Daughters

Becky and The Parents Day 2, Antelope Canyon Tour

We spent the night in Page, at Amerca’s Best Value Inn, which turned out not to be what it’s name claimed. For only $116 per night, we were allowed to listen to the crackheads upstairs from us stomp around their room until well after 3 a.m. I really don’t know what they were doing up there, maybe they had a bad case of Montuzema’s Revenge and had to run to the bathroom repeatedly during the night, who knows? But, I can tell you this: They kept me awake most of the night, and the maids said their room was trashed the next morning. At any rate, I would not recommend staying at that motel even if it is the only one in Page with vacancies. I’m just sayin!

After leaving the motel and eating breakfast, we went on a guided tour of Antelope Canyon. Wow! OMG! I have been wanting to go there forever! I am so glad we got to go on that tour. It is so fabulous. I took over 150 pictures, but I will only be showing a few of those here. I checked them out online, and all the different tour companies websites quoted prices of $32 per person for the one and a half hour tours. But, we walked in and paid for our tour in person, and for three of us it was only $88. It was the best $88 we spent all weekend.

We rode out to the slot canyon site in this big four wheel drive vehicle. It was a very bumpy ride in places, but it was fun.

There are Becky and FabGrandpa on the truck, waiting to take off to the Navajo Reservation.

We bumped down this road, which is actually a wash when the rains come. Notice the power lines–there is a nuclear power plant nearby.

We finally got there, and got out of the truck. The ground is very fine sand, which made walking difficult, but we managed to do it. Becky was wearing flip-flops, and I had on sneakers. My shoes were full of sand at the end of the tour.

This is the entrance to the slot canyon.

It is so hard to describe this canyon to someone who has never been there. It is very deep and narrow. The sun shines through the top of the canyon and makes the inside glow orange and red. At different times of the day beams of light come in and iluminate the walls of the canyons. It is absolutely amazing!

Of the many pictures I took, a lot of them are not very good. These are some of the best ones. You can get a “Photographer’s Tour” for a little more money. You get to stay longer, and the guides give you more time to take pictures at each stop along the way of the tour.

The tour guide took the photo above for me. He was very helpful in letting people know what settings to use on their cameras, and in some places he took photos with each person’s camera for us, to make sure we got some good shots.

There we are, back on the truck after an hour and a half of tour time in the canyon. It was an awesome tour, one of the best tours I have ever been on. The only thing about this tour I was not happy with, was that there are five tour companies that take people on tours of this canyon each day. There were probably close to 300 people in the canyon at one time. Considering that it is a very narrow canyon, it was very crowded. However, that was a very small price to pay for such great tour, and to get to see the place with my own eyes. I want to go tour the same canyon again, at a different time of day.

If you ever get a chance to go to Arizona, Page has to be on your list of places to go, and this tour has to be top of the list!

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Becky and The Parents Day 1

Karen · 3 Comments

We left the North Rim headed for Page, Arizona early enough to have breakfast at Jacob Lake Inn. We stopped at the scenic overlook of House Rock Valley. Here is Becky with the Vermillion Cliffs in the background.

The next stop was at the balancing rocks near Cliff Dwellers in Marble Canyon. Those rocks are huge! How they don’t tumble over is a miracle to me!

This is a view of the Colorado River from Navajo Bridge. It is absolutely gorgeous!

And this is looking across at the other side of the bridge at the very eastern edge of the Grand Canyon.

We stopped for lunch at Fiesta Mexicana, where Becky and I both ordered Camarones a la Plancha. Yummo!

After lunch we toured Glen Canyon Dam. It is the second highest dam in the United States. The highest is of course the Hoover Dam.

This is one of the old turbine rotors. Th original on was placed in service in 1964, and was replaced this year. That is FabGrandpa’s backside there in the photo.

Lake Powell, so much blue, blue water in the middle of the desert.

The Colorado River where it comes out of Lake Powell at the Glen Canyon Dam. That bridge is Hwy 89 in Page.

See that water pouring out of the pipe at the bottom? That is what they call seepage, water that seeps through the concrete and rock from behind the dam. 1600 gallons a minute worth of seepage. Amazing! And there is enough moisture for those plants to grow right on the rocks.

More tomorrow!

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Remember Whensday

Karen · 11 Comments

In July of 1985, my kids and I went to Stone Mountain for the day. We picnicked on the lawn in front of the carving, went swimming and stayed for the laser show. It was the second time we went there. The first time was when my son, Seth, was about three years old. He was so scared that the giant rock was going to roll over on us that he couldn’t eat his lunch!

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

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Introducing…

Karen · 7 Comments

I am pleased to announce that my youngest daughter, Emily, is now a member of the blogosphere! She is writing about life as she knows it at Sweetpea’s Rollercoaster. She is Mommy to Spencer, wife to Spiderman, a high school special education and biology teacher, and is back in school pursuing her master’s degree. What a hectic life she leads! And how proud of her you know I must be.

Go on over there and give her some comment lurve!

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Becca and Ken Came To Visit

Karen · 7 Comments

Last week our daughter, Becca, and her boyfriend, Ken came to visit. They arrived late on Saturday night. On Sunday after breakfast, we all drove up to Cape Royal, my favorite place here at the North Rim. The sun was shining down, and we were having a great time.

The view from Cape Royal is awesome, in my opinion one of the best viewpoints at the Grand Canyon. It is where I take anyone who comes to visit, also, it is were I send visitors to the park who ask me where they should go.

So, this was the first time we have met Becca’s guy. He is very nice, very thoughtful, very intelligent, and it is obvious to me that she is in love with him, and that he is in love with her. I really like him. But, Fabgrandpa is one of those guys who seems to find fault with anyone who comes courting his daughters. His actions sort of reminded me of a gorilla beating his fists on his chest to claim his territory, and made an otherwise lovely visit a little tense. I wish he could just be happy that she has found someone who loves her and makes her happy. Why do men act like that? (to my family members who read this, please don’t say anything to him, it will only make it worse. Just let me vent here, ok?)

Yes, FabGrandpa loves her, too.

Here I am with Ken. He is an avid photographer, and takes some really gorgeous shots. He has a really nice camera that I am jealous of.

There’s Becca, waaayyyy over there near the edge on the right hand side of the cliff, between two bushes. If you click to enlarge the photo, you’ll see she is waving to me.

We walked all the little trails at Cape Royal. I think we spent a couple of hours up there.

Before coming home, we hiked down to Cliff Springs. FabGrandpa and I hiked there last year, and I really wanted Becca and Ken to see it. There is a spring there, that drips out of the side of the cliffs. Indians used to get water there for their crops when they grew corn, squash, and beans up here years ago.

A maidenhair fern growing out of the rocks at Cliff Springs.

This is one of my favorite photos from their visit. We were resting under the cliffs, waiting for the rain to go away. Becca was sitting there taking in the view.

This was the storm coming in . There was lightening and thunder going on, which I don’t really like, but we were safe enough where we were sitting.

When we got back from our trip to Cape Royal and the Cliff Springs, Becca and Ken were going to take us all out to the lodge for dinner, but we couldn’t get a reservation. We made dinner at home, and made a reservation for the next night. On Monday, it was my last day off, so I stayed home and rested. Becca and Ken went back up to Cape Royal and hiked out to Green Lake, which is a tiny lake about 100 yards off the road. It is gorgeous and not many people see it because they don’t know it’s there.

The lodge has massive exposed beams and huge chandiliers. There are huge windows on the canyon side so if you are lucky enough to get a table there you can have your dinner with a great view. We didn’t get a window table, though. I had prime rib, which came with asparagus and a baked potato. It was excellent. Thanks Ken and Becca! I really appreciated that!

I had to work the rest of the time they were here, so they went hiking on several trails for the rest of the time they were here. They hiked out to Widforss Point, to Cape Final, and to Bright Angel Point a couple of times. I am glad they went out there and saw as much of the area as they could.

Ilex, their 12 year old dog, came with them. She relaxed in the trailer most of the day. She is a very good dog.

All too soon it was time for them to leave for home. I was working at the entrance station when they left. They stopped and walked over to say goodbye, and even though I had a line waiting to get in, I took the time to hug them both tight. The next guy I waited on commented about my eyes leaking as they drove away.

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For Those Who Pray

Karen · 4 Comments

If you are someone who prays, please keep Charmaine in yours. She has Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, and has been admitted to Emory Hospital in Atlanta for chemotherapy treatments. It will be a long road.

I don’t know Charmaine very well, but she has been a wonderful mentor and friend to my stepdaughter, Becky. She hired Becky to work in her shop when Becky was right out of high school. Charmaine taught Becky many things about doing hair and running a business. When Charmaine was ready to retire, she sold the business to Becky and her friends, Sam and Andy.

I know this is as hard on Becky as it is on Charmaine’s family. I know Charmaine was there for Becky when FabGrandpa went through his cancer radiation treatments in 2001. Please go over and show support for Charmaine’s family and friends, and if you are so inclined, please add Charmaine and her family to your prayer list.

Thank you.

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Rescued From Boredom!

Karen · 4 Comments

I was lolling about on my bed this afternoon, while talking on the phone with my oldest daughter, Becca, about words–how people use them incorrectly, or pronounce them incorrectly, and how some people use high dollar words when a cheap word would do–in other words, talking about words. The conversation was going somewhere about why in heck anyone would use “consternation'” when “fear” or “panic” would suffice. Yeah, we are word nerds, I guess.

(that’s Becca on the left, Emily on the right, with my son, Seth, in the middle)

This whole conversation started because she is preparing for taking the GRE on Saturday, because she is, like, a perpetual student. She had a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Alabama, and went to graduate school at Old Dominion in Norfolk. Now she wants to be a library lady like Parker Posey in Party Girl, so she is going back to school. OK, ok, she wants to get a degree in Library Science, or something like that. She wants to be near books is all I’m saying.

So we were having this great intellectual conversation, with me remembering that when she was four, she, her sister, and I were standing in the kitchen one day. Emily, my youngest, who was three at the time, was putting a on a pretty good temper tantrum. Becca stood there, hands on hips, and said “Emily is certainly being obstinate today.” I sort of shook my head in a double take, as she not only pronounced it correctly, she used it correctly in a sentence. At four years old.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, which startled me, because I don’t know anyone out here in the freaking middle of nowhere in the desert who would come calling without calling me first. And there, at the door, we found our friend, Gaelyn, of Geogypsy fame. She had been to Quartzsite to visit some friends there, and to purchase a new slide in camper for her pick-up truck. She stopped by to show it to us. She was very excited, as I would have been if it had been mine.

We went outside to see it, and climbed in to look at the inside. It is a marvelous bargain that she got for $450! Now she can go camping in the desert, or go anywhere her heart takes her without the worry of where to lay her head at night. What freedom!

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and laughing. It was so much fun to catch up with her. Fabgrandpa finally started talking about his hunger, and Gaelyn suggested a restaurant out on I-10 about 8 or so miles away. We said our goodbyes to her, and got ready to go. When we got to the restaurant, guesss who was already there! She said she got to thinking that her cupboard was bare in the new camper, so we got to chat a little more at dinner.

It was so much fun today! We made plans to go up to Yarnell and spend the night with her in about 3 weeks. Can’t wait to go!

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Mail Lost And Found

Karen · 6 Comments

For eight years, our daughter, Becky, who lives in Atlanta, has handled our mail for us. She has collected it from the post office box and sent it to us about every two weeks or so. She has done this for us because she loves us, and has done a very good job of it.

Over the last year or so, the mail has been sent with more and more time in between, an indication to us that she is busy. We understand that–she owns her own business, has lots of friends, a new boyfriend, and now a new puppy. (well, her room mate has a new puppy) So, we decided to permanently change our address to a PO box here in Salome. We decided to come back here to this same RV park next winter anyway, and the post office will forward our mail for free to our job in the summer for 6 months, which is all we would need, anyway.

So, we called Becky and had her send our mail one last time, which she did, 10 days ago. When we still had not received our mail package yesterday, I emailed Becky and asked if she had really sent the mail on the day she said she was going to. Yes, she did. So, today, still no mail.

I got to thinking about it, and although she has never done it before, I wondered if she had sent the mail to the last place we were, in Phoenix. Called them, and sure enough, they had my package. But, they wouldn’t forward it to me. They could return it to Becky, but could not forward it to me. Even if I paid them to.

So, now I am waiting for my mail to take a ride from North Phoenix RV Park in Phoenix, back to Becky, then back to me here in Salome. That package will have traveled over 6,000 miles before I get it. Imagine that!

And I just want to say here, that I have worked at RV parks for years, and at every place I have ever worked, we would forward the mail. This is not normal.

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