Hello Ontario! ~ Au Revoir Quebec!

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels, Uncategorized

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Canada, Costello PA, Frontenac, Ontario, Poutine, Quebec, Sundridge

Hello! Thank you all for bearing with us and our summer long disappearing act. We are thrilled to say Ed’s surgery went well, especially considering after the fact when the doctor told us he had been pretty worried! As they say, all’s well that ends well. We did however receive the sad news that our kitty Flea passed away. He had a good life and thanks to the kindness of the purchasers of our home, he got to stay on the farm he loved.

Ed did some repairs and upgrades to the RV, I gave it a good scrubbing inside while he did the outside and we hauled all the stuff we’d moved into the apartment back into our little wheeled house and we headed out on September 22^nd. Going up 15N into Pennsylvania over to Lewisburg where we picked up Rt 45 and then 322N driving through beautiful farm country to State College. We stopped for the night in Woodland, happy to be back on the road.

A beautiful, pristine round barn near State College, PA. Don’t see these often.

We were headed for Costello, Pennsylvania in Potter County where my Dad was born so I could say “hello” to my great grandparents Robert & Janetta Campbell Deppa. Robert came from Scotland when he was 8 and fought in the Civil War figuring as did many that when the North won he would then be a US citizen. Not so. After the war he also married Janetta who was all of 15 and a half. She is also for whom one of my nieces is named. We had been to the cemetery back in 2001 and it was overgrown and a mess. Volunteers have now cleaned it up and it looks lovely, although they also changed the name after well over 100 years.

Fern Woods in the Pennsylvania mountains…

From there driving on up into New York and many small towns on our way eventually to the Peace Bridge crossing into Canada and the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) towards Toronto and on past to Alliston, Ontario. We have noticed before that small towns in New York are generally very clean. Folks seem to take pride in their homes, yards and towns no matter how poor they might be. It’s nice.

An old truck at the cranberry farm.

We poked around Ontario for a couple of days. Stopped at Johnston’s Cranberry Farm where we sampled their cranberry and blueberry wines, won’t need to do that again. We drove to Penetanguishene just because a town with a name like that ought to be visited and had our first poutine (French fries and cheese curd covered with gravy) at the “World Famous Dock Lunch”; nope on both counts.

Went to the French River because in elementary school when we were taught about Canada the only places I remember being mentioned were the French River and the St. Lawrence River/Seaway. At the French River Provincial Park visitor center there is a 512ft. long, 12ft.wide bridge built 90ft. over the French River for and by snowmobile enthusiasts! They take their winter entertainment very seriously 🙂

Built by the French River Snow Voyageurs Snowmobile Club.

We hiked the one mile wooded trail to the Rocellet Falls. The rock of the Canadian Shield creates a sidewalk thru the woods, except for the spots where the tree roots unable to penetrate the shield and clinging to what dirt is available, make an ankle-twisting maze. It was a lovely walk and the falls are very pretty.

We visited our dear friend Beverley at her sister Wendy’s cottage on Deer Lake in Sundridge and had a wonderful time.

Marti goes for a boat ride on Deer Lake with our friend Beverley. Fraser was Captain and Wendy was Co-captain. I sat in the middle for balance.

They took us on a boat ride and out to Burk’s Falls see the Screaming Heads. Concrete castings about 16 feet tall scattered across the landscape, these heads, hands and rearing horses are odd and fun. There were also many large to huge metal bar pyramids and a few geodesic domes throughout the place. Oh, and a giant string web in the woods! One of those “you gotta see this” places 🙂

Screaming Heads reminiscent of Edvard Munch's "Scream".

Screaming Heads reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.

After Ontario we headed to Quebec and Quebec City. This is a major MVP (Must Visit Place)! We stayed across the St. Lawrence at the Campground Transit and took the short Levis Ferry ride across to Old Quebec City.

On the ferry from Levis…

If you can’t make it to France, this is the next best thing. Founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain this walled city is incredibly beautiful. With a commanding view of the river, the French, who finally lost it to the English in 1763 and the Americans who could not defeat it and so ensured that Canada would belong to England, the city is proud of its history. Inside the original walls it has such a European feel and with the population still speaking French we felt we must have traveled a lot farther than our odometer said (even in metric). We spent two windy days wandering around and will be back for sure. Plus, there’s this amazing, not too expensive, attic condo in the heart of the Old City that is calling my name…..

Recollet Falls

The big falls at Recollet.

French River from the bridge.

These signs were all over Ontario back roads…

Berries of some sort on the trail.

Canadian maple leaf and some sort of “shroom…

Horseshoe Lake in Alliston Ontario with a Blue Heron….

The Screaming Heads place at Midlothian

Ed piloting the hand pulled ferry at the Screaming Heads.

Quartier Petit Champlain in Old Quebec City

The Funiculaire du Vieux-Québec runs up the cliff to the Frontenac in the Old Quebec neighborhood of the city.

Flower Box in Quebec

Croissants and coffee at Le Maisson Smith each morning on the square at Palace Royale.

The City Gate

Real Poutine for lunch at La Buche …. yummm

The Owens Valley and Bishop California ~ Just Gorgeous

24 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Alabama Hills, Bishop California, Bouldering, Bristlecone Pine Forest, Buttermilks, California, Hot Springs, John Muir Wilderness, Manzanar

Hey there folks, just a quick note ~~ as you no doubt have noticed there’s been a lot of time between our posts. We were out of internet range a bit, and then we stopped off in New Mexico to visit my sister and Ed’s cousins, then on to Austin Texas and NOLA visiting more friends and family. Long time short 🙂 we have been back in Maryland since mid June after a surprise 5 day visit to Providence Hospital in Mobile, AL and a fast run back home to our own doc’s and hospital. Ed’s the problem child this time with diverticulitis and an abscess but he’s doing fine and everything is going to be great after a lot more antibiotics and a surgery. We do however have to postpone our travels until about the end of September. After this post and probably one more about our adventures we hope you’ll wait patiently until we get back to regular blogging about what’s over the next hill!!

I’ll tell you right up front, every place in this rather long blog post (which dates back to early May) should be on your MVL (must visit list)

Located in the northern end of the Owens Valley in the eastern midsection of California, is the town of Bishop. Small and delightful, it would be a major contender in our short list of places to live. Nestled down between some of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west and the White Mountains to the east (both running in the fourteen and thirteen thousand foot elevation range) everywhere we looked the view was magnificent, and with the fairly heavy snow that fell while we were there it only got prettier.

Bishop has quite a few restaurants including a famous bakery, Schat’s, another bakery Great Basin with amazing sandwiches, and Mahogany Smoked Meats more amazing sandwiches, and a fairgrounds RV park that while not pretty, is in the heart of town and not expensive. Ed was too busy enjoying his sandwich at Great Basin to take a picture…

Schat’s Bakkery Breakfast of Champions!

Mahogany Meats ~ Now, that’s a sandwich!

Most of all Bishop is a hop, skip and jump from some of the prettiest country anywhere and is a climbing Mecca to boot. We kept extending our stay and will absolutely be back for another visit.

Ever since we started out back in November 2014 we seem to take weather with us, snow, rain, and/or wind. To California’s great delight we brought snow this time and the mountains really got dumped on. Just before the weather really started to come in we went down HWY 395 to Big Pine and up RT 168E to the road up to Schulman Grove in the Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains at just over 10,000 feet elevation. Ancient Bristlecone Pines can live practically forever…. the oldest is over 5,000 years old! The tree only grows in isolated groups at high elevation in a couple of places out west. They thrive in extremely dry, lousy soil, high wind and cold which also gives them a very short growing season. They can survive even when part of the tree is dead, which helps give them a most unique appearance.

Schulman Grove Bristlecone Pine Forest

Unfortunately the really, really old ones are about 12 miles out a road our RV could not possibly do and my planned hike into the forest was curtailed by very menacing clouds moving in fast, however someday we’ll be back.

We had to skedaddle down the mountain in front of this storm.

Next day we headed out RT 168W (Line Rd.) to the Buttermilks. The landscape of these ginormous glacial erratic boulders is just incredibly cool and I had fun pretending I actually knew what I was doing 🙂 . Our rock climbing kids Kevin and Za were very jealous we got to this world class bouldering Mecca before them. Even if you don’t want to try your hand at climbing the rocks are wonderful to see both for their size and the patterns in them.

Ginormous Rocks at the Buttermilks

The following day we headed south down 395 to the Manzanar National Historic Site near ironically enough, the town of Independence. The incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII was one of Americas lowest points and this site is the best preserved of the 10 internment camps that were located around the country. The day we were there the wind was just howling as it so often does in this area and it certainly added to the embarrassment Ed and I felt as we spent a couple of hours reading the many exhibits in the center and then touring the grounds. Not a pleasant visit but important to remind ourselves that we must never forget acts of shame done in blind fear and ignorance.

After this somber start of the day we headed on down 395 towards Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills. Another landscape of wonderfully formed granite, Alabama Hills has been one of Hollywood’s favorite locations clear back to the 1920’s. We had a lovely little hike and promised ourselves next time we’d stop at the movie history museum in town.

Bad guys are in dem thar rocks!

The following day the on again off again winter weather really showed up. It was 36* in the morning and we hunkered down as it rained, snowed and blew all day. The mountains the next morning were covered in deep snow and it was just beautiful. We headed out HWY 6E to RT 120 and then Benton Crossing Rd. A lovely drive with patchy snow on big rolling hills, and the mountains as backdrop we headed for the main attraction at the far end, hot springs.

Benton Crossing Road

There are quite a few in the valley and most of these in this area are public and free. The one we stopped at, Hill Top, comes out of the ground at 136*, but it’s picked up by a pipe that has a diversion valve in it so one can open it and allow the water to run freely over the ground cooling it before it gets to the “tub” where the temp is about 104*. Never being one to really like hot tubs, I went exploring while Ed had a lovely dip and chat with a couple of other folks there.

Does he or doesn’t he?

The next day, our last in Bishop, was crisp and clear and we headed north up 395 to Tom’s Place and the Rock Creek Forest Service Road up into the Sierra’s, We drove until the snow was covering the narrow road and pulled off to continue on foot. About a mile and a quarter further up the road is the Mosquito Flats Trail-head parking lot and several trails into the John Muir Wilderness. We headed out the Morgan Pass trail into the Little Lakes Valley. The air at over 10,000 feet is a bit thin, and the hike to get there was a bit long in that thin air, BUT, the only thing missing on this glorious Mother’s Day was the physical presence of our two boys….and the girls they love…but because we know how much they’d love this place we felt them with us and it was magical…and I might have cried a little bit.

Little Lakes Valley, John Muir Wilderness on Mother’s Day 2015

Cactus Flowers near Bristlecone Pine Forest

At the Buttermilks. Note the eroded pattens in the rock.

Fracturing of the rock that results in the large grains of “sand” below.

Showing the large grains of eroded granite.

Alabama Hills.

Desert Flowers at Alabama Hills

Marti holding up the Mobious Arch in the Alabama Hills.

A big place.

Last shot of the Alabama Hills.

Rock Creek down from Mosquito Flats Trail head

Marti spied this coyote having a dump and he really looked embarrassed to be seen.

Proof! She was there.

Snow shadows.

Proof! Ed was there…

The High Sierra to Bishop, California ~ Just WOW!

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

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Bishop, California, Carson Pass, Lee Vining, Monitor Pass, Mono Lake, Sierra Nevada

Heading off to cross the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains (the northern bits still being too cold) there were only a couple of passes open. Luckily for us one of the most convenient to our location and destination of Lee Vining, CA was State Hwy 108 crossing the Stanislus National Forest over the Sonora Pass. Even though this is the 2^nd highest pass it was open and we happily started off at a leisurely rate stopping along the way to do two short hikes to see the views and the rare formation, “Columns of the Giants”.

"The Columns of the Giants were created by perfect conditions, when lava flowed into an ancient riverbed and pooled behind a natural dam. As this deep pool of lava slowly cooled, the molten rock hardened and shrank, splitting into multi-sided vertical columns. As the hot lava cooled, like most liquids, it shrank, causing tension in the new rock. Cracking relieved the vertical stress. Vertical columns occurred only where lava of uniform composition and thickness cooled evenly from top to bottom. During the first lava flow the straight columns were formed. The second flow left twisted upper layers over the already cooled first layer. The vanished glacier during the ice age polished the tops of these columns, leaving behind their scrape marks and exposing the columns. The rocks at the base of the columns are called talus. As water seeped into cracks in the rock and froze, the expanding ice crystals slowly wedged the massive blocks apart. Heaps of smaller rocks collected at the bottom where they’ve separated and fallen. You can feel the cool air rising through the talus. Remnants of this ancient ice still remain, covered and preserved by the fallen rock." Tuolumne County Historical Society

From the Tuolumne County Historical Society website, “The Columns of the Giants were created by perfect conditions, when lava flowed into an ancient riverbed and pooled behind a natural dam. As this deep pool of lava slowly cooled, the molten rock hardened and shrank, splitting into multi-sided vertical columns. As the hot lava cooled, like most liquids, it shrank, causing tension in the new rock. Cracking relieved the vertical stress. Vertical columns occurred only where lava of uniform composition and thickness cooled evenly from top to bottom. During the first lava flow the straight columns were formed. The second flow left twisted upper layers over the already cooled first layer. The vanished glacier during the ice age polished the tops of these columns, leaving behind their scrape marks and exposing the columns. The rocks at the base of the columns are called talus. As water seeped into cracks in the rock and froze, the expanding ice crystals slowly wedged the massive blocks apart. Heaps of smaller rocks collected at the bottom where they’ve separated and fallen. You can feel the cool air rising through the talus. Remnants of this ancient ice still remain, covered and preserved by the fallen rock.”

This is where we turned back from the Sonora Pass 26% grade.

After driving sixty miles over four hours and approximately eight miles from the end we came to a sign warning of an upcoming 26% grade!! As our son Kevin said…”that’s damn near straight up!” It’s not but it is incredibly steep and the most we’d ever done was 14%, but we decided to give it a go. The RV went slower and slower and was not downshifting. Ed thinks it wouldn’t let go of the gear long enough to downshift and so at a narrow pull-off we stopped. Not knowing if that was or was not the 26% or how much more there might be (after quietly sitting a while and being really irritated) we did a careful about-face and headed back out. If any of you gentle readers have any sway with the Cal Trans Highway folks, please tell them to post the warning signs at the BEGINNING of these mountain pass roads!!

After spending the night dry camping at the Jackson Rancheria Casino in Jackson and having a good steak dinner and only losing 84 cents total at the slots we headed for State Hwy 88, over the Carson Pass and then onto Hwy 89 and the Monitor Pass. Turns out the frustration the day before was a blessing, Hwy’s 88 and 89 are gorgeous!! Kit Carson guided wagon trains through much of this country and many things are named for him. The roads run primarily along a ridge and the views of snow covered mountains and valley lakes are wonderful.

Looking southeast to Antelope Valley from Carson Pass

Arriving late afternoon in Lee Vining with heavy dark clouds, lightning and rain/almost snow on our heels we settled in for the night at Mono Vista RV Park. Having driven up and across these steep and treacherous mountains, our respect and admiration has grown tremendously for those pioneers who traversed this area in wagons and on foot. I’m not sure any of us can truly understand the drive and determination it took for people to leave all they knew back East to cross this vast country risking everything and everyone they loved, to hopefully achieve a dream in a place they had only heard about. It’s mind-blowing and they came in droves.

The next morning with the sun struggling to make an appearance, we visited Mono Lake ( pronounced Mow-Know Lake) one of the places I have wanted to see for years. Ed’s not quite sure why I’m so enthralled with this terminal saline soda lake, (and the tiny biting flies didn’t help) but I find it interesting and mysteriously beautiful. I suggest it for you MVL, (Must Visit List). The Mono Lake Committee has an excellent visitor center/store where a young man enthusiastically answered all our questions and explained in great detail the agreement reached with the City of Los Angeles who started diverting the lake water back in 1941. We would later learn that LA started buying water rights all over the Owens Valley back in the early nineteen teens which eventually lead to water wars and years of legal battles and a parched, destroyed landscape.

Mono Lake Panorama

Next stop was Bishop CA. at the top end of the Owens Valley. A wonderful little town with a famous bakery, lots of restaurants and world class rock climbing/bouldering all around. We liked it so much, and found so much to see in the general area that we stayed for a week. We will absolutely be back and highly recommend this town and area for your MVL.

Monitor Pass Valley – Marti wants her house right there by that first big pine tree…

Looking down to Lee Vining, CA and Mono Lake from HWY 395

Tufa formations on Mono Lake

Storm clouds approaching over the Sierra at Mono Lake moments after the photo above this one.

Marti gets her workout…

The Giant Sequoias and Big Sur

09 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

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Big Sur, California, Fishermans Wharf, Hearst Castle, Highway 1, Monterey, Paso Robles, Seals, Sequoias, Wine Country

From Kernville (last post) we drove up Hwy 99 to Sequoia National Forest and over to the Great Divide Highway and the Trail of 100 Giants . Here we followed the walking path amongst these amazing trees. This place is a cathedral and just like the 4^th movement of Beethoven’s 9^th it brought tears to my eyes. We were especially lucky in having the place almost completely to ourselves. Put this on your MVL (Must Visit List) and renew your soul.

Trail of 100 Giants – Sequoia National Forest

From the there we continued on to RT 190 which is fairly wide but wins the nonstop twistie-windie (Ed’s new word) prize. It took us almost three hours to cover twenty-seven miles. His arms and shoulders hurt at the end, but it was beautiful!

Twistie-windie road ahead… and note, the speed limit… only in California or maybe Texas but there’s no twistie-windie roads there

Driving the San Joaquin Valley which is the middle and southern part of California’s Central Valley where a great deal of our food comes from, we landed in Paso Robles, CA where a good bit of our good wine comes from. We even stayed at the Wine Country RV Resort! One of the resort’s offerings is an almost private tour of local wineries with a knowledgeable driver. So after going on our own to visit Wild Horse for tastings, the next day we joined Buzz (I kid you not) for a tour of three small wineries, Halter Creek, Opolo, Whalebone and then back to Wild Horse. Yup, we were buzzed (and broke) when the day was done, but our evening selection of wines has gone way up in variety and quality. 🙂

Paso Robles Vineyards

From Paso, it’s an hour or so drive over beautiful 46W to US1 and the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. We did the general tour and the upstairs tour and while the famous view was mostly fogged-in we could still tell the location was worth the effort.

San Simeon coastal view from the Hearst castle.

Part of the upstairs tour was Hearst’s Library… our favorite room.

The house and grounds however did not impress us near as much as the Biltmore in Ashville, NC nor Winterthur in Delaware. However, that being said the State Parks system which operates the place did impress us with the closing of all restrooms in favor of port-a-potties. Nice to see some folks in this state acknowledging the drought! FYI, we asked and Patty is doing fine and was just up a couple of weeks ago for a family wedding.

Staying in the Central Valley we moved up to Yanks RV Resort in Greenfield. From here we did a day trip and drove over to Monterey to walk around Old Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row. Most of the wharf is restaurants and almost all have someone out front hawking their place with clam chowder samples. We tried each and the Italian restaurant Domenic’s won us over for lunch. They had gorgeous prawns right off the boat that morning that were huge! The day’s special was seven of them steamed, in a garlic, basil, red pepper and light butter and wine sauce over pasta that was to die for!!! Our waiter, Pablo put bibs (origin: Late Middle English: probably from Latin bibere ‘to drink’.) on us… YUMMMM!!

Them’s some prawns!

Oh and the view out the window into the harbor was delightful with a couple of seals and one sea otter swimming through periodically. Put this place on your dining MVL.

One among many amazing views on this drive down Highway 1 in Big Sur.

The next two days we headed on down the famous Pacific Coast Highway US 1 from Monterey to Big Sur and on down to just below San Simeon and back across 46 to Paso.

Looking back north up the coast at a different crossing.

The coast line, where we also saw a pod of whales, is just incredible with huge cliffs, towers of rock in deep and astonishingly blue water where the large waves just keep coming and coming and coming. It is mesmerizing and makes one feel so small and yet so alive all at the same time. Absolutely put on your MVL!

NOTE– We are fascinated by the agriculture (and the reality of this drought) in the Central Valley and spent several days just driving around and looking at it. I know we said last post we’d write about “where our food comes from” but you’ll have to wait please.

Marti examines a tree that fell last year. Nobody was hurt, but there were witnesses…

The Six Sisters

Ed gets to the root of things here…

Such a spiritual place.

The peacefulness of the silence is only interrupted by birdsong.

Ice Plants and other wildflowers flourish in the cool moist air.

A nice home site next to this cove.

Waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Big Sur

Shamrocks at Big Sur

Sticky monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus)

The Three Graces – Hearst Castle

Indoor pool detail – Hearst Castle

Snow Plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) Sequoia National Forest

Arghh arghh!

California Lessons Learned….. Book Ahead

26 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

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California, Hotel Del Coronado, Julian Pie Company, La Jolla, Pacific Ocean, Palm Springs, Point Loma, San Diego, Shelby Cobra, Torrey Pines

We left Borrego Springs via S22 over the extremely steep and rock strewn mountains to ultimately land in San Diego. As we have seen time and time again at the crest the landscape changes and we descended into Ranchita and a high valley filled with lush green grass, “full sized” trees and gorgeous, open range. It actually felt like part of back home in Maryland.

Outside and above Julien, California.

On RT. 70 we came into the cute little town of Santa Ysabel and the first building we saw was the Julian Pie Company….. yes we did and it was DELICIOUS! Driving on to the town Julian we continued our beautiful drive onto smaller and smaller roads on over to Lower Otay Lake and sort of slid into San Diego the back way.

We camped at Mission Bay RV Resort right in town on the water and rented a car for our ten day stay. We had a wonderful visit with our son Scott’s roommate from his first tour in Iraq, John (Petey), his lovely wife Natalie and their sweetheart Golden Retriever Grizzly. We also saw a longtime friend from our ballooning days Jacque and her husband Bruce which was great too. We’re still not sure about the city however. The climate is amazing, the drivers are COMPLETELY NUTS and the expense of everything, ($40 to park for dinner one evening) and street layout confusing, all surprised us. We did have fun and saw lots of neat stuff but it’s not on the list of possible places to live.

Hotel Del Coronado – it’s haunted… so they say.

Fish Tacos at Point Loma Seafood for lunch and Balboa Park Tower

Heading off to Palm Springs where I had visited with my sister Ellen back in maybe 1990 we arrived at Happy Traveler RV Park practically right next to one of the free trolley stops to discover the Thursday Night Street Fair was soon going to be setting up! We hopped on the trolley, walked around the shops, had drinks and watched two real Shelby Cobras get off-loaded from their trailer right next to us. One was being raffled off to benefit the Wounded Warriors Project and we bought six tickets for the drawing in January. We then had a very nice steak dinner and wandered around the street fair for two hours or so. Lots of fun!

Shelby Cobra’s at the street fair

Very rare as it’s autographed by Carroll Shelby

From Palm Springs we headed up Morongo Valley and over to Joshua Tree National Park, which being the weekend was full of people with no camping spaces open and rather flat light for photographing. It is beautiful and we drove around some but put it on our “will return list”.

Driving out 395 on our way to Kernville at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada and the Sequoia National Forest the first bit of this famously beautiful road was dead flat and barren then rolling short hills and poor ground. Closer to RT 178 and then our turn off onto Sierra Way the landscape is prettier and grass covered, although the grass is completely brown and the once very large Isabella Lake is mostly dried up.

Isabella Lake or what’s left of it…

Kernville on the Kern River is a nice little town and when there’s enough water a big white water rafting Mecca. The drive out of town up into the Sierras on Mt. Hwy. 99 along the Kern is beautiful. There are lots of dry camping grounds however, many were still closed from winter and as it was the weekend those where we could fit and that were open, were filled. We did manage to find a spot in two different campgrounds the two nights we stayed.

That’s more than enough this time…. we’ll tell you about HUGE trees and where your food and vino come from next post!

Cattle drive the old fashioned way even if it is Holsteins

Old Point Loma Lighthouse

La Jolla tidal pools

Torrey Pines State Beach

Looking North at Torrey Pines State Beach

La Jolla

Late afternoon over the Pacific

California Here We Are!

19 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

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boondocking, Borrego Springs, California, dinosaurs, metal sculpture, Ricardo Breceda

Heading to Borrego Springs via RT 78 South we drove through the southern end of the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness near Glamis, California. Approximately 45 miles long by 6 miles wide the most popular theory of the dune’s origins is sands blown in from the long ago and long gone, very large Lake Cahuilla. Divided into 3 basic areas the part we crossed allows ROV/ OHV (Recreational Off highway Vehicles/ Off Highway Vehicles) access and there were lots of folks racing around these beautiful mountains of sand. Personally I was hoping for Sean Connery galloping down a hill on a beautiful Arab ala The Wind and The Lion….ah well, a gal can dream 🙂

Not Sean Connery, but a full grown man on top of the dune.

From the dunes we crossed miles of barren big rolling hilly desert most of which was BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property as well as the Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreational Area. The number of RV’s and campers and people racing about on OHVs was amazing. The sheer size of the amount of desert being rutted and permanently altered by this activity was mind blowing. Even more staggering was the constant dust haze hanging in the air downwind!

Arriving in Borrego Springs which backs right up to the Santa Rosa Mountains we drove up S22 out of town and up into these stark mountains of rock. Steep, twisty and winding with an incredible wind blowing the ride was spectacular and a bit scary.

3000 feet below is Borrego Springs

We were heading for Culp Valley a boon-docking (no electric/water/sewer hookups) area at which we hoped to camp. High up at 4600 ft. and tucked into a kind of small rocky meadow we loved the place. There are only a handful of spots and the only one we could fit into was so out of level we just had to give up. Disappointed we headed back down the mountain to the Anza Borrego State Park Campground. In hindsight it was just as well, the temperature dropped way down and the wind howled all night and while the night sky would have been wonderful, that high up the cold and rockin’ & rollin’ from the winds would have made for a VERY long night!

Scattered about the desert around Borrego Springs on the Galleta Meadows LLC property of philanthropist Dennis Avery (deceased) are 130 metal sculptures by Ricardo Breceda. After a bad accident Breceda could no longer do construction work and started selling exotic boots. Trading a pair of boots for a welding machine he started “playing” with it. At the request of his daughter to make her a life size dinosaur he discovered his hidden talent. Dennis Avery found him and together they have introduced some of the original “livestock” back into what is of course now desert. Lots of fun to see!

The calm of morning after a night of howling winds at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. They started back up around mid morning.

A sampling of Breceda’s sculptures in the Borrego Springs Desert.

Space Rocks, Tree Rocks and Good-bye Arizona

11 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

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Arizona, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Starman, Winslow Arizona

With apologies….“Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see It’s an ED, my Lord, BY a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me….”

On our way east from Flagstaff to our next RV Park and sightseeing destinations Ed said we had to take a swing off of I40 to drop into Winslow so he could stand on a corner. Imagine our surprise to find the only thing going on in this now mostly boarded up town is “THE CORNER”. He thought he was being really clever. Turns out everybody’s doing it! Still lots of fun!

Standing On The Corner

From the day we saw the movie Starman (starring Jeff Bridges & Karen Allen, 1984) we’ve wanted to see Meteor Crater for ourselves. WOW!! is a polite way to describe this amazing hole in the ground! (Truth…..that’s not what I said). Hurtling along at about 26,000 miles per hour 50,000 years ago, a meteorite, or perhaps a dense cluster of meteorites, estimated to have been about 150 feet across, weighing several hundred thousand tons passed through our atmosphere in a matter of seconds crashing into the earth here. The resulting crater is 700 feet deep and over 4,000 feet across! During its formation, over 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone were abruptly thrown out to form a blanket of debris around the crater for over a mile. Fragments of rock and iron-nickel, some as large as a few feet across, were thrown as far as several miles. The end result today is a fascinating and astonishingly cool scientific reminder of how devastingly fast our little planet can be altered. Definitely put this on your MVL, (must visit list).

About 18 miles east of Holbrook AZ off Rt. 180 is the entrance to the 28 mile drive through Petrified Forest National Park and the southern edge of the Painted Desert.

Petrified Forest

Over 200 million years ago trees lived in what was then a floodplain crossed by many streams. Also home to crocodile-like reptiles, giant amphibians and small dinosaurs these trees lived, fell and were washed across these floodplains. Over time a mix of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs cutting off oxygen and slowing their decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped into the cells of the wood replacing the original tissues with the silica and other minerals turning them to rock – petrification.

Is it wood? Nope, it’s really rock.

Time passed, the continents moved, this region was uplifted and the climate changed. More time, wind and water wore away the rock layers and exposed the fossilized animals and these ancient petrified logs.

Scattered across the desert for miles and still being exposed as the covering rock and sands are eroded away this beautiful landscape can’t help but make one be amazed at the remarkably slow march of time. Even with it so clearly laid out before you it’s almost more than can be grasped. Absolutely a MVL candidate!

Coloration is entirely minerals

Petrified wood chips, Marti really liked these.

We had a wonderful two and a half months in Arizona and we still have not seen the northern part. America’s forty-eighth state is amazing in its landscape and geology, has wonderful state parks and in winter is full of nice friendly Canadians. For those of us who like plants and rocks every turn in the road can produce a drastic change in flora, rock and minerals. Elevation and its effects on them is clearly evident and wonderful to see. We are now in San Diego visiting friends and eating fish tacos while figuring out where to go next.

Petrified logs emerging on the plain of the Painted Desert

Painted Desert

Virga over the Painted Desert

Badlands of the Petrified Forest

Blue Mesa between the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

Logs emerging from the rock in the Petrified Forest

The Painted Desert

Flagstaff, Arizona – Canyons and Craters and Caboom!

05 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Arizona, Bonito Flow, Flagstaff, Route 66, San Francisco Peaks, Sunset Crater, Volcano, Walnut Canyon

On our way to Flagstaff via another beautiful curvy mountain climbing road we stopped at Walnut Canyon National Monument. The limestone cliffs here are lined with naturally eroded overhangs creating shallow caves and alcoves where starting about 1124 people (now known as the Sinagua) began building their homes. Mostly building in the recesses facing south and east, although there are some north and west facing, there are over 300 rooms around the canyon walls. Using limestone rocks, they shaped them roughly and cemented them together with clay found in the canyon, which they then also used to plaster both the inside and outside of the walls. The site was only occupied for about 100 years and lay basically undisturbed until the 1880’s when the railroad brought souvenir hunters to these ancient dwellings. In 1915 Walnut Canyon was declared a national monument. Everywhere you look there are the remains of these rooms. There is also an excellent, although often narrow, circular trail down around a peninsula in the canyon where one can get a nice view and actually step inside some of these ruins. Walking around this narrow and now paved path looking across the canyon to all the many rooms we couldn’t help but chuckle at what OSHA (and modern day parents) would have to say about working and playing here. 🙂

Looking closely, midway down, you can see the line of chambers that were homes.

And you can get a Black Cow at the Galaxy Diner on Route 66.

Flagstaff is a neat town and I really liked it….a lot. Ed of course couldn’t help but point out they can get over 100 inches of snow a year! Oh well, guess we’ll not put this on our “I could live here” list! Visiting is however highly recommended. The town backs up to the San Francisco Peaks which are beautiful and is also at a high enough elevation, 7000 feet, to have wonderful Ponderosa Pine forests, which are lovely although my sinuses disagree.

Sunset Crater

Just up the road from Flagstaff is Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Sunset Crater is the youngest volcano in a string of volcanoes related to the San Francisco Peaks. Most recently erupting about 900 years ago, Sunset Crater is a cinder cone and the cinder and ash field it produced covers 810 square miles! Lava does not explode up and out from this type of volcano, but it can and did squeeze out from the base.

Bonito Flow

This lava flow called the Bonito Flow is perhaps 100 feet thick and where it burst out on one side of the crater it filled a narrow valley for 6 miles! The end result for us, is a rugged and sharp landscape that is not only incredibly impressive, it’s beautiful too.

Lava squeezes up and hardens

Cinders, Aspen and Pine

Tough flowers grow in the ash fields

San Francisco Peaks the remains of a large stratovolcano similar to Mt. St. Helens.

San Francisco Peaks, at 12,637 ft are the remains of a large stratovolcano similar to Mt. St. Helens, estimated to have been over 16,000 feet.

Virga falling over the San Francisco Peaks…

Round Rocks & Red Rocks… Prescott and Sedona Arizona

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Arizona, Bill's Pizza, Granite Dells, Prescott, Red Rock, Sedona, The Palace Saloon

Hey there everyone, sorry we’ve been so remiss in getting our blog postings up. We promise to try to do better; in fact we have to because Ed has quite a collection of wonderful photos piling up in Lightroom.

We always look at the places we visit and ask each other if it’s somewhere we could live. Of the two places covered in this posting Prescott makes the list! What a cool little town! We camped at Point of Rocks RV Park because it backs right up to the Granite Dells just outside of town.

Granite Dells, Prescott

One of the coolest things we’ve discovered over the last 2 months in Arizona is the amazing diversity in landscape and geological formations. In fact, Ed calls the whole state a theme park for geologists. The Precambrian Granite Dells, some of the oldest rocks on the planet, are one of these geologic surprises. We spent an afternoon looking at and climbing up and down over this fabulous giant fairy land of stone. We saw faces, Muppets, gnomes, body parts and whole figures reclining in the scattered and balanced granite, and that doesn’t begin to cover our delight in seeing the Liesegang rings (patterns in the rock) caused by the precipitation of limonite.

Having had a good bit of exercise on day one, we spent day two in town. Whiskey Row before 1953, a notorious red light district right next to the county courthouse, is full of art galleries, restaurants, bars, shops and fun. Ed says he could eat pizza everyday (please no comments 🙂 ) and having gone for weeks without he was getting cranky. Bill’s Pizza came to the rescue and we highly recommend you give them a try if you’re in town. YUMMM!!!

Pizza Pizza!

We also enjoyed an adult beverage (or more) at The Palace Restaurant and Saloon. On July 14^th 1900 when the length of Whiskey Row caught fire the Palace’s patrons carried the huge bar, liquor cabinet and piano player with his piano across the street to the courthouse square where serving continued as they watched the place burn down!!

What a town!! Put Prescott Arizona on you MVL (Must Visit List)

Leaving town via the very steep and extremely switch backed State Route 89A through Cottonwood and Jerome we headed for Sedona and Red Rock Country. This is an incredibly beautiful drive but if your vehicle is any larger than our little 25 footer DON’T travel this route! If nothing else gets you the tiny cliff-side town of Jerome will!

Road on the left and road on the right…

Sedona is known for glorious red rock mountains and it truly is lovely in all directions. We did not do more than drive through town as it’s a big tourist destination and being Spring Break it was busier than we generally care for. We did however go on a 5 mile hike back up the Mund’s Wagon Trail just up the road from the Rancho Sedona RV Park where we camped. Compared to some of our hikes this was relatively easy and we had a delightful day.

On Mund’s Wagon Trail

We’ll be posting soon with our continuing “WOW, look at that!” trip to Flagstaff and surrounds, ‘til then hope you are enjoying Ed’s photos!

Sleeping figure. Can you see it?

Marti scrambling…

Liesegang rings

Balancing Rock

In Prescott, memorial to Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, the Arizona 1st Cavalry

Elks Theater in Prescott

Cairns on the Mund’s Wagon Trail

Agave Century Plants. Babies from the dead one in the middle

Trail-side blooms

Sedona Red Rocks on the trail

All done…

Ancient Ruins – Casa Grande, Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 1 Comment

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BoomerCafe, Casa Grande Ruin, Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well, Tuzigoot

While camped at the RoVer’s Roost RV Co-op two weeks ago we went to see The Casa Grande ( “Big House”) Ruins in nearby Coolidge AZ. Abandoned around 1450 by the ancient Sonoran Desert people who built them, the name refers to the largest structure on the site completed about 1350.

Casa Grande Ruin

Built up of layer upon layer of caliche it is four feet wide at the base, narrowing as it goes up. The house consists of outer rooms surrounding an inner structure which is an amazing four stories high. Its walls face the four Cardinal points of the compass with holes and openings that align with the sun & moon at specific times of the year. What this particular structure was used for is unknown. There are other smaller ruins of the village scattered in what was the walled compound.

Casa Grande Ruin Roof Structure

Concern about souvenir hunting, graffiti and vandalism prompted repair and protection and in 1892 President Benjamin Harrison set aside a square mile surrounding the ruins as the first prehistoric and cultural reserve established in the United States. The ruins are interesting but Ed was most impressed with the steel shelter roof built over the entire structure in 1932! As you can see, it is indeed remarkable.

After our Natural Bridge adventures were over we headed off to Camp Verde. This area is the location for two important ruins and one natural wonder. Misnamed by early settlers who assumed that it was Aztec in origin, Montezuma Castle is a five-story, twenty room cliff dwelling about ninety feet up a sheer cliff. Built between 1100 and 1300 it is an excellent example of early stone and mortar masonry constructed almost entirely from chunks of limestone. A short distance away against the cliff there is also a badly deteriorated five-story building with about forty-five rooms. Again these people abandoned these homes by the early 1400’s.

Montezuma Castle

About eleven miles northeast of Montezuma Castle National Monument is Montezuma Well. A natural limestone sinkhole with an incredible upwelling of deep 74 degree groundwater, this peaceful pool is replenished by 1.5 million gallons of water per day!

Montezuma Well

Remembering that all the earth’s water is ancient (refreshed is perhaps more accurate) it is estimated that the water entering the pool is about 10,000 years old. The water wells up through two vents with a force so strong divers cannot drop instruments down them.

Irrigation canal at outflow

Overflowing through a long narrow crack this water was directed by the ancient people into dug canals, some as long as seven miles, to irrigate their crops. Interestingly, recent test have shown the water to have high concentrations of arsenic. The area is also full of ruins covering many cultures from pit houses to small cliff dwellings in the walls around the well and pueblo villages dotting the banks of the waterways through the valley.

Cliff house ruins at Montezuma Well

Tuzigoot National Monument located on the summit of a long ridge above the Verde Valley just east of Clarkdale, was built between 1000 and 1400. This village began as a cluster of rooms for about fifty people and then about 100 years later the population doubled and then doubled again.

Tuzigoot Ruin

The pueblo eventually was two stories high in places with eighty-seven ground floor rooms and 110 overall.

Tuzigoot Rooms

The visitor center museum here is excellent. I was especially impressed with their collection of pottery. It is very difficult to make large vessels and the number of very large and well proportioned pieces found at this (and other) ancient sites is amazing.

Large Vessels

Now for some shameless bragging….. A few weeks ago Ed & I were very pleased to have been invited to submit an article and photos to the on-line magazine BoomerCafe. The magazine is for and about baby boomers but we’re sure younger folks will enjoy it too. We are really tickled to announce that several days ago we were published!

Whack-A-Mole Wheels

Category Archives: Travels

Hello Ontario! ~ Au Revoir Quebec!

The Owens Valley and Bishop California ~ Just Gorgeous

The High Sierra to Bishop, California ~ Just WOW!

The Giant Sequoias and Big Sur

California Lessons Learned….. Book Ahead

California Here We Are!

Space Rocks, Tree Rocks and Good-bye Arizona

Flagstaff, Arizona – Canyons and Craters and Caboom!

Round Rocks & Red Rocks… Prescott and Sedona Arizona

Ancient Ruins – Casa Grande, Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot