31 July 2011 - 24 hours from home bed to hotel bed in Shanghai, China

7am Pacific - An early start to a very long day
I always think I am going to pack the night before a big trip and I never do. At least this time I woke up early enough, 7am pacific, that I felt I could get out the door by 11am no problem, get to Issaquah to pickup sleeping pills at the Safeway pharmacy and pick up my passport with updated Visa for China from my office, and make a 215pm departure!

Of course, the boys needed a little bit of attention too so my timeline started to slip... And only then did I remember that J had a dentist appointment at 1pm.
Yet I already decided to ask our nanny to drive so I wouldn't need to spend money on parking and so my wife could use my car while I was away.

So now my relaxed morning packing went back on the clock.

Also I should mention that my passport was "due to arrive" at my office by 10am but had not yet actually arrived.

1140am - All aboard the Minivan -
The text mesage from my super awesome Office Manager arrived with the happy news of Passport sighting and so i could leave.
So it would be a chauffeured drive with the boys and I being able to chat a bit, which was a nice change.
We stopped at the Safeway, I got my pills and some snacks plus Jamba Juice for the boys and I (nanny saying no), so off to my nearby office building.


1PM Pacific - SeaTac drop off -
Not terrible for the checkin,truly over an hour. Perhaps a record for me?
Now the dreaded random prize - what kind of seat would I get?
An aisle seat near the middle of the plane.
A bit disappointing but not terrible so off to the South gates.

Some snacks and something to drink helped kill some time plus I could pick up a gift for my friends in China - some smoked salmon.

I decided to also check at the gate counter again for a window seat or a free upgrade. This tactic pays off more often than you would think.
Bonus prize - a window seat is now available and even better it is actually the row where there isn't a window. Why do I like the non-window window seat? For an eleven hour flight you need a way to lean against something.

Upon boarding there is a potential disaster!

I am going to be sharing my row with a mom and her 18 month old daughter! Even armed with my fresh prescription sleeping pills I could be crossing into the equivalent of a heavy metal concert when you are in the mood for Brahm's lullaby.

The mother explains that she and her daughter have been traveling often and that the little girl is really good with air travel. Now I have watched enough horror movies to know that if they tell you it's safe to go back in the water there is usually a 20 ft man eating shark about to eat the pretty girl, or in my case ten hours of crying and screaming within 18 inches of my ideal non window window seat.

As I smile, I am thinking how small should I cut my sleeping pill so that it would be safe to slip into a toddlers sippy cup?

215pm Pacific - On time departure -

It turns out this little girl sleeps better than I do without any need for surreptitious medication, and she eats her dried seaweed snacks and her mom entertains her. Overall, perhaps an even better traveling companion than on any recent flight I have had. Certainly quieter than that snoring ex linebacker who leaned onto my shoulders on my last flight.

I spent most of the trip watching the movies offered on the in flight entertainment system Koran Air offered. It was a decent selection of movies I had missed in theaters and had been interested in.

Such as:

Limitless
Sucker Punch
Battle: Los Angeles
Paul

The time passed well and despite the cooperation of my enchanting young neighbor I decided to not resort to the sleeping pill myself and try to stay awake to get onto Asian Time.


610pm Seoul time / 210am pacific - The Rain in my Seoul -
As we got into Incheon International we ended up circling for at least an extra 60 minutes or more. The weather was so rainy that many flights were being delayed and I later found out there had been extensive flooding around Seoul [for AP news story see this link].


Landing late with little time between flights, and for International flights you have to be re-screened through security, all combined to make me worry I might even miss my connecting flight.

I rushed through thankful for the "people mover" to help me go faster towards my gate... And of course the gate was almost the furthest it could possibly be away from my landing gate.

I made it just as they were to begin boarding. Except they weren't.

Because of all the delays with the weather our plane was going to start boarding 30 minutes late.

So now I am soaked from the humidity and the mad dash through the airport for nothing.
So I calmly walk back down the terminal and find something cold and wet to drink, take a few minutes to use the free Internet lounge, and relax. Once I get back to the gate another western gentleman casually mentions that Seoul flooding was bad enough for it to have taken him almost four hours to get to Incheon by bus, a trip that is usually closer to an hour.

730pm Seoul / 330am Pacific - Leeeeeea-ving, on a Jet plane, from Incheon, I'll be back again -
For those not keeping score this gets me over the twenty hour mark without sleep. Not terrible but starting to drain me.

My companion this time was a Chinese father with his family returning from several weeks vacation in the USA. They had seen NYC, Washington DC, and San Francisco and he was able to communicate enough that they really had enjoyed their first trip to the USA.

The same set of movies was available so I chose one I had wanted to watch but ran out of time on the twelve hour flight before. How is that possible! It seems like I should have been able to watch everything.
Movie:
Cedar Rapids

9pm shanghai / 6am - China Shanghai PuDong International Airport arrival -
The flight was about 2.5 hours and uneventful. Therefore perfect.
Getting through the short immigration line wasn't too bad. My previous trip was close to 90 minutes but this was about ten!
I wanted to catch the maglev high speed train from the airport and was worried that it used to shut down at 9pm.
They have now extended the hours so i rushed to the ticket window and by 930pm I was on the maglev and headed for the PuDong station at over 250km/hour.

945pm shanghai / 645am Pacific (23.75 hours) - PuDong Station -
The thirty minute taxi ride is reduced to about ten minutes or less by using the high speed maglev. Leaving the station there is a long line of taxis and usually I avoid the aggressive drivers that aren't licensed and want to high gross the stupid tourists with an unregistered fare. I mean I have been doing this for years right?

Well I am almost at the 24 hour mark. So I went with the first guy who offered me a ride. Sigh.

As I hand him my hotel map (at least awake enough to remember that), he happily explains that the five minute cab ride will only be 180 RMB! (exchange rate is 6.4 these days).
The ride to the airport normally costs maybe 90 RMB and is 30 minutes. So that works out to be about 12x the right price to my thinking.
We bicker and argue and I consider trying to get out and find a more reasonable driver.
He finally agrees to 40 RMB and I feel as if I am Brian arguing with a gourd seller in a Monty Python movie.
I just want my hotel.
Off we go and he is happy to have a 25 RMB markup on about a 15 RMB fare. At this point am I supposed to care about the equivalent of $4 he is ripping me off?

Our destination is a brand new hotel, the Kerry Hotel right at the new expo center at Century Park in PuDong (the eastern half of Shanghai).

When he pulls over to drop me off I am a little suspicious as I cant see a hotel entrance. He insists it's the right place. Since I see a lit green sign saying Kerry Residences I agree to get out.

Turns out it's a fairly large complex of apartment/condos plus some shopping and the expo center. But he dropped me off on the opposite side of where the hotel itself is... And so I wander around in the dark a bit with all my luggage trying to find a hotel entrance.

10pm Shanghai / 7am Pacific - My new business home, The Kerry Hotel
Finally a welcoming set of doors leads me to a warmly lit reception desk where I am given a keycard, porter assistance with my luggage and I stumble across the threshold into a very nice king size bed.

Total trip time over 24 hours from one bed to another



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Shanghai, China

12th of July - Willits, CA to Klamath, CA

Itinerary
Start - Willits KOA @ Willits, CA around noon
End - Camper Corral @ Klamath, CA, about 7:30pm
Distance ~ 200 miles
Map:


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Somewhat unusual start as I woke up well before J
After he woke up he and I had breakfast and then I ventured forth to see the campground in the daylight and go make sure our late nite checkin went well.
What an amazing campground.

Last nights carrots were gone. Right nearby our spot was a ton of stuf for kids:
The pool, hot tub and special 1.5 ft wading pool.
A petting zoo where you can buy food pellets to feed the animals for a quarter
A playspace
A splash park
Western kid town
Then there was a large frisbee golf course
Rental go karts

The RV sites had a lit utility pole (first time and very handy last night after dark)

Friendly staff (despite the youth of the two girls working the office they were attentive, helpful)

Lots of other kids to play with several grandparents with their kids

The kids played, fed the animals and swam in the pool until after noon.

On the road

We started back onto the 101 North and were back into climbing up and down mountains. This part of the 101 had actual rockslides so lots of places where there was just one lane.

We went to several of the slightly unusual attractions at this part of the Redwoods.

Confusion Hill and Gravity House

The One Log House

Grandfather Tree

Apparently a good river swimming spot as a group of about 25 kids paraded past the Grandfather tree and down towards the river.

Richardson Grove State Park
We drove into the State park to look around. The entrance station will give you an hour pass for free to make it to the visitor center. The narrow roads go around large Redwoods and along the 101 past several campsites.

The visitor center has several paths with amazing Redwoods.

Avenue of the Giants
You can take a scenic detour off the 101 and onto the Avenue of the Giants. There are a couple of places to start or exit back onto the 101 but if you drive the whole stretch of road it is only about an extra 30 minutes. The first stop going north was a burned out Redwood known as the Chimney Tree.

Past Philipsville I went back onto the 101 to make better time towards Eureka, and we made it there by about 5pm.

Eureka for snack and strategy
A brief stop in Eureka at the mall parking lot would let us get a snack and research which campground to aim for. I considered some of the roadside little parks and campgrounds along the way to Klamath but since I wanted to get to the Trees of Mystery early in the morning, Klamath seemed like the best option.
Reviews looked good for the Camper Corral right in Klamath just a mile or so south of the Trees of Mystery, so I called the manager to make sure there were available spots and we pushed on for just under a two hour drive from Eureka.

Along the way we spotted a huge herd of Elk and saw some great scenic views of the ocean and many more Redwoods and forests.


Camper Corral on the side of the 101
Immediately off the 101 at Klamath, just after the Golden Bears bridge over the Klamath River, was a large grassy campground. The friendly manager was a multi-year RVer in his early 30s living and traveling with his kids around the country. They offered pizza baked fresh there at the campground and we took them up on the golf cart pizza delivery service to get some cheese and pepporoni for dinner.


Although there was a heated pool, it started getting slightly dark. We wanted to make the hike down to the river before dark and so we skipped the pool. The long hike through the woods was along a cleared path and the three of us had fun pretending to be time explorers.

At the river, we had been told there were two whales trapped upstream until the tides were more favorable for them to return to the ocean. We were able to spot them surfacing for air a few times. As it was getting dark we decided to head back to the RV and hopefully the pizza.

We set up to eat outside but the clouds rolled in and it started to rain. So we finished the pizza inside and got ready for sleep.

At about 1030pm, K and I were watching Star Wars IV - A new Hope on the iPad2. I heard a strange tapping sound on the driver's side. So I moved up to the cab to find out what was going on. While looking around I saw movement off to the right - towards the bushes and trees leading to the river. There was a fish cleaning station just 50 feet away.

The movement that caught my eye was large, black, and hungry.

Someone had left fish guts in some buckets at the fish cleaning station. This would indeed attract a large scavenging black bear.

K and I watched as the bear pawed through the buckets and at whatever he found. This lasted for almost an hour. I tried to wake up J (who was fast asleep before the bear showed up).

13th July - Klamath, CA to Maple Valley, WA

Itinerary
Start - Camper Corral @ Klamath, CA (~ 10am)
End - Home @ Maple Valley, WA (~ midnight)
Distance ~ 520 miles

Map:


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Trees of Mystery
When I was about four or five (so about 1973 or so?) my father took me on a trip by himself down the west coast to Disneyland. I remember several places very clearly along the way. One of them had this giant Paul Bunyan statue (just over 49' tall) with Babe the Big Blue Ox. It took 38 years but I finally made it back to the Trees of Mystery tourist stop in the California Redwoods right at Klamath, CA on Hwy 101.






There was a host who greeted the kids via a speaker in the Paul Bunyan statue and could wave the hand and wink the statue's eye. The host is a talker, and likes to make jokes and be informative.

As the Paul Bunyan statue is 49 ft tall, the boys are small enough to get stepped on!

Here is a link to a webcam at the statue:  http://www.treesofmystery.net/webcam.htm


The Trees themselves
At this private park they have a great trail that takes you for a simple hike through some of the best examples of the wonders of this ancient forest.

The world's largest 'family tree' has several trunks growing from its upper branches





Near the start is a wishing well the boys enjoyed

















The trees reach heights of 300 ft

The trees can reach heights of 300 ft

The Cathedral Trees grew close together forming a natural 'chapel' that is now used for weddings

The Brotherhood Tree is enormous about 300 ft tall and 19 feet in diameter. It is over 2000 years old.

The boys at the enormous Brotherhood Tree

Sky Trail
One of the best ways to appreciate the local scenery is to hike up to the final stop in their park - the Sky Trail that leads up the mountain.
J was excited while K was nervous, but in the end K was brave and overcame his fear of heights as long as Daddy was going with him. J had no fear of course! The trip up takes about 10 minutes and slows down a few times so you can take pictures. The vertical rise is about 571 feet. Each 'car' can hold about 6 people.

Getting ready to board a Sky Trail

Starting up the Sky Trail

Halfway Up

The top of the ride up

The view from the top was a bit foggy but beautiful

Old Logger Folkstories
Once you get back down, the trail leads you through a number of woodcarvings depicting various stories and characters of the old west logging folktales.

Legend of the giant Trained Pack Rats

Four characters from logger folktales

J had never heard these stories

Mamma Bear and Flapjack

Gift Store
At the end of the trail you end up back at the gift store. There was some snacks like some good ice cream and a couple of good books and souvenirs.


Crescent City
We then drove north to Crescent City for gas Subway sandwiches for lunch. Across the street was a liquor store so I picked up a couple of bottles of Everclear for the Wife's friends at work (some new drink recipe).

The beach

Playing on the beach at Crescent City, CA

It was getting late in the afternoon (after 2pm) and I was getting worried about the drive home. My goal was to try to make it home to Maple Valley tonight. But the thought of having driven all that way and not letting the boys play on the California beach seemed like a waste!
So I turned back south to get to the beach access from the downtown spot I was at.
It was such a good decision to spend some extra time chasing the waves and getting sandy.





Three boys playing in the ocean water at the beach for a little bit of time.
After a little less than an hour we trudged across the hot sand and back to the RV. We did our best to not get too much sand in the RV (note to RV designers - the external shower should be on the same side as the main door instead of the driver's side).

Then back on the 101 to drive north through Crescent City and finally to take the HWY 199 NE towards Grant's Pass.

The Winding 199
I was not able to go too fast on that highway. We finally got to a rest stop right at the Collier Tunnel on Highway 199 (about 3 miles south of the Oregon / Cali border). There was construction going on delaying traffic down to one lane for both directions through the tunnel. So feeling tired from lunch and the road, I stopped for a short nap at the rest stop (~ 30 minutes) before we pressed on to the Oregon border.

We stopped at the border sign for a quick photo.

At the California / Oregon border on HWY 199

Oregon is bust for now
I would have liked to have taken the boys to several places along the way back. If I had three or more days more then we'd have gone to the Oregon Caves (Cave Junction is right on the 199), Crater Lake, and J wanted to go to Cannon Beach and the Tillamook factory for ice cream. Of course the Oregon coast offers the Sea Lions, and Sand Dunes, and many other sites.

But since we can take a 4 day weekend trip to get to Oregon from Maple Valley, I figured these were things we could do on another trip. Besides, Momma might want to come along and see the Northern California sites she missed. So another RV trip south via Oregon might cover these sites.

I-5 North

Truck fire on I-5 Southbound near Grants Pass

By sometime after 4pm we were in Grant's Pass and ready to head North on I-5. I had forgotten that southern Oregon had plenty of mountains left to throw at me. So I wasn't quite done with ups and downs and semi trucks just yet. There was even a spectacular truck fire on I-5 south closing down traffic completely somewhere north of Grants Pass.

11th of July - Los Banos, CA to Willits, CA

Itinerary
Start - Los Banos West I-5 KOA @ Santa Nella, CA [1030am]
End - Willits KOA @ Willits, CA [11pm]
Distance 275 miles
Map:


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Drive past the Reservoir, into Gilroy then to San Jose

Raging Waters waterpark in San Jose

West then North up the 280

Quick visit to San Mateo HQ and some Kmart shopping

North to the Golden Gate Bridge

Pizza in Petaluma (8pm)

Back North on the 101 to Willits
Starts to get a bit twisty and curvy now that night has arrived
Consider stopping in Ukiah

Stop for gas in Willits, then 2 miles west to the KOA campground

10th of July - Anaheim to Los Banos, CA

Itinerary
Start - Anaheim Resort RV Park, Anaheim, CA
End - Los Banos West I-5 KOA Park, Santa Nella, CA
Distance - 305 miles

Map:

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La Brea Tar Pits

Hard to find parking for an RV

Leaving LA
Driving through Hollywood to get to the freeway
Pass by Pasadena, the setting for Big Bang Theory
Heading north through the mountains

West or Central CA?
At this point swimming was the main preoccupation of the boys. I wanted to try to figure out a water park to head to for tomorrow for the kids to swim in the morning. They wanted another 'lazy river' option. I had two choices - Fresno (the waterpark there is called ) and the eastern side of central California or San Jose leading closer to the 101 Route North into San Fran (and past my work HQ located in San Mateo).

9th of July - Anaheim, CA

Itinerary
Start and End - Anaheim RV Resort, Anaheim, CA
Disneyland
Distance - 0 miles
Map:

8th of July - Blythe CA to Anaheim CA

Itinerary
Start - Blythe Colorado River KOA Campground, Blythe, CA (right at the Arizona / California border)
End - Anaheim Resort RV Park, Anaheim, CA (right near Disneyland)
Distance - 216 miles
Map:


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Leaving Blythe and heading west
The campground had many RVs parked for storage. Also, it had a boat ramp for boating in the Colorado river which looked like fun.
We wanted to swim in the pool for the morning (the kids had been looking forward to the giant water park in Phoenix that we skipped out on to escape the Phoenix heat). But the pool was literally covered over in a layer of dead bugs as it hadn't been cleaned yet. When I asked about the condition of the pool, I was told it would be at least another hour before the maintenance man cleaned the pool. The kids were very sad and we didn't really want to wait that long.

So we packed up and hit the I-10 Westbound into the California desert.

I-10 West to LA - still too hot
We made it through blazing heat to a little ways out from Indio, CA.
When we pulled over for another tank of gas, I spotted a set of old tanks right at the exit which would turn out to be the General Patton Memorial Museum, another random cool find.

Just a few hundred feet past that was the busy gas station. Again I ran into the problem of the heated gas tank being slow to fill. This time there was a service station attendant who helped. He said he had seen this problem with RV gas tanks in the heat before. The line into the tank was too horizontal. He stayed with me and helped try to get more gas into the tank - at least 10 gallons to get us past Palm Springs or so. A very nice guy who was quite helpful to ease my mind at last as to what was going wrong with trying to fill up the RV.

Inside the gas station there was a full Foster Freeze. So we got lunch and ate inside the nice air conditioned convenience store/mini restaraunt. We met a mother with three kids who was stranded there while her car engine was repaired. They were on their way back to Arizona from Disneyland.

We took the opportunity to teach her two sons (about the same age as J and K) the Super Hero Squad card game and gave them some sample decks from PAX last year that I had on hand for just such an occasion. They loved the game and we left them with some postcards and the cards to help keep them occupied.

General Patton Memorial Museum
After finishing lunch, I drove the RV over to the parking lot of the museum.
K and I only spent a few minutes going inside as J stayed in the RV with the generator and AC on so we could take some snapshots to see what it was like.
Outside had the tank yard and the West Coast Vietnam Wall plus a Korean war memorial.

After that it was back on the road west.

Palm Springs - still too hot and giant Windmills again
There was another water park that I considered but the heat was unbearable still. As we continued further west to leave the CA desert, we spotted a huge set of windmills. Hundreds of them south and north of the Interstate.

Finally we made it out of the desert and into the cooler coastal region.

Pharaoh's Adventure Park, Redlands, CA

I saw a billboard for a Pharaoh's water park a few miles out of Redlands. So I made the decision to stop for the evening for the kids who had braved a full day of driving with only water park fun on their mind. There was no address listed for the water park so I had to find directions via phone browser. Even at the right exit there was no real sign so while the earlier billboard had worked to get my attention, they were missing some customers without a good sign at the exit.

The park was very close to the I-10. You have to pay for parking though. I was able to park the RV in the back corner of their parking lot away from any other cars so there wasn't any problem maneuvering in or out.

We spent from about 5pm to 8pm at the park for the discounted evening rate of about $12 each (adult and kid were same price). It wasn't crowded at all. They had indoor family entertainment center type amusements plus both indoor and outdoor inflatable slides. But the kids wanted to head right for the water park.

The park was not crowded, even on a warm Friday evening. I grabbed a rental locker and set up our towels near the entrace to the "Nile River", which was the first 'lazy river' style water ride the kids had tried. They LOVED it. We tried a few of the other rides but always came back to the Nile for more fun.

K met a girl that he swam for an hour with on the Nile. She showed us there were even bumper boats on the other side of the park but we had to have shoes and shirts to use them so we just went back to the Nile again and again.

Overall a great park for a very affordable price.

Anaheim by 9pm
We drove from Redlands down to Anaheim in dusk and finally darkness. After a little detour when we had to pull off the highway for a potty break and ended up in suburbia, we finally got to Anaheim proper right at 9pm.

The RV park had a couple of sites open for night check-in without reservation, even on a Friday night. We took spot 143 (see http://www.anaheimresortrvpark.com/facilities-map.asp ). It was easy to back into even with a 28' RV. We met our neighbors who were quite friendly (one couple with kids with a 23' Class C from Las Vegas, and the other older couple with a traditional trailer and big pickup truck).

Then the kids wanted to hit the pool (water monkeys swimming twice in the same evening even).

The pool was heated and felt great as the temperature was starting to drop a bit even in southern California.

What a relief from the heat of the past week. Southern Cal felt just right.

The pool was open until 10pm.Watching the Disneyland fireworks from the RV park pool was a great way to finish the evening.

7th July - Meteor Crater to Phoenix to Blythe, CA

Itinerary
Start - Meteor Crater RV Park, Meteor Crater, Arizona
End - Blythe Colorado River KOA RV Park, Blythe, California
Distance -
Map:


Got up with J at 730am
Got everyone else up with breakfast by 830am
J and K both want a pool
JR and JR had a shower
meteor Crater
Watched a ten minute movie
Touched part of the meteor
Went outside to a couple of viewpoints
Windstorm while outside
Helped other people take family pictures
Not allowed down into the crater
Museum with lots of exhibits on other meteors
It has a subway restaurant
Gift shop
USA Astronaut Wall of Fame

Drove back to I40 west to flagstaff then south on I17 towards Phoenix
Rainstorms
Huge climb up out of Camp Verde
On way into Phoenix finally saw real large cacti!
Phoenix
Hot! Over 106 degrees F
Got to the airport by 445pm to drop off Momma and Sissy
Waited at the cell phone lot to make sure everyone got through security and make our own plan to get "out of Dodge" or in this case Phoenix

Headed west on I-10
Passed world zoo but pulled off the freeway for a long potty break for the boys plus some snacks.
Left the greater Phoenix area and then more cacti
Long flat road
J started to have a tummy ache
Lots of water for both boys
Long uneven road
Had problem filling gas again
Sun set before Quartzsite
Pushed on to the California border
Exit to KOA campground is IMMEDIATELY at the inspection station to the far right. It would be easy to miss.
Late checkin was easy
J slept in the big bed this time and I slept on the couchbed after K and I watched a movie together.

6th July - Monument Valley, Utah to Meteor Crater, Arizona

Itinerary
Start - Goulding's Lodge / Campground, Monument Valley, Utah
End - Meteor Crater RV Park, Meteor Crater, Arizona
Distance ~ 310 miles
Map:

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5th July - Mesa Verde to Monument Valley

Itinerary
Start - Mesa Verde RV Resort, east of Cortez Colorado
End - Goulding's Lodge in Monument Valley Utah


Pack up at Mesa Verde RV Resort
By now we had the morning routine down. J would be up first usually by 730am. He would want toast, milk, and a pop tart. Then S and I would get up and finally K and T.

Someone was using all of the washing machines so we had to skip laundry again.

Head in to the Mesa Verde National Park
The park entrance was only a mile / 1.6 kilometers away so we did not feel rushed. Great location and highly recommended.

From the entrance it is "Only sixteen miles to the visitor center," said the friendly US Park Ranger. She did not mention what kind of sixteen miles.



Oh my...

Ok just one more peak right?

Ok just around the next hairpin right?

Montezuma Valley Overlook (#2 on map) / Knife's Edge road viewpoint gives you the chance to appreciate what you have been driving up. We got out for a few minutes for some pics.



Ok just a little bit further.

Whew
There's a lodge up here?

Wild horses? On the top of a mountain?

There is a large parking lot on the right. It connects to the visitor center by a tunnel under the main road.

The visitor Center is the place to review, schedule and pay for any Park guided tours of some of the famous spots such as Balcony House and Cliff Palace at $3 each person for each tour. Also the place to get your kids Park Passport stamped.

.

The main attraction cliff dwellings are further south but the road from here is quite easy, level and even somewhat straight. Just a short five or six mile drive to the first stop.

Spruce Tree House is the first major cliff dwelling site is at the small museum and is self guided.

The parking lot is spread out and if you are in an RV it is a little bit of a walk. The museum has a nice collection of geological and archeological artifacts. J loved the dioramas depicting the several stages of technological development of the local native civilization.

From there the hike down to Spruce Tree House was simple and pretty - no ranger needed. There were lots of folks with strollers and even toddlers making the hike down into the canyon from the museum.

It is a small site but still gives you the first experience of how the cliff dwellings are situated.


Spruce Tree site is small but has a covered kiva you can climb down into. The line might be a few minutes but J was happy to be the first in our family to ever climb down into one.



The Hike up includes two bench rest stops which were needed for the little ones.

With the sun and the hike folks were tired. We decided to leave at 2pm as S was getting very burned.
Two major tours skipped

We drove down into Cortez for some shopping and gas.
Trying to get out of the gas station we were blocked (wide turning radius) by two older German men in a SUV not at a pump but just relaxing with their shoes off and parked in the exit. Their grasp of the physics of the situation was nicht sehr gut (apparently my assumption that all Germans are rocket scientists was faulty), but finally they decided that the increasing volume of our request for them to move could prompt them to action. In this case the American axiom of "when attempting to communicate to someone who does not understand English, simply repeat yourself in an increasingly louder volume until understood" actually seemed to work.
Somehow they were going exactly the same direction. I would have to follow these old German men for miles on very bad roads out of Cortez and into Arizona. Apparently they were also not proficient autobahn drivers or assumed that the posted 70 MPH meant meters per hour as they drove significantly slower than the speed limit and a long line of cars started piling up behind us.

Four corners
Finally getting to the turn to the Four Corners monument was a relief. We were back in the heat though. The boys were excited to finally get here. It was very close to the main road.
We took pictures in four states with only a few minutes wait for other tourists. The monument is on Navajo land and their are vendor stalls in all four states around the monument. Less than half the stalls had vendors there and we passed on the hot Navajo bread. But the boys and I did buy snow cones which felt great in the heat.





Drive to monument valley through kayenta
We continued our drive SW to the town of Kayenta. From there we could have continued towards the Grand Canyon area going through Tuba City but decided to detour to the north by about 30 minutes into Monument Valley along the border of Arizona and Utah.



Past some amazing scenery

Goulding's Trading Post, Lodge, and RV park
Goulding's trading post is a very short drive to the west just North of the border. To the east is the entrance to the Navajo Park of Monument Valley. But you can see all the famous mesas right here at the intersection.

At the corner you drive past a brand new school in what seems to be a completely uninhabited location. Why the big grass football field? Apparently part of the federal America Recovery act was allocated to schools in the middle of poorer regions with low population that need grass football fields where there is little water.

Nestled in between some mesas is an amazing little settlement. Originally started by a husband and wife and mainly trading with the local Navajo, eventually the beauty of the mesas drew tourism and it has grown into a large set of services including a store, lodge, rental duplexes, clinic and rv park.
And the RV park had an indoor swimming pool which was a hit for the boys as they swam in the evening and the morning (unheated).


The view from the park itself was great.





Unusual 1970s RV parked next to us


Driven by an Architect on a 5 week trip with the family from Santa Cruz. It was one of the few RVs built on it's own RV specific chassis instead of van truck or bus conversions. It sat somewhat lower and he told me it was full height inside. It also seemed wider without needing a side popout.

Red sand was everywhere so had to be careful of tracking it in.

S got laundry going while I watched the boys swim.

Then S and T and I watched Rashomon on iPad and monitor while boys watched DVDs on the little tv until bed time.



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Itineraries are worse than business and battle plans

Itineraries for an RV trip are worse than battle plans. They are from a world without highway reconstruction, unexpected weather, potty breaks, hunger, wind, curvy roads, and unexpected beautiful vistas.

In short, the same thing I was told in the military and that has been true for business plans applies here - you MUST have an itinerary but ten to fifteen minutes into your trip it will be out of date and completely useless.

Besides it can end up being the enemy as you try to stop having fun at place A exactly on time in order to drive for four boring hours to find place B you found on the Internet that turns out to be more boring than the four drive.

The reality is that there are an abundance of camp grounds, RV parks, rest stops, and even Wal-mart parking lots so reserving a spot at someplace two weeks in advance that is several days into your trip might just make you a slave to something that won't bring the goal of fun to your trip.

Perhaps being an entrepreneur for twenty years let's me be more flexible - do the two or more weeks of research and planning and strategizing so you know where to find the info and how to update your situational awareness and have your end goals with good budget parameters.

But my advice is be more of a vacation entrepreneur and less of a Soviet General with a Five Year economic plan.

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4th of July - Moab Utah to Cortez Colorado

Itinerary
Start Moab Valley RV Resort, Moab, Utah
End Mesa Verde RV Resort outside Cortez, Colorado
Distance - 162 miles
Map:


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Morning in Moab
The drive into Moab was in the dark so the family was surprised to wake up surrounded by the red rocks of the Moab area.

Originally I had hoped to give the kids time to swim at the RV park pool in the morning.

But with wanting to get going and the pool not opening until 10am and checkout "strictly enforced" by 11am we decided to get going and head into the Arches park.

The park was literally two miles away so a simple drive and we were at the start of our adventure.






The entrance to the park is at the base of some cliffs and the visitor center is right there too. It is a very nice center with good information on how the Arches landmarks were formed and all the geological information you could want.


The gift store is nice and well stocked. Two items I recommend:
First is the US Parks Passport stamp book for a little under ten dollars. At each park kids can stamp their passport book with a date and a park stamp and feel like a world traveller.
Second - on a whim I saw and bought a CD self-guide tour that you play in your car while driving the park. Each track is keyed to a certain location in the park as listed on a small map. The tracks are short yet packed with great info and details about what you see either driving or stopped at a key landmark. The only criticism was the terrible bird tweet at the end of each track. Everyone in the RV hated it and I had to scramble to cut the volume each time. You can rent it for $5 plus a $5 deposit or just buy it for $10. A very good purchase!

Let me go on a tangent here with a quick rant about user interface design. This was the first time we tried to use the RV's radio/CD system. It is a Sony CDX-F5000. Above it is the AC and heating control.



Take a look at this picture and see which is intuitive and which is arcane.
Where is the pause? What does BTM or SENS do? I have used many audio devices in my life and we could get it to play the CD but not pause. Terrible design!

Ok so back to the cool stuff!


The amazing natural wonders of the Arches!

As we drove up the steep and winding road (a recurring theme of this trip) we entered a wonderland of beauty.




But it was soooooo hot the kids and Momma were in constant danger of heat exhaustion. Plus S is basically allergic to the sun.



We went to most of the major spots and spent about four hours driving through the park and hiking at a couple of easy hikes.



A strange sighting was the Lost Bus (www.lostbus.com). Three young guys touring the country as evangelists and explorers.




Lots of great sites with easy hikes.

K at Balanced Rock







K making his own balanced rock


Hike to Double Arches with T and K









The view back to the RV parking from the Arch





T climbed up and K decided to follow. It was a bit harder to get down than up.




After this it was on to Delicate Arch area, one of J's favorite picks from the Internet images he has seen on google earth. On the way is Wolfe Ranch - the site of a homestead at the turn of the century.






A little further on to a couple of viewpoints on the famous Delicate Arch. It was way too hot for the three mile hike to the Arch somwe settled for the easy viewpoint.



J at his favorite landmark in the world


Missed spot #2
We finished up at about 4pm and my goal was to make it to The Hole in the Wall (www.theholeinthewall.com) 12 miles south of Moab. I mistimed leaving and we couldn't get back out of the park and through town in time before it closed at 5pm. Sigh. It seemed like a cool quirky place to see and it was right on the way.

So we stopped at frozen yogurt in town instead.


Drive from Moab to Cortez
We hit the road southeast to Cortez Colorado. We wanted to make it to the RV park outside of Mesa Verde Park before dusk and get the kids into a swimming pool at last.

The road south was another set of ups and downs but then turning SE at was an easy straight drive. The park is just a few miles further out of town and the RV park was only a mile past the park entrance. Great location and a very nice park with good facilities.


The kids swam in the cold water outside pool while S and I soaked in the covered hot tub.



That night I set up the Beemans telescope I borrowed for the first time. Just in time as the moon was setting but we all got a good view of the craters on the moon.

All in all a great day!






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