Zion to West Yellowstone

Even though we have made this trip from Zion to West Yellowstone before, it's always an adventure.

Our campsite at the Watchman campground in Zion.

We were fortunate to have hummingbirds visit our feeder here. These are black chinned hummingbirds. This one is the female.

This is the male. If you look closely you can see the row of purple feathers under the black. These were taken from inside the rig, through a dirty window, we had some showers and wind which stirred up lots of dust.

Leaving Zion heading back towards I-15.

The mountains between Salt Lake and West Yellowstone were all covered with a brilliant white blanket.

Sun shining on the snow covered mountains makes quite a contrast to the dark clouds overhead.

This Bald Eagle was posing nicely for us on top of a power pole as we traveled through Idaho. We were watching for it, as we had seen an eagle at this location when we first came north this year a couple of weeks before.

Video from Lake Mead

Zion National Park Revisited

Our last visit to Zion two years ago was so enjoyable, we decided to stop here again for a few days. Not as many hikes as last time, just more relax time. If you'd like to see more photos, check out the posts from May 2008.

View from the Visitor's Center.

They have a free bus that runs from the Visitor's Center up the canyon. They make many stops along the way where you can stop to hike or just to spend a few minutes. The next bus comes by in just a few minutes. This picture was taken at the last stop which is called the Temple of Sinawava. As snow melts it creates temporary water falls such as this one.

Early morning sun on the mountains as seen from our campsite.

Here we are on the Pa'rus trail looking back towards The Watchman. Our campsite is near it's base.

The Temples of the Virgin, on the left is the West Temple at 7810 feet.

We don't often see green flowers.

The next three pictures are of a stone bridge known as Crawford Arch. It looks really tiny from down here, but it's actually very large.

Bridge Mountain.

A little closer look. Can you see it yet? It's right in the middle.

Now you can see it. Have to love cameras with good zoom capability.

The next three photos are from the "other side". We took a ride through the 1.1 mile tunnel to the east side of the park. It's amazing how different the rock is there.

Virgin River Gorge in Arizona

As we headed a little further north, we stopped at this beautiful campground in the very northwest corner of Arizona. The Virgin River has cut a canyon here on it's way from Zion to Lake Mead.

Here we are among Joshua trees, desert flowers and cactus, surrounded by canyon walls, with the river flowing behind our rig.

The campground was really crowded.

It's not all fun and games, a little maintenance is necessary from time to time.

Around and around they go.

King of the hill.

View through a Joshua Tree.

The Virgin River, colored brown from the silt washed down from further upriver.

Some very tiny flowers.

Desert Marigold.

Beaver tail cactus in bloom.

Awesome!

Lake Mead Rec Area

Here we are again at the Lake Mead Recreation Area. When we arrived a few weeks ago, we met up with friends at Government Wash. It's wonderful to be part of a loose-knit community of friends. Even though we are camped in a dispersed camping area, there is someone here who looks after our rig when we are away and worries about us when we are late in returning. We plan things together from time to time, but mostly we each do our own thing. We have stayed here several times before, but there is always something new to discover.

We enjoyed watching this Vermilion Flycatcher all one day as he cleared the area around our rig of many insects.

Amazing colors!

These coyotes ambled by our site one afternoon.

When this one spotted us standing outside, it let us know he was aware of our presence.

The view from our rig.

Another gorgeous sunset.

Looking across the sky the same evening, we watched the full moon rising.

Our New House

This is our new (to us) home. We changed from our 1994 25' Prowler to this 2002 31' Dutchmen. We spent about a month looking and finally settled on this one. After a very busy week and a half of moving and advertising the Prowler, we sold it in just a few days. The new rig has more elbow room which makes it nicer when we have someone stop by for a visit. It also has many more windows which gives us much better view of our ever changing back yard. We have already made some changes to the inside and have more planned. We also installed the solar panels on the roof, so we can keep getting our electricity free from the sun.

Our old truck will continue to do the towing until we can replace it with a more capable one, probably a diesel.

We have a nice new kitchen has already been tested making stuffed manicotti shells when our son Christopher came for a visit and for chocolate cake to share with friends. It has sleeping for the two of us and when we have an overnight guest they get the air mattress and sleeping bag.

This slide out area has sustained the most changes so far. We changed the couch that was to the left, with our 2 lightweight chairs we had bought for the other rig. Larry took out the dinette booth seats to the right and will be replacing the dining table when we find the right one. The two office chairs are from our old rig and we plan to add 2 more to match.

This is the rear living area where we plan to build an entertainment center in the left corner to accommodate our new 40" HDTV and our electric fireplace. In the right corner we will put in a computer and ham radio desk.