San Juan Skyway Tour 2009

By Jenetta Loggan

Page 4

Last updated: October 17, 2011

Link to MyPublisher Book 2009

Click on any photograph to enlarge the image then click one more time to see more detail

June 24

We left Vegas to go to the Grand Canyon. We will stay in Flagstaff again if we can go to the J and H RV Park again. Boy, it never ceases to amaze us at how low lake Mead is. They really need lots of rain up north to make any difference here at all. We stopped at the Hacienda Casino for lunch and played the slots for awhile. Dave won 3 gold dollar coins and gave me one for a souvenir. Deanna won about $4.00 on the nickel slots. At the Hoover Dam parking garage entrance there's a really nice memorial to the "high scalars" who worked on the canyon walls of the dam in the 1930's. We crossed Hoover Dam again and marveled at the road and bridge construction going on to bypass the dam. As we passed through Kingman, AZ, Dave thought he spotted a race car driver sponsored by the National Guard. Ah ha!! It was #24, Jeff Gordon's car. We got to J&H before dark thank goodness. After supper at the RV park, Deanna and I went for a dip in the hot tub while Dave cooled his heels at the trailer. Fantastic!! The hot tub really relaxed me.

There is so much to do in Flagstaff that I can't cover it all here. Be sure and go to Flagstaffarizona.org and order one of their visitor guides. It has more goodies in it than you can imagine. Map of Flagstaff.

Lake Mead

Memorial to the high scalars

The bridge

Can't wait to cross it for the first time!

June 25

We are going on to Grand Canyon today over "the big loop". We will take 89 north, take the NF-545 loop to see Sunset Crater and Wupatki and then 89 north to 64 west (to the Grand Canyon) and 64 back to I-40. The long way around but a really pretty ride. We took NF-545 east off highway 89 for a small loop stopping first at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and further down the road Wupatki National Monument. Sunset Crater is located in a very pretty, tall pines forest with a log home style visitors center with lots of information about the volcanoes that were all over this area of Arizona. Toward the base of Sunset Crater is an extensive lava flow area that chills you to the bone. Just think about how hot and hostile this area once was. On down the road we toured the Wupatki ruins and saw more pueblos, with a blow hole and other interesting sights. We stopped in Cameron at a deli for lunch, then went on to the Grand Canyon. At Desert View, we took pictures of a tower we had not seen before, bought tee shirts and post cards and took a picture of an elk. Dee climbed to the top of Desert View and told us the view of Grand Canyon from the top of the Desert View tower is really spectacular! We then rode the bus to Hermit's Rest and back down. Saw more elk. We talked to one of the locals about the return to Flagstaff and he gave us a different route. He said take 180 off of southbound 64 and it would take us right in to Flagstaff. Boy was that a disaster!! Taking this road during the daytime is probably pretty nice, but at night while it is raining IS NOT the time to take this road!! Dark, under construction, raining, crooked, mountainous!! WOW!!

Sunset Crater and road to Wupatki

Wupatki

The big loop

Dave reading the book

So how did he get out there?

Lava flow with Sunset Crater in the background

Path below Wupatki main ruins. The blow hole is here

Desert view

Desert View staircase

One of the landings

If you look over their left shoulder you can see Desert View Waaayy in the background

Sunset Crater

The blow hole explanation

The blow hole

A couple of tourists at Hermits Rest

June 26

We headed for Albuquerque, NM this morning. I sent postcards to Barbara and Sam before leaving. It began to rain hard with lots of wind as we got on the highway heading east out of Flagstaff. Deanna was driving when suddenly a car lost control on the left of us and rolled over at least 3 times, barely missing the RV. Dave called the highway patrol to report the accident. Very scary!! Deanna did a great job of keeping us out of trouble. We had to slow down for more road repairs about 10:00AM. The rain had stopped by then, too. Lots of sunshine now. After reaching New Mexico, we stopped at Gallup to shop for supplies and gas. We were still almost 200 miles from Albuquerque. We crossed the Continental Divide and we had hard rain again. At Grants, we saw a car in the ditch with 2 police cars attending it. There are blue skies ahead so the rain won't last long. We arrived in Albuquerque about supper time and had another rain storm hit us, but it didn't last long. After supper, Deanna and I did laundry, stripped the beds and remade them. Didn't get done til about 10:30 PM, then fell into bed. It was a long day on the road.

June 27

Dave wanted Dunkin' Donuts so we left camp and went in search of a shop. We couldn't find one in Albuquerque, so went on to Los Lunas. We had the truck washed by a High School band group. We had found a Star- Buck's, so ate there while the truck was being washed. About 35 miles south of Los Lunas there was the neatest rest area design we had ever seen. Very rustic buildings with a mod design and some great little buildings on stilts with really nice picnic tables inside and a great overlook of the valley. We then drove to see the VLA (Very Large Array) telescopes. These are really huge dishes, called Whisper Antennas, that are used for radio astronomy. They map the galaxy. They told us that 3 regular size home would fit inside the dish. Interestingly several movies have been filmed here and used the antennas or had the antennas in the background. One with Jodie Foster called "First Contact", 2010 Space Odyssey with Roy Schieder are just a couple. We took the walking tour, visited the gift shop, then drove to the assembly building where the dishes are kept in good repair. I'm not much on science, but this was fascinating. I had never seen anything like it before. Dave said it brought back old memories of the NASA station where he worked on a 40 foot dish. On the way back to camp, we saw the Rio Grand River and stopped at Sandia Peak where we watched the loading and unloading of a big gondola that took people up the mountain. We considered going up in it but saw people crammed inside like sardines and having to stand all the way. At one point we counted 40 plus people getting out of one that had just arrived. We decided against it and got bombarded by gnats on leaving the building. After going back to the RV and having supper, Deanna and I soaked soaked in a hot tub. We all went to bed early as we are getting awfully tired.