Albuquerque to Lubbock, TX

Seeing this country by way of car travel has been great; certain parts of the Southwest I could certainly have skipped. The drive across only the top half of TX was one of them! But check out where my hosts took me to dinner. LOL

Glendale to Flagstaff and then some

Well, I'm really behind in blogging now and I don't have the excuse of no internet! I'm putting in a LOT of miles each day and have been bushed by the time I get camp set up and eat dinner. So, I'm going to Post a bunch of videos tonight but put them on different postings so it's not confusing.

Bob and I had a blast. We travel well together and had lots of laughs. He also was able to do his usual "Mr. Fix It" on a couple of small things that had come up with the camper. :)

Zion National Park with Bob

When we hiked Bryce we were amazed at the landscape because it was truly spectacular. Then we went to Zion . . . what comes after spectacular???? Actually what is interesting is that the two places, although just about 60 miles or so apart, are very, very different. At Bryce you are at the top of the canyon looking down into the rocks and at Zion you enter the park and then travel 12 miles down into the park. The formations are totally different as well. Not sure if you'll be able to see the differences on the flip video or not?

On our third day we could either go back to Bryce or Zion (your pass is good for 7 days). We decided to go back to Zion and do the hike called Angels Landing. Oh my goodness. Let me put it to you this way; there are multiple signs that say "Warning, people have died on this hike. If you are afraid of heights do not attempt this route." So, being Bobby and I we thought that would be fun. It was; aren't we sicko's. The total hike took us around 4 hours but the ascent was incredible--very, very steep and the last .5 miles was extremely technical and crazy scary. Some pathways weren't more than 4 feet wide and on either side is a 1,500 foot vertical drop. They drove bars and chains into the route at the steepest points to help you hang on. Two weeks ago a woman slipped and died. So, the signs weren't any jokes. I guess a guy offed his wife there a couple of years back.

Another amazing thing at Zion is the tunnel. There is a 1.1 mile tunnel that was completed in 1933. The had three different teams start at three different places in the desired tunnel and they blasted and dug towards one another. None of the teams missed their marks by more than 1 foot!!!! Think of that and we didn't even have big technology then. Anyway, enjoy the footage. Hopefully I'll have some good pics.

Forgive the noise in the middle but the camera was outside of the truck to try and get the best possible footage.

Brother Bob & Bryce Canyon

I picked up Bob in Salt Lake City and we headed down to a small town called Glendale, which is just between Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park. On Tuesday we hiked at Bryce and it was amazing.

Also, I got the message that the last couple of videos were choppy; probably because the internet connection has been so weak. Anyway, I'm re-uploading them tonight so try them again. If you press play, then pause and walk away from the computer for a few minutes, you'll see that the red bar beneath the player will get ahead of the little bubble. This will prevent the stop and go of the video. Hope that makes sense. :)

Last Days in Yellowstone & the Grand Tetons

We had such a wonderful trip to Yellowstone. So much to see and do we could have spent many more days. After I left the Johnson's I drove down Route 89 through Grand Teton National Park and it was stunning. There are two videos on this posting. (I re-uploaded these two videos on August 28th)

Yellowstone with the Johnsons

It sure was great having Sue, Kevin, Ingrid and Brian meet us in Yellowstone. The only downside was we didn't have enough days! The park is absolutely huge and really quite impossible to see in just 4 days. Imagine this; when you cross anyone of the main gates (there are 5 of them into the park) it takes at least an hour and fifteen minutes to get to anything. That is how vast it is. The lake, which sits in the middle has 141 miles of beach if you were to walk it. And the lake is just a fraction of the entire park.

Things I didnt know about Yellowstone:

* It was the first National Park in the world. 1872
* It is the largesst National Park in the US
* It has the largest fresh water lake at this altitude in the US.
* It has more thermal giesers than either New Zealand or Iceland
* It is a site of a super volacno 640,000 years ago.

Here is just a few snipits from our time together.

Not sure if you saw these?

I'm now on a good internet connection and am going through the videos and not sure if you got these two videos. If you saw it directly on youtube then I apologize. This was on our way to Yellowstone--two days, two parts..