THE BIG TELESCOPE AT LOWELL OBSERVATORY AT NIGHT

THE RIODAN MANSION IN FLAGSTAFF

HEADING HOME AFTER SEEING STARS

Leaving Borrego Springs, we headed to Kingman, Arizona where we met our friends, Sally and Jan. We left our rigs in the park there and drove the 80 plus miles to the glass Skywalk over the Grand Canyon. The last twelve miles was over a washboardy dirt road that turned our car into a dust ball and left our backs and butts aching.

The glass over the Canyon was awesome as we looked down suspended 7000 feet in the air. I was surprised that I felt no vertigo. Zoe was okay as long as she didn’t look down through the clear glass part. No personal items are allowed on the glass as they are concerned about them being dropped and scratching the glass. You have to wear booties over your shoes as well. So we weren’t able to take any photos while on the Skywalk but we did sit next to the canyon on a picnic table while we ate our lunch. A tribal ‘fancy dancer’ also performed for us.

Next we drove to Flagstaff and visited the Riordan mansion that is a fascinating Craftsman style. Two lumber barons brothers built it. One brother’s family lived in the east wing and the other’s in the west wing with a common room between. There were many innovative items for a house in Arizona in 1904: running water, inside toilets, hot and cold water, electricity, skylights, etc.

Finally we were able to visit the Lowell Observatory at night and saw a globular star cluster M15 with 350,000 stars, a comet and the Andromada galaxy. It was an honor to be at such a historical site where Pluto was first discovered and Lowell thought he saw canals on the moon. The original design of using auto tires as the rotation base for the dome is still in use. Flagstaff is the first ‘Dark Sky City’ in the world to see the stars better. All the city lights are aimed down.

Now we are back in our park in Mesa, AZ and catching up on appointments: hair, dentist, doctors, car, etc. The blog will be sparse for a while.

THE WEST RIM OF THE GRAND CANYON

THE 75 FT. WALK OVER THE CANYON

DRIVING INTO THE FIRE AREA AT LAKE ARROWHEAD

ONE OF 6 OVERTURNED TRUCKS ON i-15 THAT DAY

THROUGH THE SMOKE AND THE WIND

We had a lovely visit at Morro Bay with Zoe’s son and his family. We ate lunch at the restaurant from the film “Murder By Numbers” and visited the dock where our houseboat had been moored in the film. I wanted to be closer to the ocean so we had a lovely family picnic at El Chorro State Pak. The waves were especially high as they crashed against the shore. It was wonderful to see, smell and hear the ocean again.

We hoped to miss the fires and smoke around San Diego as we headed west from Morro Bay and chose the route through Bakersfield and down from Mohave to San Bernadino and eventually Palm Springs. We could see and smell the smoke from the fires and after we left Mohave, we wondered if we had made a mistake to take this route. It looked like we would be heading right into the smoke. Fortunately, we went right between the major fires but the wind was horrendous. Poor Zoe had a battle on her hands as the wind slammed against our rig broadside. The view of six semis with trailers turned over alongside the road did not aid our trepidation.

We made it fine to Palm Springs, however, but the wind had shifted and we were again surrounded by smoke. That did not prevent us from having great visits with our friends: Jack who had recently lost his partner; Fran and Janie who had accompanied us last year to France; Zoe’s brother, John, his new wife Donna, his son Rick with his partner. It was also a relief to see some green after going through the Mohave Desert.

We had heard good things about the Anza-Borrego area south of Palm Springs so we headed there for a few days. On the way into Borrego Springs, we passed many RV Toy Boxes camped in the desert for dirt bike and four wheeler events. The visitors’ center in town turned out to be especially interesting. The park in Borrego Springs was a gorgeous oasis surrounded by barren hills and gullies. It had a lovely heated pool that allowed me to get some good exercise for my back. All the other parks we had been to in California did not heat their pools and were too cool to relax the muscles. This park also had three two-person hot tubs that soothed the muscles also.

Now we head to the glass platform over the Grand Canyon and cooler weather.

LANDSCAPE AT BORREGO SPRINGS

VIEW FROM OUR RV SITE IN BORREGO SPRINGS