There’s still more stories from Lone Rock. Randy pulled numerous dumbasses out of the sand. The membership in the club grew quickly. Wednesday afternoon we were relaxing around camp when Amelia spotted an Airstream heading for the trap. She sprang into action, jumped into the Tundra, put it in 4×4, and hauled ass to the Airstream to give them the warning. That’s how we met Kelly and Mike. This will come as no surprise to anyone reading this but, Amelia and Kelly became fast friends. There’s something about owning an Airstream. It’s like a gravitational pull. Airstream owners always flash their lights and wave to each other, and will often stop to just chat, with or without their Airstream.

Lone Rock is an OHV area. On Monday and Tuesday traffic was light, Wednesday things were picking up. Thursday the place was quickly becoming Glamis East. 4x4s, quads, and motorcycles were racing up and down the beach, so we packed up, said our goodbyes to Randy and left Mike and Kelly a note since they were out and about. We hightailed it out of there. Destination: the Gravel Pit.

I was rolling the dice a little without cell phone reception but, figured the odds were in my favor since the next day was Friday.

The Gravel Pit is less than an hour west but, puts us that much closer to Buckskin Gulch, the longest and deepest slot in the Southwest. Buckskin was a must do on this trip. As we were settling in, Mike and Kelly, while out and about, spotted our Airstream and pulled in to say hi (gravitational pull). We informed them of the changes at Lone Rock. Their response was we’ll see you in a few hours, if you don’t mind us camping with you. I’m thinking heck yes, come camp with us, this will give R and Amelia someone to talk to.

We all had a great time hanging out together and hiking. Kelly recently finished a two-month dog training course in New York. She had great tips and spent a lot of time with Amelia helping to train Sara.

Buckskin Gulch was beyond amazing.  We barely scratched the surface, only doing the first 4.5 miles. There were tight passages almost a mile long, then all of sudden the slot opened up to a canyon with sheer walls then quickly back to a slot. To do the entire 21 mile hike typically takes two days and some canyoneering skills.

Up next, Hurricane, Utah.

The lower Gravel Pit. Two beautiful Airstreams and R with his S.O.B. (some other brand).

This ain’t a joke!

Amelia and Kelly, entering Buckskin Gulch slot.

Amazing.

Do you see the wood debris half way up? That’s from a flash food. There’s no way you are getting out alive.

This shot gives you an idea of the sheer walls.

So cool.

How’s this for a great father & daughter shot?

Another pic to give you perspective.

Petroglyphs.

I wish I had more info on how old they are.

Utah Milkvetch.

Mark this date. Saturday April 19th, 2014. R departed. Adios!

On Sunday we took a little side hike to The Toadstools.

Sara off leash and obeying her master. At least one of us obeys.

Sara and her two boyfriends, Scout and Sam, cooling off in the shade.

Oh to be young! The bug was from Mexico and the van was from South America. Boys and girls having fun in America.

Lone Rock, Lake Powell. The water level is down 40 feet.

There’s always a day on every trip. The day we left Lee’s Ferry is that day. R left camp at 5am. He was in a hurry to get to Kanab, Utah to have a golf ball sized cyst on his back lanced at the Kane County Hospital. We left an hour later, hoping to get to the BLM office in Kanab in time for the lottery for a permit to hike The Wave. It wasn’t until we were approaching the Utah state line that it dawned upon us Utah is an hour ahead and we already missed the lottery. We hooked up with R at Honey’s Marketplace, where he happily informed us we were going to be stuck with him for at least 5 more days because he needed us to change his bandage twice a day. We then hit the BLM office for info and headed to our destination, the gravel pit by the Paria River BLM contact station. It didn’t sound sexy, but the two things it had going for it were a great spot for solar and good Verizon reception, or so we read on the Internets. Verizon reception is a must so I can stay in contact with work. No service is what my phone said. No service, no bueno. Sorry Amelia and R, we can’t stay here. So down the road we went to Lone Rock at Lake Powell.

It’s not fun feeling like a dumbass, but when you get your 4×4 Tundra and Airstream stuck in the sand, you are a dumbass. A lot goes through your mind when you are stuck in the sand. And none of the thoughts are real positive or ego boosting. Thank god for a Good Samaritan named Randy. He pulled our ass out of the predicament and we ended up camping next to him and his 1996 31-foot Airstream Classic Limited. Besides profusely thanking him for hours we figured the least we could do was buy him a 12 pack of PBR.

But this day wasn’t over. You should’ve seen us trying to level the Airstream; needless to say after rehitching twice, it was a true test of our marriage. Once we finally parked it and unhitched for the last time I had a beer, then a nap, woke up and the earth was miraculously back on its axis.

One more quick story, Lone Rock is in Utah, but only two miles from Arizona. As soon as you cross into Arizona there’s a gas station that has a great selection of real beer, not that watered done Utah stuff. There was this kid there manning the cash register. He’s originally from Orange County but spent 18 months in the Clairemont/Pacific Beach area before moving to Arizona. He was not impressed with his stay in San Diego. According to him PB means partially bums. MB: mostly bums. And OB: only bums. Of course we got a kick out of it and couldn’t wait to tell R.

This is what stuck in the sand looks like.

Randy pulling us out.

What a day.

Great evening colors.

Moonrise, the evening of the blood moon.

Beautiful!

Heading down into Water Holes slot.

Narrow passage.

Water Holes, I’m still amazed at the job the iPhone does.

That’s our 25 footer in the middle. To the right is Randy’s 31- foot 1996 Airstream Classic. To the left is Mike and Kelly’s 21-foot 1971 Airstream Land Yacht Globetrotter. There will be more about Mike and Kelly in the next blog post.

Another shot of the low water. We kayaked one day, hoping to explore the slot canyons. The water was too low, so no slot canyons to explore.

R.

Amelia wants to name the Airstream Opal.

The Queen of Lone Rock.

Sunset on the Vermillion Cliffs.

Breaking news, finally a California Condor sighting!  We actually saw nine of them.  And the trusty iphone was able to get some great shots.

There are only 230 California Condors in the wild, 182 in captivity, for a total of only 412. All of them were tagged with a number and some had transmitters.

When we first arrived at the Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center on the morning of April 13^th I spotted one sitting on the steel arch of the bridge. Then we saw another and another. It was still early in the morning. The thermals hadn’t yet started, so the condors were all sitting. We slowly walked the length of the bridge. R was hocking loogies over the 500 ft high bridge and getting a kick out of the swifts going for his spit. By the time we walked back to the beginning, just like magic, one at a time they began soaring. What a thrill and what an amazing show. These birds are huge. A Turkey Vulture is 27” in length with a wingspan of 70”. The California condor is 48” x 110”. The mature birds have a red head, the immature a black head. They consider these birds wild, but in fact they are being fed. The US Fish & Wildlife Service has a contract with a dairy in Phoenix for dead calves. They freeze the calves then use as needed, basically they lay the dead calf out like road kill. The condors will gorge themselves to the point where they are slow to take off in flight. This often times makes them easy prey for coyotes.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program…Lee’s Ferry Campground in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It was our first visit to a campground this year. It felt a little strange after all the boon docking we’ve done. It was a nice campground, but a campground nonetheless. One of the things about a campground is everyone watches everyone else, us included. There was a real nice lady, Kathy, with a yellow lab in a Winnebago trailer that gave us the hot tip of filling Sara’s kong with food and then freezing it. It keeps Sara occupied much longer to help with her separation anxiety. Sara has really gotten use to being alone in the Airstream. We now feel comfortable leaving her for up to 6 hours. There was another old man whose hobby appeared to be picking up trash, and not just in the campground, but also in the hills and gullies around the campground. All said, just the entertainment alone of watching everyone was worth the $12 a night. It gets crazy windy through the canyons of the Colorado River. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, April is the windiest month; at least that’s what we heard several people say. It was just two short nights at Lee’s Ferry, but as usual we packed in a lot of activities. We walked up the Paria River, hiked down the Cathedral Wash, saw all the California Condors at the Navajo Bridge, drove into the town of Marble Canyon, and went down to the river numerous times.

Our site at Lee’s Ferry.

We had some crazy threatening weather, but it never rained.

My girls crossing the Paria River.

Wallflower, often alone.

We looked through three resources and could not identify this flower. Does anyone know it?

Prince’s Plume.

Cathedral Wash.

Cathedral Wash.

R along the banks of the Colorado River.

Sara had this poor little horny toad in her mouth ready to swallow. It survived.

Dramatic view of the Vermilion Cliffs.

If you live in SoCal and haven’t been to the Grand Canyon get out here

From Sedona, to get to the Desert View entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park you drive through Flagstaff, then through the Navajo Indian Reservation.  This is one tribe that’s definitely not casino rich.  The area was reminiscent of parts of Baja.  Small shacks dotted the landscape, many of the roofs had old tires on top, as if to hold them down.  There were small makeshift stands, many not more than tables, along the highway selling turquoise jewelry, Navajo blankets and horse hair pottery.  It was painfully obvious the poverty rate is very high.

We entered the Grand Canyon, paid our $25, and then immediately left the park to set up camp at a super sweet boon docking spot just two miles outside of the park in the Kaibab National Forest.  We were away from the crowds and isolated.  We figured it was a much better option than Mather Campground at 300 plus sites.  The peace and quiet was well worth the extra drive.

The Grand Canyon is the Grand Daddy of them all. It must be seen in person to truly grasp the enormity, up to 18 miles wide, a mile deep, and 277 river miles long. It truly is breath taking. This National Park is in tiptop shape.  The trails, roads, signage and even the banos were all very impressive.  It was crowded, but not too crowded.  I’m happy to say I can still spot a Euro from a mile away, and there were plenty of them.  As I mentioned in our Mono Vista RV Park, Lee Vining post, they have a real zest for life and adventure.  There was also no shortage of Asians on big bus tours and out of shape and overweight Americans.

Since the 80s, when reading about the near demise of the California Condor, I have been dying to see one in the wild.  I had high hopes of spotting one in the Grand Canyon.  Unfortunately it was not to be.

For those of you that are wondering, R and his generator are still tagging along….

One of many roadside stands.

The outhouse the lady uses that runs the roadside stand.

Gotta love the National Forests!

It’s not everyday you see a mountain lion sign.

One of three elk legs Sara sniffed out at our campsite. We are assuming a mountain lion got it.

We boon docked right next to the Arizona Trail and the Grandview Lookout Tower. The trail is a sweet single track that stretches from the Utah border all the way to Mexico. In my younger days I use to romanticize about manning a lookout tower.

Camp Kaibab, a nice sunny spot for our solar panel.

Sunset over the Grand Canyon.

Too soon! Just when we thought we escaped the invasion of the pink jeeps…

We were so “busy” one evening getting to the rim for sunset we forgot Sara’s leash. So we improvised with a bungee.

A smile as beautiful as the Grand Canyon.

Porch step Queen of the Airstream.

Sedona is everything everyone told us it would be: beautiful, stunning scenery, red dirt, red rocks, world class mountain biking, a crowded touristy town full of hippie like people looking for the vortex, and rich folk vacationing. What I feel about Sedona is pretty much the same as I feel about South Lake Tahoe. Both areas are beyond beautiful and have great mountain biking, I just can’t stand the endless stream of cars and stops lights in the town. Thankfully it’s fairly easy in both places to avoid the town.

What really made this stop wonderful is we know a couple from San Diego, Matt and Timoni, who now live in Sedona. There’s nothing like having a local guide you around the trails, escort you to a beautiful boon dock spot, and direct you to the real unknown gems in the area. And on top of that we had a great group of friends from San Diego join us for a long weekend, Mike, Chris, Laurie, and old man Birch. And of course R is here! He’s tagging along on our trip till he wears out his welcome.

There was one minor problem. I cracked my seat tube on the second to last day of biking. A slight bummer since one of the main focuses of this trip is mountain biking. So I missed the last ride with the group, and from what Amelia and the group said it was quite a ride.

So I’m getting a new frame, and will definitely be back in the saddle for the Hurricane stop, if not hopefully before. Next stop the Grand Canyon. We love reading your comments, so please keep them coming. Enjoy the pics.

April 1st, as usual when we departed it snowed the night before.

How’s this for a sales pitch to move to the Reno/Tahoe area?

Nine hours after departing Mammoth we arrived at our overnight boon dock spot a few miles north of Lake Havasu City.

Amelia, Timoni, Sara, and Turner at our boon dock spot just outside of Sedona. We stayed here 7 nights. Thanks Matt!

Bear Mountain, we actually hiked to the top on Monday.

When we woke up the first morning it was 28 degrees outside, 38 inside and a little snow on the ground. You just push a button and the furnace kicks ass!

My two girls, out for a morning stroll on a red dirt road.

Sedona Sunset.

The gang, Laurie, Amelia, Old man Birch, Timoni, Mike, and Chris, at the Cockscomb trailhead.

Amelia on the Mezcal trail.

Beautiful setting for the post ride party!

Chicken Point

If we ever see another pink jeep it will be too soon. These things are crawling all over Sedona.

That’s me on the Devil’s Bridge.

This is Lincoln and he stacks cairns along Oak Creek.

R almost naked in Oak Creek.

The Queen of Oak Creek.