Trip to Minot

Back in May, on Memorial Day weekend, we took a drive out to Minot, ND for our youngest son's promotion to Captain in the Air Force. Here are a few things we saw along the way.

Our first day out, we encountered a group of about a dozen big horn sheep on a side hill.

On our second day out, we stopped at a fishing access in the Dakota Grasslands for a leg stretch. It was very peaceful with spring flowers in bloom.

Small town USA all decked out for Memorial Day.

One of many new wind generators south of Minot. What a wonderful site.

Jeremy, just before his promotion ceremony.

On our way back home to West, we enjoyed watching this moose foraging.

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.