SCOOTIN & PADDLING AT MORRO BAY

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Last week we drug Albatross out of storage, gave it a bath, and loaded up for a long weekend at Morro Bay State Park. This is a gem of a park in a beautiful setting. This was our second visit, and as last year it was with the Yahoo West LazyDazers. 27 rigs were in attendance, which is way up from last year. We also got to spend time with Keith and Gloria who showed up in their SOB Class A, sporting Cal decals all over the back. Keith and I went to high school together in Modesto, and we hadn’t seen them in quite a while. According to the camp host, who’s been there for five months, we lucked into the first weekend of good weather. We made good use of it. The kayak got its maiden voyage! First step is to unbag it and roll it out. That’s the footpump to the right.

Next, you find a willing foot.

There’s bound to be one handy. :)

A few minutes and a distaff charleyhorse later . . .

It’s just light enough for the two of us to carry, but the cord handholds get pretty uncomfortable after a while, so we’ll have to rig up some handles to fit over them. We lugged it over to the boat harbor to launch, attracting quite a ghoulish following along the way who no doubt had visions of punctures, swamping, and general mayhem. Larry and Renee effortlessly wheeled their carbon fiber kayaks over on little carts. Hmmm. They know the estuary and harbor well, had actually researched the tides (say, what?), and kindly kept tabs on us newbies. Disappointing the assembled camera-wielding masses, the launch went off without a hitch. I tested the stability by rocking side to side and got a whack with the paddle from the rear seat. No more testing. The tide was slack, the wind was calm, and off we went, looking quite coordinated thank you very much. That lasted until we hit the first current. Now, as in canoes, the back seater is the helmsperson and is responsible for keeping the straight course by dragging the paddle to the left or right side as necessary. Well, that’s the theory. And, after about a half hour of gentle reminders, terse directions, and silent epithets, el pilota got it into practice. Next time, we’ll be exchanging seats. We paddled north into the harbor area of the city of Morro Bay. Everything from gorgeous yachts to derelict cement barges was anchored there, and the resident sea lion left his feeding spot by a restaurant pier to dive around Larry’s kayak. Flocks of seabirds were skimming the surface and a couple of otters were trolling along. It was a beautiful paddle. The Sea Eagle isn’t as directionally stable, nor as fast as the hard kayaks, but it will serve us just fine for the casual poking about on lakes and streams. It’s rated for Class III rapids, but we’ll just have to take their word for it. After two hours of paddling, we dragged our dead arms out and walked 50 feet to the Bayside Cafe for clam chowder and a wedge of carrot cake the size of Manhattan. Home made. Oh, yeah. The previous evening we ate there and I had the best seafood pasta I’ve ever eaten, along with a warm boysenberry cobbler (with heavy cream to pour over). Two Lipitor, please. Did I mention my taster is much improved? :p

The next day we noticed a classic Vespa on a trailer a couple of campsites over. When the owner came out to get ready to take it out, I went over to admire and smooze. He said he’d seen ours the night before and assumed we were there for “the ride.” Ride? What ride? Turns out the San Luis Obispo Scooter Club was sponsoring one of the main scooter events on the West Coast, a 114 mile ride along the bay and back into the wine country, starting in just 30 minutes from SLO, about 15 miles away. We had been all set to go hiking with the LDers at Montano De Oro State Park, which we had done last year, but we couldn’t resist a mass scooter ride through wine country. The guy left us the turn-by-turn route instructions, then took off to make the start. We had to get ourselves ready, so we didn’t make the start, but intercepted the pack about ten miles into the rallye, at Los Osos Valley Road and Turri Road, if anyone’s tracking. Quite a sight to see 80-85 scooters strung out down the road. We jumped in towards the end of the line and had a blast for the next four or five hours. The Central Coast area is especially green right now after all the rains we’ve had, and the two-lane back roads are all curves, dips, and hills. We kept up just fine, thank you.

We had to bail out before the very end, which was at a park in SLO where they were to have a barbeque and raffle for a classic Vespa. We had to get back to Morro for the Saturday potluck and Loni had some cooking to do. As usual, the dishes were varied and tasty and no one went home hungry.

Sunday we packed up and went to load the scoot on the rack. One of the other LDers wanted to take a few photos of the process, and three guys at the adjacent campsite were observing as well. So, of course, I blew it. Done this dozens of times without a hitch. 37th time is the charm. We load the thing by firing it up and gently (key word) throttling it up the ramp and onto the rack while I walk beside and below it, holding on to the grips and throttle. As it was just making the transition from the ramp to the track, I made a misstep, stumbled, and opened the throttle. The scoot did a wheelie, jumped the stop at the end of the track, flew up into the air, swan dived the 3 or 4 feet to the ground, all the while with me holding on for dear life. It and I both ended up on our sides, the scoot with a nice dent in the left sidepod, an me with the mother of all subdural hematomas on my right tricep. Not sure what hit it, but the rack ripped the pocket off my jeans as the final indignity. Sigh. All I needed was an audience. The scoot still runs straight and I’m still upright. Fortunately for what’s left of my ego, the guy taking pictures stopped when things went haywire, so there are no photos of the launch.

Indignity needs drowning, and we took off for SLO to have dinner with my fraternity bro, Paul. Paul personally knows every winemaker in the Central Coast, and has a very well-stocked wine cabinet and cooks a mean roast beef (with Yorkshire pudding!). There were seven at dinner, and we managed to polish off a minor portion of his stock. We had the champagnes with local artisan cheeses. The magnum of Marlstone and the Justin Isosceles were incredible with the beef, and the Zin Port was served with homemade chocolate truffles. Paul, you da man! After all that, there was nothing left but to go home.

Sea Eagle Has Landed

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UPS today dropped off our Sea Eagle inflatable kayak in two boxes. We opened them on the porch and put everything together to make sure it held air, etc. Actually, the only things to put together were the paddles, which had snap-button connections, easy as pie. The kayak is one long piece that has three inflatable sections: both sides, and the bottom. It comes with a foot pump that was all set to go. Just insert the nozzle into one of the three fill valves and start pumping. Each filled quite fast, probably a minute or two for each. There are two inflatable seats that took only a couple of pumps each and they were ready. It really was simple to set up. Too bad we don't have a lake close by. I'm not ready to try to launch it in the waves down at Will Rogers Beach! It's rated for class 3 rapids (uh-huh, not for me, I think) and is said to do better in the ocean than on lakes. We'll give that proposition a tryout when we go to Morro Bay in a couple of weeks. I'll have to get cracking and buy some life vests or we're sure to get nailed by the harbor patrol. Everything folds up quite nicely in the big bag, although we opted to keep the paddles in a separate one. Now, where are we going to stuff this thing in the RV?

BUSTED!

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Wrong place at the wrong time. On our way to the Caravan at Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area (whew! BV, from now on), we were tooling along in the northbound slow lane on the I-405 just before it gets to the junction with the I-5. A trash truck was parked on the shoulder and I could see the driver hanging on to the side where the cab met the bed. I could only drift to the leftmost side of my lane as there was a car next to me. Just as we passed the truck, the driver gave a mighty pull and yanked something from the space behind the cab. Unfortunately, the prodigious pull flung his arm all the way into the traffic lane and his hand collided with the front housing of our right mirror. KaBAM! We stopped and backed up, inspected the damage (broken glass in the mirror, and who knows what with his hand). We exchanged information, but he had called his supervisor, so we waited around for him to arrive. The driver seemed to be writing all right with the hand, but that might have been adrenalin working. Supervisor arrived, he took his pictures, told me to get an estimate for repair, gave me his card and that was that. I hope. If the driver tries to make a claim against my insurance he's in for a fight.

BV, once we got there, was a very nice place in the middle of nowhere. It's 23 miles SW of Bakersfield, to the west of the I-5, towards Taft. Two lakes, one quite big, allowing powerboating, fishing, etc. Huge pull-through sites with full hookups. Trees for shade and plenty of open area for games, etc. Who knew? I guess the LD Caravaners did. We've been up I-5 many dozens of times and never had a clue anything was out in this remote corner of the Valley.

I inveigled Loni into participating in the washer toss tournament, with the usual protests of not being any good at that stuff, etc. etc. Turns out she did just as well as anyone, and loved it! I know, I know, washer toss? Sounds like the quintessential geriatric pastime, and I guess that's what it looks like. But, all smirking aside, it's a lot of fun. The weird scoring keeps it interesting, and the luck factor accounting for 75% of what happens keeps everyone in the game.

We went exploring on the scoot, intent on going over the mountains to the west to another lake. We ended up in a sea of oil rigs dating back to the early 1900's. When we pushed on, the paved road turned to dirt, and then to mud in the low parts. We forded one mire, but turned back as we were sinking up to the rims. The Vespa isn't made for off-roading. We did stumble across the hamlet of Tupman. Since that's the last name of Mom's friends in Indy, we took a picture and later sent it on to them. Offered to steal a sign. :)

At the gathering I told my tale of mirror woe and was offered a free set of replacement mirrors by the resident go-to guy for all things dealing with LD repairs. He had a number of them in his garage resulting from others upgrading to the bigger wide-view mirrors. When we got back to L.A., I picked them up and installed the right one in about 90 seconds. Bingo, and no claim against the trash company.

HAWAI'I NO KA OI

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Mahalo! Well, this year certainly started off better than last. I'll trade the Big-H for the Big-C anytime. Courtesy of a two-decade client and generous friend, we flew to Kona on the Big Island the afternoon of January 10, having first deposited Mom that morning on her flight back to Indy and it's sub-freezing temps. Sorry, Mom. Couldn't risk your bringing your bad-weather mojo to the islands. This was our first visit to the Big Island, after numerous trips to the other big three, and it has displaced Maui as our favorite, no contest. Our hosts, Mike and Betty, moved here three years ago after a two-year construction of their fabulous house high above the north coast (near the town of Hawi, but 1,500 feet up the hill). Incredible view of green slopes down to the ocean channel, and 22 miles across to Maui. Yes, the phrase "died and gone to heaven" applies to the living. The interior view is from our guest suite, looking across the channel to Maui. There's not a resort on the island that can match it. The outside view is roughly the same thing, and is the view you get from anywhere along the property. That's Haleakala in the center just above the clouds. A wider angle would take in Hana on the right and the Kihei coast on the left. It's one fabulous panorama. And one fabulous house. Out of respect for our hosts' privacy, I'm not going to post any pics of the house. Trust me when I say that the two years it took to build and furnish were worth it. Drool.

Using my trusty TomTom GPS (Xmas gift, thanks boyos), we set the house as home base and navigated all over the island, which is huge. The interior is beautiful in its own right, with vast square miles devoted to cattle raising and crops. Everywhere you go there's a view of one of the two major volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Kea is the northernmost, is inactive, and has observatory domes and buildings on its peak. This time of year, there was plenty of snow up there, making for a pretty neat sight. Here's a shot of Kea from the hills above Waimea (Kailua). Loa is the southern volcano, along with the smaller Kilauea, and those are the active ones. They're part of Volcanoes National Park. We had a nice, clear day when we went down there. Although there were no active lava flows, the "volcano-within-a-volcano" was spewing prodigious steam. When others in our party (explain later) went down a couple of days later, the cloud cover was so low they couldn't see anything, like being in a thick fog. We also stopped at the steam vents, which are adjacent to the caldera, which smelled richly of sulphur. We started coughing right away and didn't stop for quite a while afterwards.
One of the neatest sights on the Island, IOHO, is the Akaka Falls, with a single drop of some 440 feet. Beautiful place, reached by a path over a bridge, along small waterfalls, and through Jurassic Park jungle. This was our last stop of a long day of touring before having to meet everyone at Merrimans restaurant in Waimea. We used the Falls park restrooms to change from our shorts to our dinner duds, amusing a few other visitors no end, I'm sure. Hey, we're laid back --- it's Hawai'i!

Mike, our host, is the North American sales manager for one of Germany's oldest breweries, and along with us he brought over four other couples that represented beverage distributors in New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas. They all stayed at the very posh Mauna Lani resort along the Kohala coast. While we were out touring every day, they were playing golf, shopping, and sightseeing on their own. Each night the entire group (13 in all) met for dinner at top-drawer restaurants. We got to know them and found them all delightful, especially the accents. When you have New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas voices in full regional song at the same table, it's quite a sound. Can't say I understood every word, but I'll put that down to the general noise level. Somehow I ended up as the only one to order dessert the first night, and thereafter I became the butt of the dessert menu jokes each night. That's ok, I have a thick skin, a buttercream palate, and, thanks to Lipitor, newly-won low cholesterol. I was good to go every night.

One of the most unusual places we visited was St. Benedict's Painted Church near Honaunau. Built in 1899, and still in use, it features wall paintings done by the first priests, which were used as a visual aid to teaching the congregation. These were not professional artists, but the scenes are nicely rendered and quite powerful in appearance. The church itself is a wooden gem. I'm surprised that it, and especially the murals, have survived a century in such a damp climate. The adjacent cemetery was a riot of flowers and worn tombstones. It was a good thing we had the GPS, as we'd have been lost in the warren of roads in the area. It put us right in the parking lot. The GPS was invaluable at night when trying to navigate back to the house. There's no street lights out there to warn you of the upcoming roads. We generally stopped for lunch at places that looked like they catered to the locals more than tourists, and were happy that we did. Two places stand out: the Yellow Bird down near the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park (Portuguese Bean soup and curried chicken sandwiches) and the Short 'N Sweet Bakery & Cafe in Hawi (scrumptious, world-class desserts). The master baker(ess) also makes whimsical and elegant wedding and special occasion cakes. Check out www.shortnsweet.biz . Too bad they can't deliver to the mainland.

Our last day we decided to hike down to a black sand beach which wasn't too far, at the end of the road at the Polulu Valley overlook. The beach is about 400 feet below, a 20 minute hike down. Loni is standing at the beginning, and the shot is the East coast looking South. Beautiful, dramatic shoreline. the Trail is steep, but not too bad. At the bottom of the trail you come out on this incredible valley-river scene that hasn't changed for eons, at least not at the hand of humans. I think this is why we liked the Big Island so much. There's a lot of untouched wilderness beauty with nary a condo in sight. The river in the pic disappears entirely underground right when it reaches the beach. That's a lot of water to suddenly go poof! We walked up the beach to the first cliff. The tide was coming in so we couldn't go any further, but this was a very relaxing place to be so we just sat, looked, and listened to the surf until it was time to go. Nice way to end the trip. We had dinner that night at the Canoehouse at the Mauna Lani. It's set right on the beach, crashing surf, tiki torches, bamboo & wicker, and great food. We debated staying forever, but economics took hold and we hightailed it down the coast to the airport for our redeye back to (sigh) L.A. At least it was easier this time with Homeland Security. On the way over, Loni got put in the "cage," and had to be individually searched. Her ticket said "Loni," but all her i.d. is in her given name, Alana. Big no-no. Don't go there. We almost didn't make it out of L.A. Thanks, Mike and Betty, for a fabulous time!

SANTA FE to GRAND CANYON

[Click on a pic to enlarge] It's a short drive from ABQ to Santa Fe, about an hour at our speed, but we were glad to get an early start as the weather was turning sour and rain was on the way. Nothing much to see along the way, and we cruised at our save-the-gas speed of 55mph. We've started to get in the high 10's, so it seems that dropping the speed has gained us 1mpg. Or 10% better if that sounds more impressive. Under darkening skies we mosied into Santa Fe and began looking for the two RV parks we had identified from AAA's book (internet and cable being the prime requisites, given that we were going to hibernate through the bad weather). The one we preferred, of course, was on the other side of a divided six lane street, necessitating a U-turn, but that's why we like the 23 ft model -- no drama in such maneuvers. Alas (I had stronger words), the park had a small "no vacancy" sign, so we continued on to find the other. It, naturally, was on the side that we had just vacated, so another Uey and . . . where the *&%$)* is their sign? A virtually unmarked entrance was not a good sign (pun intended), but it turned out to be ok. Not as nice as the first, but at least it had space. We hooked up to power and cable, turned on the heat and tv, and settled down to Saturday college football while the rain started falling. The internet worked sporadically, and I ended up poaching a signal from the Ramada Inn next door. Popped some popcorn, hit the couch, and all was well.

Sunday dawned chilly, overcast, and breezy, so we opted for the local bus line to take us the three or so miles to downtown. Santa Fe's attraction needs no explaining to those who have been there, but for youse rest, it's a great walking town as virtually everything is focused on the old square and the surrounding five blocks or so in all directions. Pueblo style construction, narrow streets, tons of shops and restaurants, the cathedral, the old government building, and the Native Americans selling their jewelry on blankets around the square. The action used to be confined to the square when I was last here 30-odd years ago, but it has bulged out to all the neighboring streets. We opted not to pay the fee to see the world's strangest staircase (no visible fasteners), but did take in a couple of museums and virtually every gallery and shop. Kudos to Loni: no purchases! Saw some things I definitely would buy if we were in a much higher tax bracket: a unique pot with braided snakes around the rim, and a turquoise turtle broach that was dazzling. Sigh. Another life. We opted for lunch at the historic (official register) La Fonda Hotel in their main atrium restaurant. Unlike most hotel eateries, this was great. Nice ambiance, and terrific, giggle-while-you-eat food. We asked another diner to take our picture and he obliged. Turns out photography is his avocation, and he uses his work to make stationary cards. [Postscript: he actually mailed us some which were waiting for us when we got home. Quite nice.] The only problem was that he moved the camera when he took the shot, and it was badly blurred. Oh well. I took this one of Loni, but without the good backdrop.

On Monday we unloaded the scoot and suited up for a chilly ride to Los Alamos to see where the A-bomb started and the Bradbury Museum which traces the history. Los Alamos is really isolated, and must have been even moreso back in the '40s. It sits on a series of finger mesas surrounded by deep gorges. The scoot climbed well, but we were both pretty cold by the time we got there. The museum wouldn't open for another hour, so we perused the adjacent bookstore, which was loaded with science stuff as well as books. I spotted a 1,000 page volume of the complete short stories of Arthur C. Clarke, in chronogical order, and couldn't resist it. I'm up to the late '40's. The museum was excellent and we recommend it highly. I'm posing here next to models of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy," the two bombs dropped on Japan. The presentations here were pretty balanced, with the negatives all set out as well as the pros. One neat display (this is a general science museum as well) had you answer ten questions (on a computer) about your physical characteristics (eg, eye color, whether one of your fingers is longer than another (I forget which), etc.), then it matches these inherited traits against those that have been inputted by previous visitors to the museum. I, apparently, am a mass of recessive genes, as my pattern matched only 62 out of 59,000+ visitors. Loni matched 360.

After the museum we had a late lunch at one of the few spots open (ok, but nothing to write about), saddled up and took off for Bandelier National Monument. This is located at the bottom of a steep, narrow canyon, very impressive from both top and bottom, and contains both pueblo and cliff dwellings that are very accessible. It was 4:30 when we got there, and it closed at 6:00, so we only had a whirlwind tour. I would spend at least half a day here if we had the opportunity. It was active with tourists when we got there, but not crowded. Apparently, it gets absolutely choked in the summer, to the point where they have to shut down access until enough people leave. The dwellings here date back to 1150 or so. These aren't virtually inaccessible, like those in Mesa Verde or Canyon de Chelly, so they must have been harder to defend, although there doesn't seem to be any evidence of warfare. Saw another LazyDaze in the parking lot, but no one was around. After our quick tour, we headed back down the hill to Santa Fe. Tuesday dumped more rain and wind, so we opted to stay put for another day, and lazed about reading.

Next on the list was Taos, and it felt like we climbed the whole way. Once there, we were entirely unimpressed. The Taos square is rather small, not at all rustic, and a letdown after Santa Fe. Didn't seem to be much else about the town that bore investigating, so we cruised in and cruised out. Our real goal was to take the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway, an 84-mile drive that loops from Taos east to Eagle Nest, north to Questa, and then south again. This was a beautiful drive, with spectacular mountain and valley views all along it. We stopped for lunch along the roadside and found that the Texans (Tessa, perhaps?) had left their mark. After the loop, we headed west on US64 and crossed the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, three miles long and 650 feet above the river. We got out and walked to the middle. The shaking when the trucks went by did not promote confidence, and we were glad to get back to solid ground. 64 continues through the Carson National Forest, and is another scenic drive all the way. We ended the day at Heron Lake State Park near Tierra Amarilla. The campground had no view of the lake, but when we saw it coming in and going out it was a very pretty one, but you'd have to have a boat to enjoy it. Uneventful night and extremely quiet. We seem to have been camping within earshot of trains for the last couple of weeks, and it was wierd not to hear them at night.

The next day was a fairly long haul to Canyon de Chelly (that's pronounced "Shay") National Monument, through such dreary spots as Farmington, Shiprock, and Mexican Water. This is "just keep driving" land, and we did. We skipped Chaco Canyon as the road was reported by other LDers to be ten miles of 5mph washboard. Not my idea of a good time, no matter how nice the park might be. The last stretch to C-de-C was quite beautiful, with dramatic rocks and vistas. Chelly is a National Monument, but is entirely on Indian land, so it is jointly administered. As a result, the campground (no hookups) is entirely free. It was not bad at all, with good-sized, well-spaced sites that were level. Besides, we needed a break from having the amenities (and paying the price for them). We had fun with time, as Arizona does not observe daylight savings, while the reservation does. I don't know how they keep things straight. Canyon de Chelly, like Bryce, is a travel-the-rim-and-look-down-in type of place. Canyon floor, with one exception, is off-limits to tourists unless accompanied by a native guide or a ranger. There actually are two canyons, 26-mile de Chelly and 25-mile del Muerto, and we toured one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, following the photographic advice for the best lighting for each. There are a number of overlooks that you stop at along each rim road, and each does provide quite different views of the canyon, which twists and turns. It's about 600 to 1,000 feet deep with sheer walls, and the dwellings seem to be in impossible places way up the cliffsides. You'd have to be very afraid of something to put up with the difficulty and danger of daily ingress and egress to those sites. How they built homes up there is utterly incredible. These were much higher than any we saw at Mesa Verde. You are allowed to climb down into the canyon at only one spot, the "White House" dwelling site. We watered up and made the trek down, down, down, across the canyon to the other side to where it's located, then the haul back up. It actually felt good after so many days driving. Having done that, I can't see much value in paying for a jeep tour (the principal stop of which is the White House), but there are a lot of folks, I guess, who can't or won't hike. There were some nice pictographs, which we could see well through the binocs, but which didn't come out clearly in the photos. The scoot was a big attraction at the overlook stops, and we answered lots of questions about touring on it.

After Chelly we went south on 371 to I-40 (which only reminded us why we try to avoid the Interstates: racing trucks and boring scenery), then west to Winslow, another garden spot. On the way we stopped at the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert. It was nice to see these, but I wouldn't rank them as must-sees. The Painted Desert would have been much more colorful at dawn or dusk with the low light, but it was pretty blah at high noon. Bad timing. the Petrified Forest was interesting only at the major southern entrance, the Rainbow Forest, where they have entire petrified trees instead of only pieces. We thought the coloring was not as good as the petrified area we saw in Utah. So, a nice detour, but nothing memorable. At Winslow we jumped off the interstate and took SR 87 southwest, through Clints Well, then 280 over to Cottonwood, where we stayed two nights at a decent, if small, RV park. This was almost entirely occupied by long-termers, and it was interesting to watch the families bundling the kids off to school in the morning. Mostly 5th wheels and trailers. We saw only one other class C and a couple of A's.

Cottonwood was our homebase for Sedona. We took a reconnaissance trip that afternoon, 19 miles to Sedona on the scoot. Nice ride. Sedona is truly beautiful, with red-orange hills shouldering right into the town. In the Fall afternoon light it simply glowed. We stopped near the Visitor Center, which had just closed for the day, and wandered around. Turns out this was the first day of a week-long plein-aire art festival, and various artists had their easels set up around town, painting the local scenery, with tourist gawkers clustered around each. We watched a few and then wandered the galleries in that area. The paintings here were better on the whole than we saw in Santa Fe. We were looking for the work of two artists that we first met (and bought) 35 years ago on the old Santa Monica Mall and at the Westwood art show, Tommy Lorimer and Lisa Danielle, then married but since split (still friends). Couldn't locate them this day, so we got on the scoot and headed back to Cottonwood for dinner. The next day we got an earlier start and went to the main gallery area called "Tlaquepaque." This is a series of buildings, courtyards, and paths that is quite pleasant to stroll around. We found a gallery that featured Lisa's works, which are now commanding a pretty penny that is well out of our range, but still no Thomas, and no one had heard of him. The gallery folks were also surprised to hear she had an ex. Hope we didn't tell tales out of school. At one gallery we walked into a room and we both were simultaneously struck by a painting that was unlike anything we usually gravitate to, as it was impressionistic. We thought for a long while about buying it, but I suggested we go out and cool off and come back later. Went to an ice cream shop and had a malt, always a good cooler-offer. We decided that we could live without it (whew). We checked a phone directory, found a listing for Thomas, gave a call and left a message on his machine. Time for an early dinner as the ice cream was our lunch. Picassa's Pizza had a good description in a writeup, so we went there and weren't disappointed. We split a medium, with half-and-half exotic toppings, and were happy campers. Midway through the meal, Thomas called, we reintroduced ourselves, and he invited us over (only 3 blocks away). He graciously spent a couple of hours with us, showing us his studio and his collection of western and indian artifacts, including museum-quality pieces. We know that to be the case, as we've traipsed through all sorts of them. The impressive thing is that he explored for and found most of what we saw, and they were wonderful objects. His house is jamb-packed with things that left us dazzled. He had no finished works, but was active on a couple. Everything he paints gets shipped out to Western-themed art shows, which is why he had nothing in the galleries in town. We were very happy to reconnect with him after a long time (we had seen him about ten years ago in San Dimas). Wish we could afford his work today, but will be happy with what we have from his early years. We also admired his six vehicles, including a beautifully restored '42 Ford that he works on when he's not painting. It was pitch dark when we left, but the scoot ride back was uneventful.

Leaving Sedona we traveled through the Oak Creek Canyon on the way to Flagstaff, the gateway to the South Rim. This is a beautiful canyon, but very twisty. Look closely at the photo of the road I posted and you can see three elevations of it, one above the other. Once again I'm glad we're "only" 23' long in those hairpins. The shot of Loni is taken looking back down the canyon we just navigated, towards Sedona.

After a brief, unplanned detour through the University of Northern Arizona campus (thanks to the distaff navigator), we gassed up and headed out of the city. Just north of Flagstaff is the Museum of Northern Arizona and across from that is an annex in an old house. Tommy told us that he had consigned his most recent painting here, so we stopped for a look. It was a beauty, but the $5,500 price tag ended any yearnings we had. We'll stick with what we have.

Route 180 out of Flagstaff is much more scenic than the alternative 64 that goes up from Williams. Nice drive, but it's always much farther than I think (about 90 miles) to get to Grand Canyon Village. We had no problems getting a spot in "Trailer Village," which was located within walking distance of the shuttles and the headquarters. Once settled, we took the scoot on a tour of the surroundings and saw the steam train from Williams (Grand Canyon Railway, complete with "bandit holdups" and all) pull into the station at the El Tovar hotel. Checked out the hotel and made plans to come back one day for lunch in the main dining room ('30's CCC architecture of stone and beams-- love it!). Back to the rig for dinner and a DVD.

The next morning we got up at o-dark-thirty and froze our way over to the shuttles for the trip to the start of the Kaibab trailhead for a ranger-led hike down into the canyon. There we met a half-dozen other folks who were trying to stay warm until the sun could get high enough to do some good. As it turns out, it never went above 50 all day, but that was a good thing when you're trying to hike back out. Unfortunately, we had plenty of wind in certain areas which made for exciting scampering over the rocks. Didn't want to become a human glider. The ranger took us down about a mile, all the while giving us an excellent summary of the history of the canyon, rock strata ages, flora and fauna. We highly recommend joining these walks as you get so much more out of the hike when you understand what you're looking at. The ranger-portion of the walk ended at Cedar Ridge, which was quite windy but offered some great views. I wanted to go a bit further and, after a bit of "encouragement," Loni did as well. We descended down to Windy Ridge, aptly named, but with a view of Phantom Ranch (about 2,000 feet below) along the river. Very cool spot. In all we went down a little over 2,000 feet in the space of two+ miles. That was the easy part; climbing back out was a bit tougher. At one point we had to make way for a horse train to pass carrying (!) dudes who had spent the night at Phantom Ranch and were being hauled to the top. Hmmmm. We got to enjoy the horse plops the rest of the way. Near the top we were overtaken by the mule pack train that carries all the supplies down to the ranch --- every day! I can't imagine making that round trip day after day. We dragged ourselves back to the rim and it was a VERY nice ride back on the shuttle.

The next day we walked around the rim trail from Yaki Point to Maricopa Point, and took a shot of the lodge buildings on the opposite side. Then off to the El Tovar for an excellent lunch of a blue cheese steakburger and a decadent dessert. You only live once. The atmosphere of the dining room was great and we highly recommend having at least one meal there when visiting the park. It's a trip to the past.

After this it was time to head home. We headed west on I-40 and stopped for the night at a casino RV lot south of Bullhead City. Decent enough buffet dinner, but nothing to write home about, and a little off-putting to see morbidly obese families piling on incredible amounts of food over and over again. Took in a movie, avoided the tables and machines, and called it a night. Yup, geezers for sure. Next morning we pulled out an had an uneventful drive home to two months' mail and our sticks home. A great trip!