren’t sure what to expect from it.  Not having high expectations, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Painted Desert was right next door, and that we could visit them both on the same drive.

 

We started at the Painted Desert, which proved to be an accurate name. The dominant color scheme was red, running the gamut in shades between the lightest cream layers to the dark crimson ones. The red soil was a nice contrast to the dark green desert plants and mostly yellow or white blooms. The road runs along the hilltops, so we stopped at a few overlooks, then made our way to the Petrified Forest.

A section of Route 66 runs between the parks, with this car marking the road.

 

At first, the petrified logs were sparse, but we finally came to a part of the park where there were a number of downed trees. Some had the bark still attached, looking much like living bark, and many had formed with brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows. In one wash were thousands of smaller fragments that from a distance looked like the swirled result of a paint truck accident.

Petrified wood fragments

All in all, it was an easy place to spend half a day, and worth the trip.

Roadside Curiosity

View from the window of balancing rocks

Along the section of Highway 89A that runs at the base of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, is a little geographical oddity. Large boulders, that presumably rolled down the cliffs years ago, stand balanced on weathered pillars that have eroded from underneath the massive rocks. Nestled among the boulders, and built against them, are the remains of a small house built of the local rock. According to the story at the site, the house was built by Blanche Russell after her car broke down along the road in the 1920s, and she decided she loved the area.

Sometimes You Shouldn’t Go Back

Reluctant to leave Antelope Canyon, but realizing that it wouldn’t be much of a road trip if we didn’t, we headed south. We had originally planned to skip Prescott Valley, our former home, but got in touch with some friends who still live there and made plans to meet for breakfast.

When we lived in Prescott Valley, it was a small mostly residential community with only a few stoplights. Our house was north of town on 2.5 acres and we had uninterrupted views of the sunset, the brilliant stars, and often spectacular lightning storms. When we drove in from the east, we were amazed to see that the two-lane road closest to our house had turned into a full-blown freeway.

This used to be a two-lane road with a stop sign. The overpass was a minor highway at the north end of town.

 

Heading for our breakfast date, amazement turned into stunned gaping at how once open grassland, home to roaming herds of pronghorn, had been buried under housing developments that blended into miles of retail strips containing every chain store imaginable. The bypass road where you may have passed half a dozen cars 15-years ago, was now an unrecognizable multi-lane monstrosity that was already overcrowded early in the morning. The retail bonanza continued along the highway into Prescott and we were relieved to get to our destination and meet up with our friends.

After breakfast, we made a few necessary stops, including one at the Friends of the Library store to stock up on books, then fled town. We found a small campground high in the mountains to stop at and catch our breath. There, we met a lovely man who had spent his life in the film industry, and came over later to sit by our fire and share Scotch – that he kindly provided – and travel stories. His company went a long way toward washing away the stress of the day.

While we had discovered that desert living wasn’t for us, and we were glad to move back to the coast, it was still a shock to discover what Prescott Valley had become. Most disappointing of all was that, where the Milky Way had once glowed bright overhead, the lights of progress had blotted out the stars.

Antelope Canyon, Arizona

I'll tell you right up front, this is going to be a photo-heavy post. To see the whole post, click on "Read more" at the bottom; it's in tiny green type, so it's easy to miss.

Vertical streaks are from water pouring over the lip of the canyon

Antelope Canyon is outside Page, Arizona, and very near Lake Powell. Why we never visited when we lived in Arizona, and camped at Lake Powell several times, is completely beyond me. 

Lake Powell full moon

 

Travels with Cooper

Several people have asked how Cooper is doing with all this traveling. The short answer is: he’s doing great.

Two of his favorite things in the world are car rides, and being sandwiched between the two of us, and this trip gives him endless amount of both. There is a large space between the driver and passenger seats, and that and the area behind the seats are carpeted in dog beds. He spends most of his time while we’re in motion wedged into that space, or sprawling across his bed with his head between our seats when he feels like spreading out. He also likes maneuver himself so that the privacy curtain is draped over him at night and will sometimes peek out from under it, reluctant to get up in the morning, earning him the nickname “Princess Petunia.”

He developed a trick early on of climbing into the drivers seat when we would leave him in the RV, which wasn’t a problem until he started leaning on the horn. We now put a yoga mat on the seat to keep him off of it, which causes him to climb onto the passenger seat instead. Also fine, except that he would rest his chin on the door ledge and trigger the automatic locks. We found a bottle cap to tape over it to keep him from unlocking the door, so now I’m unable to lock or unlock the doors from my seat.

Cooper’s always been a water dog, unable to resist walking straight into any ocean, lake, or stream he happens across, but we’ve also discovered that he’s a sand dune dog. While he got plenty of beach time all down the coast, the real joy he gets from running down a sand dune didn’t surface until Coral Pink Sand Dunes in Utah. Since then he’s also raced up and down the dunes at White Sands in New Mexico and Great Sand Dune in Colorado. There have been a couple of tumbles and one outright face plant when he leaped straight into the side of a dune at White Sands, but he gets right back up and tears off again.

That's a 12-year-old dog, y'all!

P.S. I can't tell if the video will play, so if it doesn't, I'll try to fix it later.

 

So Long Nevada, Hello Utah

Virgin River, Zion National Park

After waving goodbye to the Valley of Fire, we cut through the northwest corner of Arizona into Utah, on our way to Zion National Park. Once we got there, it became obvious that Zion is incredibly popular, and already very crowded. The campgrounds were completely full, so no chance of staying the night. The majority of the year the roads through Zion are closed to car traffic, and the only way to get around is by taking the park shuttle, which is convenient but makes it hard to really see the places between stops. After taking the shuttle to a few trailheads for short hikes, we declared Zion a bust and kept heading east.

Just outside of the park we saw a small herd of bighorn sheep and pulled over to see if we could get a better look. Just as we were climbing back in the RV, I caught movement through the trees, and realized there was a larger herd grazing in a hidden pocket of rock.  A scramble onto a steep sandstone rockface, and several stern warnings to myself to not forget where I was, and we had an excellent view of a family group settling down for the night.

Bighorn sheep family

Bighorn sheep ewe

Once we had our fill of sheep-watching, we headed to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, just down the road, only to find that it was also full. A quick conversation with a ranger netted us information about a little-known and almost completely unmarked BLM campground on a side road a few miles away. It turned out to be one of the best campgrounds of the trip so far: very small, clean, quiet, and our spot was out of sight of the main loop, so it was almost like having a private campground.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes

Red-breasted Nuthatch with seed

 

Leaving California, On to Nevada

 After sadly leaving the coast behind, a long day’s drive got us to Mojave National Preserve on the eastern border of California. We turned off the highway onto the road into the preserve just as the light was starting to fade from the sky. Unsure whether the campground was full and not wanting to find dispursed camping in the full dark, we found a smaller dirt track that led to a wide spot that had obviously been used for camping before. 

Arriving at Mojave National Preserve

 

The desert view from our campsite in the morning

Silver cholla cactus blooms

The night was incredibly dark and gave Tom his first chance to use his new toy, a UV flashlight, to look for scorpions. Although there were no scorpions, it turned out that the thousands of bugs we barreled into on the highway also glowed in UV light, and the front of the RV looked like the Milky Way.

Mojave mound cactus

Cholla skeleton

Chuckwalla

The next morning we took a walk down our little dirt road, and found that spring had come to the desert. What is a dusty and dry-looking landscape most of the year had exploded with red, pink, yellow, purple, white, and every shade of green imaginable. After exploring the area around the visitor center, we set off up the road that leads north through the preserve, keeping a watchful eye out for desert tortoises.

Rollercoaster road leaving Mojave

Our next destination was Zion, and we headed for a campground along Lake Mead to break up the drive. To get to it, we had to pass the Valley of Fire State Park, and out of curiosity decided to look it over. There are two campgrounds at Valley of Fire, Atlatl Rock and Arch Rock. Atlatl Rock is the larger of the two, and is open year-round. It was full of large RVs, so we bypassed it for the smaller Arch Rock Campground, which had recently opened for the season. It’s surrounded by a bowl of red rock and feels very cozy. We liked the look of the park and were lucky to get a spot; within a couple of hours it was completely full.

Firewave Formation

We toured a bit of the park in the afternoon, and were surprised by the variation in rock formations in a relatively small area. The colors range from white to deep purple, with a lot of banding in some areas, like the Firewave Formation. By the time we got back to our campsite we had decided to spend a second night so that we could spend the next day checking out more of the trails.

The evening was a perfect temperature for sitting outside, and there was a light breeze as we relaxed and watched the moon rise over the red rock walls. The campground was quiet except for one of our neighbors who had brought a sound machine (?!) that sounded like a leaky gutter on a rainy night. How that would put anyone to sleep instead of sending them running for the bathroom every five minutes is beyond me, and we were relieved when it was finally shut off.

The moon was so bright it washed out all but the brightest stars

The next day we stopped at the visitor center, where they had bird feeders that were getting a lot of activity. The hummingbird feeders were especially entertaining, and drew a big crowd to watch the hummers zoom in and out, challenging each other for spots at the feeders.

Male and female Costa's hummingbirds

Another day of hiking mostly deserted trails left us very happy to have stumbled across Valley of Fire, and surprised that a park so close to Las Vegas was relatively empty.

 

Central Coast California – part 2

When camping, we tend to wake up earlier than at home, so trying to take a pre-breakfast walk every morning seemed like a good idea. Most people aren’t out and about yet and the sun isn’t hot, so why not stretch our legs and work up an appetite? Despite the trek that our “stroll” to Vernal Falls turned out to be, we are apparently optimists, so we tightened our shoelaces and set off across the hills.

The only picture taken along the "Tick Trail"

At first it was pleasant, with hummingbirds darting around us, deer and horses grazing on a distant hill, vultures lining up along a fence. In retrospect, that last one seems like it should have been a warning. The hilltop trail led slowly down to a marshy section, then back up through a cool pine forest. All was well until we discovered the first tick.

Now, let me just say that I am wildly arachnophobic, but I don’t hate spiders. I find most bugs fascinating, or at least mildly interesting, and I don’t even mind cockroaches. However, I HATE ticks. There is nothing that gives me the willies more than thinking I might have a tick on or near me, and I’ve walked through a forest in Australia that warned about not pausing on the trail in case leaches crawled onto your legs.

Somehow in the course of our high-stepping through the grass to get as far down the path as quickly as possible, we missed the turn-off back to the campground, and ended up in someone’s back yard. Rather than risk going back along the tick trail for any length of time, we kept going out to the highway, and walked nearly a mile in what was now the blazing sun along the shoulder. What should have been less than two miles turned into a nearly four mile hike, and I refuse to leave the RV again without having at least a snack first.

After stripping down and leaving our clothes outside (good thing for an empty campground!) we collected ourselves and left for our scheduled tour at Hearst Castle.

Looking toward Pismo Beach Pier from the dunes

Now, since I’m so behind, we’re going to zoom ahead a bit. We stayed the next night at Montaña de Oro, then found a spot at the North Beach campground in Pismo Beach. This put us a few blocks away from our old house and right in the middle of our old neighborhood. The next few days were a greatest hits tour of favorite restaurants, activities like the farmer’s market and soaking at Avila Hot Springs, and long walks on the beach and pier. It was good to be back and got us thinking about spending more time there in the future. Slightly grungy beach town seems to suit us.

Central Coast California – part 1

Big Sur coastline with Rocky Creek Bridge, built in 1932, in the distance

We were reluctant to leave Yosemite, but looked forward to getting to the Central Coast, our first home together after college. Once we got across the vast Central Valley farmland – necessary, but not exciting – we turned for Monterey and Highway 1 (PCH). This time of year the rolling hills of Big Sur are still emerald green from the winter rains, and paired with the deep red sea cliffs and turquoise water, make it one of my favorite places on earth.  PCH has plenty of pullouts and we probably stopped at a good majority of them. At one, a curve in the cliffs made a small sheltered bay, and below us we saw migrating grey whales, playful bottlenose dolphins, sea otters, and sea lions. 

Bottlenose dolphin

Sea otter and pup

That pullout is also memorable because it’s where I ran back to the RV to change my camera lens so that I could take a closer picture of the dolphns, and managed to close my ankle in the footwell of the passenger side. Looking at the space later, the gap between the footwell and the door is so small, I have no idea how I managed to get the door completely closed, much less get away with only a bruise.

When we lived in California we had a favorite spot to camp on the coast, high in the hills overlooking the ocean, and wanted to find that spot again. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find our Forest Service map before leaving home, and had to locate it from memory, and coming from the opposite direction. The only road that we could find that led to camping areas was a steep, narrow climb up one of the taller hills, and didn’t seem familiar to either of us. As it was getting late, and our options were limited, we decided to keep going and after 11 miles, made it back to Nacimiento Campground. It was a nice little campground, but decidedly not where we used to camp. Our nearest neighbor had a small scruffy dog that they let wander, and who was both fascinated and unsure of Cooper. She kept coming over to sniff him from a distance, then barking like crazy. He didn’t know what to make of her, and did his best to ignore her.

Road to Nacimiento Campground. PCH is below the lowest saddle,
and the road goes through several switchbacks as it climbs the hills.

  

The next day, the road hadn’t gotten any shorter or wider, so we had a nail-biting descent back to PCH and the ocean. Happy to be on a paved road again, we kept going south, and soon came to the elephant seal beach. When we lived here after college, the seals weren’t coming to the area in the numbers they do now, and you could walk right onto the beach with them. Now there’s a boardwalk at the top of the bluff that keeps visitors and seals separated, which is probably a very good thing for both parties.

Drama on the beach

This time of year it’s mostly females and pups on the beach, and there are so many that the upper part of the sand is a solid carpet of seal. Every time a new seal wanted to join the crowd, or one wanted to shift positions, a bout of bawling and biting would ensue. Then they’d settle down until the next disturbance started the whole process over. If you’re hoping for sleek, attractive seals this is a terrible time to visit, as they’re undergoing a “catastrophic molt.” Elephant seals don’t shed gradually, they lose the outer layer of skin and hair all at once, so most of them have a Silence of the Lambs skin suit look to them.

All better – for now

That night we decided to stay at the infinitely more accessible San Simeon State Park. We stayed in the upper section, and our campsite had a panoramic view of the surrounding hills and the sunset, with the added advantage that there was no one else in sight, so it was like having a private campground. It ended up being so relaxing and peaceful that we stayed two nights, although we came to regret the next morning’s pre-breakfast walk.

Yosemite

Bridalveil Fall from the entrance road

Entering the park, we drove in from the west on Highway 120, which winds around the mountaintops and becomes Big Oak Flat Road before slowly descending to the valley floor. The sun was low in the sky and Half Dome, Bridalveil Fall, and the Merced River were catching the last of the rays. We stopped so many times to take in the ever-changing view, it took us more than an hour to reach the campground, and only made it just before full dark.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Fall

Reservations sell out so quickly, that we had originally reserved one night in the Upper Pines campground, and planned to stay outside the park for the rest of the visit. Fortunately, we happened to find a block of four nights that had opened up in the Lower Pines campground just before we left on our trip, and snapped those up as quickly as possible. Getting a spot is so competitive that we held our breath until we had the confirmation, just in case someone else was faster!

Coyote

Vernal Fall trail. Even the trees can't stand up straight!

We woke up early the next morning and decided to take a pre-breakfast stroll to the Vernal Fall Bridge before the crowds were on the trail, and quickly discovered that everything is uphill in Yosemite. What started out as a stroll turned into a bit of a trek and breakfast turned into brunch.

After breakfast we packed up and moved over to the Lower Pines campground to get checked in, then drove to Yosemite Village to explore the museums and exhibits, and pick up a hiking map. Even though the upper road and trails were still closed because of snow, there were still miles of trails to hike, and we managed to cover quite a few. Tom did a couple of the longer hikes without me, while I took walks with Cooper and relaxed at the trailheads. Tom liked the Glacier Point trail so much that he left his wedding ring somewhere along it so that he’d have an excuse to do it again. He tried to find it before dark, unsuccessfully, but we got up early the next morning before too many people had been up the trail and that time was a success! No ring shopping for us, after all.

Yosemite deserves every awe-struck adjective imaginable, and these pictures can't do it justice. This time of year the waterfalls are nearly at full peak, and Yosemite Falls roars and booms so loudly it can be heard across the valley. The weather was ideal, and while the roads busy, we were always able to find a parking spot at trailheads and pullouts. Before we left we were already talking about coming back in the fall to visit during another season, and experience another side of the park.