Historical Kingman

This is the oldest living thing in Kingman. This mesquite tree is over 200 years old. The  branches are held up by braces.

Bonelli House, built in 1915.  He had electricity in the house long before anyone else.

Can't remember the year of this clock,  but besides telling the time, it  also tells the day, month and year.

Notice the hinges on the step that the guide is standing on. It opens up and lets in cold air from under the house. It was their air conditioning. The husband had all sorts of innovations  in the house.

The courthouse was built in 1915 for $80,000.  In my blog about Oatman, I put in a picture of a hallway that led to the honeymoon suite of Clark Garble and Carol Lombard. This is the courthouse where they were married. Hard to imagine. You would have thought they would have been married in Los Angeles, in front of all their friends.

Back in the day, women had to make everything in the household. Here is the ingredients for  lye soap from the Bonelli House. Just had to include it.

Soap:  5 lbs of grease (any waste fat)

1 can lye, dissolved in water (use enamel or iron pot only)

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup ammonia

I won't put in the directions, but looking at it certainly makes me glad I live now, not back then. Can't imagine using lye, ammonia and borax on your skin

Grand Canyon Caves, Peach Springs, AZ

I love caves so I suggested to Denny about seeing this one. He is ho-hum about caves. His thinking "if you've see one, you've seen them all. What we had planned to do that day fell thru, so we ( I ) decided to go. Unfortunately it was a 60 mile backtrack but off we went. It turned out to be very interesting. Even Denny admitted it.  It is the largest dry cave in the world. Of all the caves, only 3% are dry and only 1 1/2% are open to the public. We had to take an elevator 21 stories down. Thew walls are 65 million years old.

 There are 3 very unusual facts about this cave.  In a large room, about an acre, there are cases and cases of water and food. During the cold war, President Kennedy had this cave stocked  to use as a bomb shelter. There are enough supplies to feed 2000 people for 2 weeks. Not sure what they expected to happen after that.   The water is in black jugs, holding 18 gallons each. This is before bottled water.  The food is still edible (YUK) because it is ,mostly saltine crackers and hard candy. Not sure what the reasoning for that was. Hard to sustain yourself on crackers and candy. That was in 1962. Everything is still down there.  Nothing more had been delivered until last month. Several palettes of MRE's and bottled water came.  More is suppose to be coming.  The guide said that the cave was bought a few years ago by a survival doom & gloom company. Can't remember the name. If you went on their website and for a fee ( I'm sure it is ALOT of money),  you can buy space in the cave in case the world comes to an end. I wonder if it is the group that has been predicting the end of the world, the last one being Oct. 12th.

The other interesting thing is that they have created a bedroom suite in the large room. It has a double bed, bath, lights, closets and TV.  For $750 per 2 people, you can stay the night. They turn off all the lights in the cave except for 1 small one. There are lights in your bedroom suite also.  The guide turned off all the lights to give us an idea about how dark it was. It was blacker than black. Very eerie. It is so quiet that you can hear yourself breathe.  We don't think we could ever do that. He said about 200 people have done it. He said that about twice a summer season, the lights go out, usually because of storms. They have flashlights every so often. They are painted with glow in the dark paint so you can find them. I'm certainly glad that didn't happen when we were down there.

The bedroom suite

Long distance shot of the bedroom suite, looks kind of spooky to me!

Very dark but the cases on the right are the new bottled water. On the left are old boxes of crackers

The black buckets hold the old 1962 water. UGH

Another view of the new water

Last, there have been several weddings down there. Can't imagine doing that. Each couple left a little of their wedding there, flowers, parts of veil, etc. Everything is still in good shape because there is almost no humidity.

Two Months and Still Going

We left two months ago today. We have traveled 5200 miles. We haven't even gotten to when we usually leave, the end of Nov.  We have been to 12  National parks and several National Monuments.

The National Parks we have been to are, in order:

Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado

The Arches, Moab, Utah

Island in the Sky, Canyonlands, Moab, Utah

The Needles, Canyonlands, Moab, Utah

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Zion, Utah

Zion/Kolab, Utah

North Rim of the Grand Canyon, AZ

Monument Valley, Utah

Mesa Verde, CO.

South Rim of the Grand Canyon, AZ

Skywalk, West Entrance to the Grand Canyon, AZ

National Monuments we have been to:

Cedar Breaks, Utah

Four Corners, Utah, AZ, New Mexico and Colorado

State Parks:
Dead Horse, Moab, Utah

Most of our traveling so far has been to places that get too cold or snowy in the winter. We have been hustling to keep ahead of the weather. Three parks we were at have already closed. Now that we are headed to central AZ, we will be staying longer at each place to relax.

Because we left so early, we're not sure if we will be staying out until we usually get home, the beginning of May. That will be 8 months. Denny thinks that might be too long for him. Might be going home a little early, but it is still raining in WA. Don't like the rain and cold. Such a decision to make. We'll see.

Oatman, AZ

Today, we visited Oatman, AZ.  It was built in the late 1800's, a wild west town. Then it stated mining gold. It was going great until the gov. told them that gold was no longer needed for the WWII war effort.  It was also a main road for the Dust Bowl immigrants going west.  Now it is an old wild west tourist attraction. It has lots of wild burro's roaming the streets. In the 1880's, they brought in burros to haul everything. The descendants are still there. My Dad told us to watch where we walk and he was sure right.  The burro's wander anywhere they like and that means they do their business anywhere. It is a fun town to see. Most of the old buildings are still in use.   Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon there. They loved how quiet and laid back it was. Clark Gable played poker with the miners.  They went there quite often. Hard to imagine.

The road is part of the last long stretch of RTE 66 still in use.  The closer we got, the road got worse. it is still a 2 lane road, but very, very narrow with hairpin turns that you can't see around. Quite the drive.

A donkey nursing her young. As you can see, it is in the middle of the street

Denny's friend

Denny introducing me to his new friend

Aren't they cute!

An overview of the town. You can see the donkeys going down the middle of the street. In the left foreground, you can see what you have to be careful not to step in

More donkeys, they are everywhere

Doesn't this look like it would be fun to watch. Oatman is  just the kind of town that would have bed races. Lots of artists live there now.

This leads up to to their honeymoon suite.  It was being remodeled, so we couldn't go up. We had ice cream in the Ice Cream Parlour in the lobby.  Forgot how much I liked Rocky Road. It and chocolate chip mint were my favorites as a kid.  Haven't had either one in years

This is the beginning of the original wooden sidewalks. Most of it is in pretty bad shape. Lots of rickety and loose boards.

One of the Mysteries of Life Solved--Maybe

After we had been gone awhile, a strange thing started happening.  We would be sitting watching TV in the evening and the lights would go out. Just for a second or two, then go back on. By the time Denny got up to check it out, they would go back on. Hard to find out what's wrong when they go back on so fast.  Happened 3 or 4 times.  Then it didn't happen for quite a while. It also only happened at night.  Night before last it happened at least 10 times in about an hour. A few times they stayed off for quite a while. Our inside voltage gauge showed  0 volts.  He was able to get outside with a flashlight and the outside gauge ( came with the RV) also showed  0.  It would go up to 120 when the lights went on. The next morning the power also went off in the morning. Thank heavens I was able to make coffee before they went out.  That would have been disastrous.  Have to have coffee!   Hopefully it was an easy fix. Two years ago Denny bought a voltage booster. We were having alot of trouble with parks not having very good power.  He disconnected it and so far, no more problems. Every once in awhile, we get into parks that have good power.  He thinks he just has to check the voltage before he hooks up the booster. It means that the booster was doing its job. It is a bad thing to have too much voltage. That can  burn the electrics you have, like the TV.  Hopefully this will fix it. Would be amazing to have such an easy fix to an electrical problem. We have never really had any major problems with the RV. Knock on wood.

What's up with that?

This has nothing to do with our travels, but I just had to rant.  We  get the local channels so we listen to Phoenix news.  There is a 5 year old black girl missing/kidnapped in Glendale, AZ.  It is southwest of Phoenix.  She has been missing for over 2 weeks.  We have not heard a word about it on the national news.  You hear lots about Lisa, the little 10 month old girl in Missouri. That was on the national news almost as soon as it happened. Not a word about little black girl.   Why is that?  Is this racial profiling?  Is it because she's black?  There is no talk of domestic dispute here so it makes you wonder.

I don't usually go on like this, but this really made me wonder!

Kingman, AZ

When we told Marvelous Marv where we were going, he suggested getting off the freeway and take the back road to Kingman. It is the longest part of RTE 66 that is still in use. It is 100 miles long. Most of RTE 66 has been paved over by the freeways or is in such bad shape, it is very hard to travel on. It  took us a little longer than the freeway, but worth it.  We rarely came upon another car. Felt like we were in the 50's.  Didn't see George Maharis tho. If you know who I mean, you are really dating yourself.

The whole time we have been gone, I have had a lot of trouble with my Overdrive. That is the device that connects me to Internet wherever we go.  That is why I haven't had good luck downloading pictures.  A lot of campgrounds now have their own Internet called Tengointernet.   The Tengointernet and mine were working against each other. Very frustrating. Kingman is big enough to have a Sprint store, so I took it in. They had no idea what was wrong, but did download some updates.  Lo and behold, it works now. It has been a frustrating 2 months. This is why I have been able to show so many pics. Since I'm here for another week, I'm going to download a lot of pictures that I couldn't before.  That is why I got so far behind in my blog.  I never had any trouble with it last year.

The Skywalk

October 19

WHEW! I have finally caught up with my blog. We came to Kingman because it is the closest town to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon, where the Skywalk is.  The Skywalk was built a few years ago.  It is made of glass, including the floor and juts out over the rim. 

The West Rim is on the  Hualapai Indian Reservation.  It is very different than the North and South Rims, which are National Parks. At the North Rim, you go to the visitor center and then drive yourself around to all the lookouts.  At the South Rim, if you don't take a tour like we did, you go to the visitor center and have your choice of taking the shuttle or driving yourself to all the lookouts. That is the way at all the National Parks we have ever been to.  Not at the West Entrance.  Because it is on the reservation,  you can't  go there if you don't buy a tour. We bought the one that included the Skywalk and a meal.  You can't  even  take any food or drink with you. I put my water bottle in my purse because I wasn't sure where we could buy water.  Good thing I did. You couldn't buy water until the 2nd stop. I could never have lasted that long without it.

It is very, very crowded. I bet 99.9% of the people were Asians with a a few  Europeans thrown in. We very seldom heard English.  There are 3 viewpoints. They herd you, like cattle,  onto  a huge tour bus to take you to each place.  You can stay as long as you want .  The lines to get on the buses were very long.  They need the buses to come more often.

The main attraction is the Skywalk. You have to put everything in a locker. They don't let you carry any cameras, cell phones or anything onto the Skywalk. They don't want anything dropped. You can certainly understand that.  You even have to put paper booties on your feet. They don't want any shoes scratching the glass.  It is a little spooky walking onto the glass. You are looking straight down to the Canyon floor. Spooky, but fun and interesting.  The Skywalk is in a horseshoe shape with  a glass floor and glass walls about 4 feet high.  It can withstand the weight of 71 fully loaded Boeing747 planes.  It can also survive an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles. Also it is immune to winds in excess of 100 miles an hr.  Even tho it is, I would hate to be on it during and earthquake or such high winds.

 Side view of the Skywalk

I took this picture to show you that there are no guardrails at any of the viewpoints. I've seen people  some that go right to the very edge!

This was a trail to an abandon tram. It was built in 1957 to take men to an Guano pit. Guano (bat droppings) is very good for fertilizer.  The tram was damaged in 1960 by the jet  that flew under it and damaged the cable. It was never rebuilt so it was only in use 3 years. A lot of money to build for only 3 years.  Again, you can see that there are no fences anyway where you walk.

An overview

This is a line to catch the bus.  We were in line when I took the picture. When we first got there, the line was twice as long as this.

Since you can't take pictures on the Skywalk there are professionals to do it for you. They have you over a barrel if you want a picture of you in  the Skywalk, so of course, they are expensive.

Notice the booties that you have to wear

As part of the package that you buy, there are some general pictures of the Skywalk. This was taken last January. BURR.  Glad I wasn' there

Another of the general pictures that you can buy

Out of sequence but still quite the view

We were in Kingman, AZ., the closest town to the Skywalk.  It was 70 miles.   Fourteen miles of the road was " a dirt and gravel road, but very well maintained"  They were right on the dirt and gravel part, but NOT on the maintained part. It was so washboard that you could probably wash clothes on it.  Very, very rough.

South Rim of the Grand Canyon

October 15th -19th

Finally made it to the grand Canyon after changing our plans twice. We stayed at Williams, AZ, 50 miles south of the entrance. Williams has the most expensive diesel in the U.S. We paid $4.29 per gal. We were told because it is so close to the Grand Canyon, the only Natural Wonder of the World in the United States. It gets 7 million visitors a year.

We had heard about how bad the parking is, so we decided to take a tour. We usually aren't tour people but decided to go for it. We went with Marvelous Marv. He is called the "Indiana Jones of the Grand Canyon".  We thought he was a bit spendy, but he was well worth it. He picked us up at the campground in a bright orange van. The van was one of the reasons we went with him. We didn't want a large tour bus.  It held 12 passengers, but only 6 went that day. It was a very private, personal tour. It took an hour to get to the entrance and the whole way, he was talking about the history and people of the area. He has lived in Williams his whole life.  He bills his tour as "not the politically correct tour". He is right. He calls himself an aging Vietnam Vet hippie.  He entertained us with all his views on everything, including the Parks and the gov.  We agreed with almost everything.  Everywhere we stopped he told us what we were looking at. I saw other people listening because he was so informative.   He took each of our cameras and took pictures of all of us.  We really enjoyed the whole day. I would recommend him to anyone going to the Canyon.

If you work at the Grand Canyon or Grand Canyon Village, right outside the park,  the company puts you in their own housing.   Five employees live in small 1 bedroom cabins. They import most of the employees from other counties because of the working conditions. 

Overview of the Grand Canyon

Marvelous Marv, our tour guide

Lots of views have no guardrails. As you can see, we are close to the edge.  Yikes!  Would sure have to have a hold of kids hands.  Taken by Marvelous Marv

Can't miss the bright orange  Marvelous Marv tour van

This is part of the Bright Angel Trail. It goes all the way down into the bottom of the Canyon for 22 miles.. The guy in the blue shirt with his back to us is Denny. We didn't go very far beyond the tunnel, which was about a mile.

Another overview.

Donkeys have been used in the Grand Canyon for hundreds of years, but they are going to ban them in a few years.  The  tourists are complaining of their waste on the trails.  It is a shame. Donkeys were here long before the tourists.  It isn't hard just to step around it.  Anytime anything has been built, donkeys are used to carry everything.

This is an example of  the donkeys bringing all the material to build this art studio. It was built in 1929

This is the only view of the Colorado River from the south rim. There is a hotel down there that is booked YEARS ahead.  Another case of the donkeys taking everything down from building materials to food.  Marv said that on any given day there are approximately 3000 people at the bottom, hiking, rafting, taking horse and donkey rides or at the hotel.

Good looking couple, it is rare to have both of us smiling in the same photo

Sheer walls rim the canyon. People catching climb these. NOT ME!

Williams is the last town on Rte 66 to be bypassed by the freeway. It didn't die like alot of the towns because it is the closest to the Grand Canyon. If you don't live inside the city limits, you have to have go get it  or have your water delivered.  That includes the Grand Canyon. It is very expensive, around $1.12 per gallon.  Think of how much a person uses in a day.  I'm sure the tourists in the Canyon aren't too concerned about conserving.  Marvelous Marv said the hotel has had  bills of $42,000 per month.

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

October 13th and 14th

Again we changed our minds. As I said before, that is one of the benefits of long term traveling. The only thing you have to do is change reservations. We always make reservations ahead of time. When we went to Monument Valley, we had to call and change 2 parks.  From Monument Valley we decided to go to Mesa Verde before the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Made a couple of calls to cancel and remake reservations. This was the 2nd time for each park and had no problems.

Mesa Verde is in Southwest Colorado. We were only within a day's travel of where it all started in Gunnison.  We wanted to go now because it is also a place that gets too cold and snowy in the winter. In fact, the first campground we called had already closed. The 2nd was open, but was closing at the end of the week. Whew! Just in time.

Mesa Verde has the most ruins anywhere in the world. It has 4500 archaeological sites, 600 being cliff dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans lived here from A.D.550 to A.D. 1300. This period has always interested me.

Denny and I were having a little disagreement.  He says we were here in 1976. I  have no recollection of it.  I remember a site like this, but, I think he is getting our trips mixed up.  We were in Montezuma Castle, above Phoenix, in 1996. It has the same type of ruins but alot less.  I don't have my 1996 journal with me, so we won't know who's right until we get home. Hope it's me.

These people amazed me. The cliff dwellings were on the sides of vertical cliffs.  They went up an down the vertical cliffs using hand and toe holds.

 Just think how long it took to construct these homes using simple sticks.

This is Spruce Tree House, built between A.D. 1200-1276. It contains 114 rooms and 8 Kiva's( underground ceremonial chambers)

Denny is looking down into a Kiva

This is an overview of 3 areas in the cliff walls Can you imagine going from one to another

This is Square Tower House . It holds 80 rooms. It is unusual because of the square tower in back. Most were free standing round towers. This is 4 stories with windows, doors, flooring and the inner walls were plastered.

This is a Kiva, a ceremonial house. There is a small hole to the left of the large hole. This is where the spirits go in and out.

On to the Grand Canyon

Monument Valley, Utah

October 10th and 11th

From the North Rim, we were going to go straight to the South Rim, but changed our minds. That is one of the benefits of a long trip. We have no set itinerary and can change our minds. We (I) decided to go to Monument Valley.  It is on the AZ./ Utah border.  It is still hot in southern AZ., so we decided to do more exploring in the places that get too cold in the winter.  The winters here get down to 25 degrees.   There have been more western movies set here than anywhere. It is  in the Navajo Indian Reservation. If you drive in the park yourself, you can only go so far. Have to take a tour to see the back country with an  Indian guide.   I'm glad we did. The back country roads were a mess,  lots of potholes and loose sand.  We saw a few cars get stuck on the "better roads", even tho they are still bad. We had to  "hold on for dear life" sometimes.   Many times the left or right side of the truck was much higher than the other. We really thought we were going over a few times, but we had the best driver. In one really soft spot, we saw a tour guide driver get stuck.  Not ours!  It was expensive but really worth the money.

After we got back, I had another Senior Moment.  I deleted alot of pictures before I downloaded them. Can't believe it did that. I still had alot of pictures but the best ones were GONE! I seem to be having a lot of Senior Moments!

 

This is the tour bus that we took. It picked us up at the campground

These two formations are called left mitten and right mitten

 

This one is called Geronimo after the chief

Flowers abound in the desert.  The hole in the background is a cave with ruins of a home

This is a view from our campground

The pictures from the blogs I have done today have taken hours to download, so I'm signing off today. I'll start more  catching up tomorrow. Besides here, I still have 2 more places to talk about.  Once I get caught up, I'll never get behind again.