Condors

As an endangered species they started off with a fragile flock of 20 birds and now have reached over 70... each bird is tagged and #30 and #F1 swooped around the steel trusses of the Navajo Bridge across the Colorado River at Marble Canyon.

Honda Lifeboat

Two nights boondocking at the Grand Canyon North Rim brings out the survival instinct! No campsite power! Bring out the Honda generator and plug in! Recharges the Airstream batteries which are in poor condition and don't do well overnight - also allows for quick burst of the toaster and the espresso coffee machine - priorities! Hours of generator operation are restricted to 6 to 8 pm and 8 to 10 am. To help battery longevity we tracked down and switched off 12 volt stealth usage such as fridge fans and sub-woofer amplifier!

Almond pie

Despite cramped conditions and limited resources Margaret baked two almond pies with quinoa crusts for the pie party evening! Lots of rolling of quinoa dough between cling film and hot oven in an already hot camper! Smells great! Great with ice cream!

Two photographers

Using all our skills and resources, Bob on iPhone and Olympus, me on iPhone and Nikon! Learnt a lot from Bob Martel about photography, Airstream, and just life!

Zion River walk

Take the shuttle to the last stop and hike the easy and majestic RiverWalk about a mile further up the Canyon until you come to the Narrows where the canyon walls close in! At that point you switch to water shoes and special socks and begin wading up the canyon taking advantage of beach or river bank where possible!

Zion Canyon hideaway!

Normally we have electrical, water, sewer and wifi connections but in Zion we have just have power which is just as well since temperatures went into the 90's so we badly needed air conditioning! Ah the splendors of modern camping!!! Our holding tanks will keeps us going for 4 to 5 days as we usually do Navy style shower - wet cycle, off, soap and shampoo cycle, rinse cycle! Our hot towel rail is the envy of other Airstreamers!

Zion Canyon

Limited access to the canyon and we use the propane powered shuttle to the Grotto stop where we take the Kayena trail that overlooks the magnificent vertical sided valley to the Emerald Pools then descend on the Lower Pool Trail to the Zion Lodge for a tasty Pastrami sandwich lunch accompanied with a Zion Valley lager!

Quickie breakfast

My favorite is Marmite on toasted sesame bagel... Marmite is an English specialized taste product from my school boy days and consists of yeast extract and extracts from other vegetables. Rumor has it that a new use was found for the dregs of an adjacent brewery fermentation process. Delish!!

Bryce landmarks

Bryce Canyon landmarks that are renown are the Sentinel and Thor's Hammer both visible from the Tim trail between Sunrise Point and Sunset Point. There are several others some of which require imaginative interpretation but fun attributing your own names as you walk along!

Bryce Canyon is Stunning

Until you actually see it you can't believe it exists! The vista as you reach the rim of the canyon extends in all directions with sandstone spires capped with limestone, creating the hoodoos through water erosion at this specific altitude of 7,600 feet. Higher up and it freezes too much, lower and it's not the ideal conditions to create these intriguing formations. Silent city (first shot) conjures up the Paiute Indian folkore that bad people inhabited the canyon and Coyote, the trickster God, invited them all to a feast and turned the bad people into stone.

Trailblazer saddle em up!

Margaret on her hoss prepares to descend 1,000 ft into Bryce Canyon - however I think it was technically a mule! Definitely not  an entry in the dressage competition! "Gates" behaved himself admirably and returned the rider in one piece a couple of hours later - after dismounting there was a period of readjustment where bones and muscles protested their unusual treatment!

Prepare to mount!

Margaret's mule "Gate" being reshoed and readied for a ride down the Bryce Canyon trail. All riders returned safely!

Fly fishing expedition

Signed up for a Utah fly fishing expedition including instruction and got more than I bargained for! A harrowing one hour ride up the Boulder Mountain in a Suburban driven by ex Marine Corps helicopter pilot Debbie had our heads hitting the roof and our behinds defying gravity! What I did not bargain for was the effect of 11,000 ft altitude! We practiced casting in an open fields under Mike's tutelage and after perfecting regular casts and roll casts we visited two lakes, Big Lake which no one caught a damn thing and Halfmoon Lake where I caught a couple of grayling trout and really perfected my casting techniques. I was glad to get back to 6,000 ft at the Torrey camp and return to normal breathing!

Impromptu Dinner

Thousand Lakes RV Park and we have not seen one lake yet! Dinner with Eric and Susan under the cottonwood trees enjoying an ideal climate, warm and dry air, no AC and no heat! Perfect!

Capitol Reef Gorge Trail

Once upon a time this was Utah state road UT24 before it got rerouted. Graffiti on the canyon walls date back to the late 1800's when horse drawn wagons and later early cars passed this way on the east to west route through this area. But the high likelihood of flash floods and narrow walls precipitated a new route! Tough life being a pioneer!

Fire up the Barbie!

Love our Japanese earthenware grill fired up with a mix of charcoal and mesquite blocks! Tonight it's salmon, eggplant and peaches for dessert! (with vanilla ice cream)

Dinosaurs went this way....

Many million years ago a dinosaur left its footprints here.... near Moab in Utah!

Lifting Balanced Rock

Margaret attempting to lift Balanced Rock off its pedestal !

Touring Canyonlands

Bob, Lisa and Margaret at the breathtaking Grand View Overlook on day 14 of the grand SW adventure. Covered a lot of territory with these great traveling companions!

Photographer at work!

Helping a couple of foreign tourists get their picture taken at the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park - taken by Bob Martel

Canyonlands Trails

Hundreds of miles of 4x4 trails surround Canyonlands - White Rim Trail over 100 miles long takes as many as 2 days, generally 4 so you have to be prepared to camp and take fuel and food to complete the trip. Some bends require reversing in mid bend to get the vehicle around the hairpins! Short wheelbase Jeeps recommended!

Dead Horse Point

Dead Horse Point has to be one of the most stunning views in the south west! Awesome panorama with boaters on the Colorado River which cuts its way down through the multiple sandstone layers and the gravel rock and mud White Rim Trail winding its 100+ mile torturous adventure track around the Canyonlands makes this a Mecca for the adrenalin seekers!

Returning from dinner at Red Cliff sResort

Enjoyed dinner by the Colorado River at the Red Cliffs Lodge and Winery tonight and on the way home the setting sun just turned the cliffs to gold. Lodge has a wonderful Moab Movie Museum of movie history in the region and details all the movies filmed in the area from black and white era till current - very impressive!

Traveling Companions

Eric and Susan Arens at Gooseneck State Park with the meandering San Juan River cutting down into the plateau some 800 ft deep gorges. That will stop any wagon train in its tracks!!

Airstream Coffee Shop

Location Cortez CO.. lo and behold an older Airstream International converted to espresso coffee shop and drive through and a nice range of treats and snacks! Nice patio and furniture all done in the style of the era!

Grill night

About twelve grillers fed the ~60 campers for a Mesa Verdes cookout that with smoke, sizzle and jousting commentary reminded me of a reality TV cooking competition🐂🔥🍷🍽 Our pair of steaks are smaller because I trimmed mine first then saved half for the next day!

The storeroom in the Indian museum

Many many beautiful examples of pots exhibited at the Edge of the Cedars museum in Blanding but the storeroom with the vast stay of pots that are not exhibited is much more impressive! No price tickets on these!

Monument Valley

Nothing quite as iconic and beautiful as Monument Valley to remind you that you are on the most wonderful adventure in a foreign land and still within the USA! Left mitten, right mitten are the names of the two left rocks!

Breakfast treat

Love my soft boiled eggs and buttered soldiers!

Never seen this before!!

Some kind of automated laundromat tub for dogs! Select either clean, disinfect, flea treatment, blow dry! I wish I had time to hang around until a dog owner came along and ran his pouch through it!

Handle Bars for Silverton Lunch

Trip Advisor Review: Early train start in Durango without time for breakfast and a four hour slow steam train journey leaves you standing in the town center of Silverton (origination a ton of silver) around noon mighty hungry. Most reviews of local restaurants are pretty good and leave you unable to differentiate so it takes the recommendation of a local friend to make a choice which we did not regret! A half slab of ribs, a burger, a barbecue sandwich, soups and salads were all excellent! A little disorganized due to two conflicting street or store entrances to the restaurant but eventually seated in a quaint dining room with more seating at the bar along one entire wall. Wait staff very attentive and helpful despite quite crowded tables but we all enjoyed the eclectic collectibles, stuffed wildlife and joshing humor of the staff. Would certainly recommend it to travelers to this small 200 winter 800 summer population quaint former mining town at 9,500 feet altitude.

Durango to Silverton

All my life I've wanted to take this steam train - something I inherited from the last days in the 1950's of steam locomotives in England! Three and a half hours climbing out of Durango at 6500 ft to Silverton at 9300 ft following a mountain stream with waterfalls and precipice edge canyons. Covered in soot and grit from the locomotive!

High Rockies above Durango

Took a jeep trek up the valley to 12,000 ft to overlook the young sharp geological formation of the Rockies ranges surrounding Durango. A rough ride up the mule mining trail of La Plata valley pioneered by the highly lucrative silver and gold rush in the area.

Trout hatchery

Thousands of little trouts raised from eggs and ready to be distributed into lakes and rivers at the fish hatchery in Durango. Just your shadow presence was enough to start a frenzy in expectation of feeding!

Conquer the highest sand dune in North America!

Sand dunes and you are not anywhere near the seaside or beach! Almost too unusual to understand how this can happen however a dried out sea bed and two conflicting winds have managed to create a minor environmental miracle - add two rivers that feed either side of the sand dunes and you have a wildlife mix that astonishes you when standing in the middle of the Colorado mountains at 7,100 feet altitude! Only attempt climbing to the peak of you are fit and have two hours or more! This is the proverbial two steps forward one step back. Kids love the boards you can rent to slide down the dunes. Essential to take water, shoes for the potentially very hot sand 140 degrees max, and wind and sand protection like glasses and wind breaker. A treat to have a national park that you can act as wild as you like and cause no damage to yourself or to the park!

Great Dunes

Hard work these dunes! We had an hour or so to explore and walked up the dunes two steps forward and one slide back only so far before coming back to check out of our RV site and make our way - only 130 miles or so - our last travel day to Durango. Finally in our alpine caravan site and meeting up today with our 57 other Airstream travelers in 30 campers!

Power generation

Kansas is about 400 miles wide and takes a whole day to drive across. Unbelievable number of wind farm turbines in Kansas stretch in their hundreds as far as the eye can see... they co-habit with many spinning oil pumps sitting out in the middle of vast agricultural fields, which are in themselves generating the bulk of the country's food. Grain elevators on the horizon in all directions. Taking full advantage of airborne resources, underground resources and land cultivation resources but hardly a soul to be seen! Serious business! Maybe Kansas is a good place to lose a few thousand Syrian refugees!

Overnight in Illinois

Convenient on day 2 of our journey west we stopped in Cobden Illinois at Margaret's brother Andy beautifully landscaped homestead - naturally he is a professional landscape architect!

Cross Country

Two thousand miles in four days! The beast and silver cloud devoured mostly I-64 and I-70 onwards and onwards to the Rockies and eventually to Durango Colorado where we join 30 Airstreamers for our South-West Adventure. Beautiful rides through West Virginia and Colorado mountains offset by the tragically depressing and decaying cities we passed through like Charleston WV, St Louis MO and Kansas City KS. Oh for the wide open spaces...!

Region 3 Rallye Doswell VA

Night time at the Meadows Farm in Doswell Virginia where some 80 Airstreamers gather for a Wednesday to Sunday rallye full of interesting seminars and people. Followed in the footsteps of John Wilkes Booth who was captured and killed near here in Port Royal and enjoyed the outstanding hospitality of the Caroline County Chamber of Commerce and Port Royal and Bowling a Green museum folks! Took the Secretariat tour around our campground farm birthplace and training ground for this famous Triple Crown winner in the early 70's. Also learned protocol for flying the flag at night by adapting my inspection light! We traveled all of 40 miles to attend this Rallye - one of the closest participants! Downside weather was overcast and rained for the entire Rallye which was disappointing since it was 80F the day before it started. Spent lots of funds on final payment for our South West Adventure caravan starting in August, a new TST trailer tire pressure monitoring system and a three year subscription to SkyMed for emergency evacuation while traveling anywhere in the world!