Cummings...and goings...: Holbrook, AZ to Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon: May 26

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Attributed to Mark Twain …and, we are…

Monday, Memorial Day: We decided to take a “short” motorcycle ride since there wasn’t much else happening. We rode in to Holbrook, and headed south on highway 77 to Snowflake, AZ thinking we’d see some neat stuff. Being a holiday, not much was happening, except that the hardware store was open allowing us to purchase some bolts to repair the slide topper above the dining area in the camper. It was a long ride: 77 miles roundtrip. Took me a day or two for my legs and butt to recover…not used to riding…

We made arrangements to meet Mike (a local guide) at 9:30 Tuesday morning to take us to Hidden Cove Park, just outside Holbrook, for an up close and personal look at petroglyphs. Absolutely spectacular! These petroglyphs date back thousands of years.

Mike, our guide

Mike named this "Cliff the Glyph," and he
appears on t-shirts and brochures that
market this spectacular site.

It was already over 80 degrees, so it was a very hot day for cliff climbing, but we did it. We’re thinking that Dick suffered a bit of heat exhaustion afterwards (probably combined with a bit of food poisoning) so he wasn’t feeling too well for a couple of days afterwards. Later in the day we met Tom and Sue from Seattle, who were several sites down from us. They were headed to Santa Fe, then on to Carlsbad. Dick was impressed with the hitch for 2 scooters and a car hitch on their motorhome.

Wednesday was another travel day, this time heading farther west to Williams, Arizona, near Grand Canyon National Park. It was a pretty short drive, as it took only about 3 hours.

Williams, at 6,780 feet in elevation, is a small town with a population of only about 3,100. In the early 1800s the American fur trade extended into Arizona by trappers known as “mountain men.” Williams was named for the famous trapper, scout and mountain man, “Old Bill Williams.”

We arrived around noon, at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. What a wonderful park! The park has 400+ paved sites, mostly pull-through. Although there is no lawn between sites, the areas are clean and well maintained with old fashioned street lights at every site. We were impressed with the laundry and shower facilities: travertine tile throughout. Lovely.

Office, convenience store and pet resort

"...on the street where we lived..."

Our site

Had to include this photo, of the men's showers and restroom; nice, huh!

The Grand Canyon Railway RV Park is part of hotel resort complex near historical downtown Williams; it hosts a Wild West Shootout every morning at 9 a.m., featuring the Cataract Creek Gang, just before the “Williams Flyer” train departs for the Grand Canyon at 9:30. The Shootout skit is then repeated every night at 7 p.m. at different locations around town.

On-site set of the staged shootout

Upon our arrival at the park I noticed that the right rear tire on the camper was really flat: down 50 lbs. of air. Time for a new tire, so after a few phone calls we tracked one down in Flagstaff (about 30 miles away) at Discount Tire. We took advantage of our Good Sam road-side assistance membership and had their assistants meet us at our camper to remove the bad tire, put on the spare (until we could get the new one). The new tire would be available for us on Thursday. Later that afternoon we met Ron and Dianna, formerly from Des Moines, WA, but now from Lake Havasu City, AZ.

We woke to the first rain we had seen since before we left Rockport, Texas on May 1. It was the perfect day to head to Flagstaff to pick up the new tire and hit the local Walmart and Home Depot. After getting back to the camper we had to call Good Sam’s road-side assistance again to have them replace the spare tire with the new one. Whew! What a hassle! But now, we’re good to go. Afterward, we walked to the Grand Canyon Railway Depot to pick up our tickets for Friday’s train trip to the Grand Canyon. When we returned to the camper we found we had new neighbors, Terry and Sue from Los Angeles, and their dog Jasmine.

Friday: the Grand Canyon! But first, we wanted to see the Wild West Shootout adjacent to the train depot. What a hoot! The Cataract Creek Gang entertained us for about 15 minutes before we boarded the train for the Canyon.

The "U.S. Marshall" preparing to protect us from
the Cataract Creek Gang

Above and below: the Cataract Creek Gang

We boarded the train for the 2-hour long ride through ranch country to the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park. It was a beautiful, 80 degree, and sunny day, with a little breeze. Perfect. We were entertained on our ride, for a little while, by a fiddle-playin’ cowboy comedian.

Our train to the Grand Canyon

We also learned some facts and figures about the Canyon, from Brenda our PSA (personal services agent).

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and over a mile (6,000 feet) deep. It is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. As one looks at the canyon, it’s hard to not be curious about when and how it was formed. Rocks dating back 1.8 billion years lie at the bottom. Geologists generally agree that most of the water erosion through the canyon occurred within the last 5 million years. With some of the nation’s cleanest air, the canyon’s visibility stretches, on clear days, to 90 to 110 miles!

We had decided to take the “Grand Tour” of the Canyon aboard one of the National Park’s tour buses, which makes multiple stops along the rim for photo ops. Our first stop was at the Maswik Lodge for buffet lunch. Maswik is named for a Hopi Kachina (western puebloan spirit being) who is said to guard the Grand Canyon. (When reading about the lodge, I noticed that is completely a non-smoking facility. If one does smoke in the room, a charge of $175 will be added to your bill!) From there we took the bus to two of the main overlooks on the south rim: Hopi Point and Mohave Point. Awesome! (Of the many photos taken,it was difficult which ones to post.)

The Colorado River, about 1 mile below us.

While at Hopi Point one of the forest rangers was talking about the California Condors who are currently nesting in the Grand Canyon. (As she was talking, we saw a pair of condors soaring high above us!)

“The California Condor is one of the rarest birds in the world, and is the largest land bird in North America, with a wingspan of up to 9½ feet and weighing up to 23 pounds. Males and females are identical in size and plumage: primarily black except for a triangle-shaped patch of bright white underneath their wings. The bare heads of condors are grayish-black as juveniles, turning a dull orange-pink as adults. They are members of the vulture family, and feed exclusively on dead animals. They can soar and glide at up to 50 miles per hour and travel 100 miles or more each day in search of food. When they’re not foraging for food, they spend most of their time perched on cliffs, tall conifers, and snags which actually serve as roost sites in the Grand Canyon National Park. Condors mate for life, becoming sexually mature at about 6 years of age. Nest sites are found in rock crevices and caves, although condors don’t build nests. Instead they lay a single egg every other year, on the bare ground. Both parents share responsibility for the 56 day incubation period, and then for feeding. Young condors take flight when they are 5 to 6 months old. Currently there are 75 condors flying free in northern Arizona and southern Utah, including several that were raised in caves within or near to the Grand Canyon.”

One of the condors flying so high we couldn't
get a clear photo of it.

The highlighted section in the left center of the photo is one of the identified roosting/nesting sites of the condors
currently living in the Grand Canyon.

Photo of an adult condor, from the National Park website.

Our return trip aboard the train we saw animals, which we didn’t see on the trip up, with the exception of hundreds of prairie dogs living along the tracks. We were able to see horses, cattle, antelope, mule deer, jackrabbits, javelinas, red-tailed hawks, and ravens. We were again entertained on our return trip, by brothers Dillon (18) on guitar and Dakota (16) on mandolin who played while they sang. There was also a staged robbery by the cantankerous Cataract Creek Gang. We were saved by the U.S. Marshall, who just happened to be on board. Fun! Here's Dillon and Dakota.

Dick still wasn’t feeling well on Saturday, so we stayed around the camper. It was so windy that we just didn’t feel like going anywhere anyway; gusts were reported at 33 mph.

Photo from Mingus Mountain on the Sedona side.

Sunday we took a road trip to Sedona. Just couldn’t be so close and not see the beauty of that area. Because of the forest fire between Flagstaff and Sedona, we headed west on I-40 to highway 89 south through Prescott and over the Mingus Mountain on 89A, through the funky town of Jerome and on through Cottonwood to Sedona. Wow! The climb on Mingus Mountain took us up over 7,700 feet, on a windy and narrow highway. Interesting ride in a 1-ton dually! Oft-times there weren’t enough guardrails for my comfort!

We arrived to Sedona. Our first stop was at the Arizona Tourist Bureau and Chamber of Commerce to get information on the area. The second was to eat. We decided on the Canyon Breeze, a food court of sorts, with an outdoor eating area overlooking some of the beautiful rock formations in Sedona.

"Joe Drew" -- we thought he was in North Dakota...?

Glass and tooled leather sculptures -- amazing!

Pink javelinas

Sedona’s obvious main attractions are the fabulous red sandstone rock formations. Because of the iron oxide in the rocks, they seem to glow in brilliant orange and red when the sun shines on them. Because our time in Sedona was short, we took a trolley tour through two of the canyons in or near Sedona. Such beauty…

Cathedral Rock

Wish we could share all the photos--just too many...

Second to the beauty of the area is the culture that seeps through the community. Numerous events are hosted annually in Sedona, from jazz festivals to an international film festival; marathons and the Sedona Miracle Annual Charity Fundraiser. In addition, several arts organizations find their homes in Sedona: chamber music, arts center, international film festivals and workshops, something called “GumptionFest” (one of the largest free music and arts festivals in northern Arizona), and a nonprofit poetry network. Also, there is a specialized New Age tourist industry in Sedona, where the “Harmonic Convergence” was held in 1987. (The Harmonic Convergence is the name given to the world’s first globally synchronized meditation, which also coincided with an exceptional alignment of planets in our solar system.) Some folks believe that “spiritual vortexes” are concentrated in the Sedona area at Bell Rock, Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, and at Boynton Canyon.