We woke up this morning a little later knowing that everyone was leaving. The morning was a pack up and go morning only this time it included a tent. It was cool and very comfortable for us. The Meads like it warmer as everyone knows. I had to roast some coffee for Chris and Gene for allowing us to crash at their home. Noting like thanking someone who likes coffee with some fresh roasted, fresh ground coffee. I gave it to Jim hoping it would make it to Chris (Ha, Ha).
After everything was packed, we said our good-byes and both families went their way.
We had time for one last stop at Grand Canyon. As we looked at the map we chose to visit the desert view where there is a national landmark called the watchtower which was built as a place to view the canyon and still stands today as a landmark at the Grand Canyon. As we were driving, we hoped to see wildlife, but much of the area was burned by fire. We did see some strange signs like the following:
Can you guess? Yup mountain lions next 10 miles! We did not see one but we did see some elk, in the wild, eating from trees. They either liked the berries or leaves, I could not tell. They did not flinch as we passed by.
We stayed at Desert View for an hour and saw a very different perspective to the Grand Canyon since it is 20 miles from the lodges at the south rim where everyone goes. We climbed the tower and used our binoculars to see rafters on the Colorado going through the Grand Canyon. They say it was about 115 degrees at canyon floor. We were looking at low 90’s, high 80’s. As we were descending the tower, we noticed a small plaque that gave credit for this beautiful site to the Lord and not the big bang. It read “All the earth worships Thee; they sing praises to Thee, sing praises to Thy name”.
We left desert view and drove to Monument Valley our next major attraction. Monument Valley is a stretch of highway where mesas have been carved by erosion into formations that jet out of the ground into the sky. They are sandstone and have unique features. The famous Ford’s rock is here and it is where many old westerns have been filmed (John Wayne era). On the way, we saw where the Grand Canyon started. It looked like a crack in the earth.
We entered the Navajo reservation and the landscape changed once again, Mesas instead of canyons. My wife bought some silver jewelry at one of the Navajo stands along the side of the road. Most if not all of it is made by the families running the stands and has a sense of “being made here” instead of in some sweat shop in China. As we drove, it began to get late and we wanted to see Monument Valley, a beautiful stretch of road that has unique mesa formations, during the day so we pulled of in Keyanta, a small town with a pizza place and small plaza. Oh yeah, one neat thing that is becoming a common sight is dried up washes, draws, rivers and creeks. I probably mentioned this before but it is really weird coming from NY where rivers are full of water. These are here when flash floods occur. We could not find an RV campground so we pulled into the plaza. We noticed another fifth wheel there and felt safe in numbers. I approached the other trailer and within minutes the owner came out and we chatted. His name was Scott and he had overnighted here before. He asked me where we were from and I shared our testimony. They were Methodist. The Bailey family decided on pizza, so we went to the pizza place in the plaza. While we were there, Scott and his wife Pam came in to get ice cream. They sat with us and we talked some more. After, we returned to the motorhome to find stray dogs and puppies at our camper looking for food. We could not resist and fed them. They hung around for quite a while waiting for the next meal. We then went to bed.
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