Kings Canyon Nat'l Park

This place is beautiful. John Muir could describe it in more poetic terms, I'll just let some of our pictures show you:


It's not just about the waterfalls:

































It's not just about the views that you can soak in at overlooks or driving into the canyon:























It's not just about the tiny blooming wildflowers growing along the trails and roadside:















It's not just about these giant trees:











But it's because of them all.

Internet in National Parks

We don't have cell service, but we do have internet. Gosh we love this satellite dish! In both Kings Canyon and in Sequoia National Parks we had sites that had enough space through the trees to allow for a connection. Since we have no electric hookups, we've turned the generator on to raise the dish, we leave it up, and connect whenever we turn the generator on. We tend not to leave the generator on for long. Long enough for me to upload pictures, organize them, recharge batteries (camera and RV), check emails, research future travels, etc. But this morning we decided to spend a little time online - allowing me to post. Jim and Chris had mentioned this secret to us before (saving time raising and lowering the dish unnecessarily), and I just noticed they reminded us of it a few posts ago.

It's nice to at least have email-access since we don't have cell service. At least we can communicate this way. This has been especially helpful trying to plan for my girlfriends' visit this afternoon.

Getting to Kings Canyon NP

When we left Kernville we drove through Bakersfield and then north via CA Hwy 245 into Kings Canyon. I'm just mentioning this so you don't repeat our error! Yikes, what a road. Constant, and boy do I mean constant, s-curves. A narrow, winding road that kept me spinning the steering wheel left than right for hours til we made it to the top. The 173-mile drive took us a little over 5 1/2 hours. Would've been better to go a longer distance and taken 180 (I think).

Kernville, CA - A Parting Shot

Wanted to show you a picture of the Kern River Valley. This view is from the Broken Oar Restaurant with the best outdoor deck. Not a bad place to enjoy a local microbrew, huh?
Ok, gotta go...

Kernville, CA - Moving On

We'll be heading out shortly. It looks like our initial plan of heading slowly north through the USFS to Kings/Sequoia is not going to work. We've been warned that the narrow, winding, steep slopes through the mountains aren't advisable for an RV our length. Bummer, we were looking forward to more scenic beauty along the way. These roads are Mtn 99, 190, or even west on 155. So now it appears we'll head southwest to 178, then north on 65 and 245 and just head into Kings Canyon today. We need to get ourselves a campsite somewhere before tomorrow's start of Memorial Day Weekend. We're sure everything will be packed by Fri night.

Since we will be in Kings, Sequoia, and Yosemite NPs and several USFS campsites from now til late June this means no electric hookups for a month. This may mean no posts for the next month unless we get WIFI somewhere in a lodge or wherever. Therefore you may not hear from us for awhile...or if we feel the need we may put up the dish when the generator is on. Normally generator usage is pretty limited in the Nat'l Parks which is why we are thinking about just not worrying about it. We'll see. This is first time we've brought along our own internet...we've gotten pretty addicted to it!!

Talk to you all soon!

Kernville, CA

We've gone from roadrunners to roaring rapids. This is why we love RVing. When you need a change, you just pack up the RV and move a few hours down the road...and sometimes be a world away.
We're staying in the beautiful Kernville Valley - Trail to 100 Giants. The Kern River comes down from Mt Whitney. What was the first thing we did after arriving? Put our feet in the nippy 50-degree water.


The Kern and Lake Isabella are surrounded by Sequoia National Forest. We may hit some of the Nat'l Forest campgrounds as we wind north on Thursday. Our campsite is too beautiful to leave too quickly, so we're going to hang out here one night longer than scheduled. That's the other beauty about RVing - the freedom to move when and where we want. Unless you make reservations, than you have a commitment!

We were excited to have our satellite working even with all of these trees surrounding us. And, we've been enjoying watching all of the rafters and kayakers going by.

Ok...we're off to check out another bar in town. Last night we hit the Kern Microbrewery just a 1/4 mile up the hill. Tonight we're hoping to enjoy a topside view of the valley at a bar with a deck overlooking the river.

Death Valley - The Longest 44 hours

Let me start out with the good side...Death Valley far exceeded our expectations. We pictured a huge desolate valley with interesting salt formations and Borax history. It was that. But more. There are two mountain ranges that hem in this salt coated valley that are part multi-hued Badlands and part multi-layered rock cliffs. The colors, the textures, the variations from desert to cliffs was all fascinating.

But it was the heat that stopped us from enjoying too much of this park. We knew it coming in, but we figured a taste was better than nothing. We got in around noon on Saturday. The temperatures outside were 118 degrees according to our thermometer. The temperature inside our RV wasn't much better - the thermostat was pegged at 99 degrees (there is no third digit). The ranger had given us some recommendations...which was to go out at sunrise to do Titus Canyon area and to wait for sunset to do Artist's Drive and Badwater. He had no recommendations on what to do between noon to 6:30, except to use the swimming pool at Furnace Creek Ranch. No trails were considered "summer trails". All he kept saying was "It's hot." We knew it was hot, but we figured the poor guy has been permanently affected from the desert heat.

To beat some of the afternoon heat, we drove in our air-conditioned car to Harmony Borax Works, Zabriskie Point and drove off-road along the Twenty Mule Team Trail. Glad we did it...Zabriskie is stunning and Twenty Mule was a fun, narrow dirt road with a mine shaft we could go partly into. But, heed your rangers - they know what they're talking about. The sunsetting on Artists Drive was the perfect lighting and seeing Badwater after the sun set behind the western range helped to be able to see without glaring light. To top off the night, we did go and use the over-sized swimming pool at Furnace Creek.

We had hoped when we returned to the RV that things would've cooled off with the darkening sky. But no. The table was hot, the walls were hot, the sheets were hot. There is no electric hookup at Furnace Creek Campground to artificially cool things off. Windows were open, fans were on. But still, not a whisper of a breeze and it was still 99 degrees inside. Andy spent the first two hours of "sleep" on the roof, but fellow campers kept him awake. At 4:00 am we both gave up and went to the roof with Thermarests and blankets. The sky was bright with stars, shooting stars, and the milky way...but there was also a heavenly breeze at 11' above ground.

We woke with the sun at 5:30. We packed up the RV and went to Titus Canyon. Although you can drive this whole road (one-way), we went to the west end and just hiked up a mile or so into the Narrows. Afterward we drove west and to higher elevation at Panamint Springs.

From Panamint we were going to do a driving tour up to Wild Rose to see Charcoal Kilns and another mine. But Ele was running low on gas. At Furnace Creek it was $4.16/gal. At Panamint it was highway robbery at $4.39. Once we heard of a short hike to Darwin Falls that was only a couple of miles away, we decided to do that instead. We found our oasis in the desert. It is absolutely freaky to find a flowing waterfall in all of this dirt and rocks.

I took lots of pictures, so instead of posting them on the blog, I put them up on the web. Click here for Death Valley Web Album.

The high-season for Death Valley is Nov-April, so we'll just have to try again to make it during the cooler season to see all that this park has to offer.

Death Valley - 112 Degrees

We're heading to Death Valley tomorrow. Andy has been monitoring the weather reports every day for the last week or so. We kept hoping the temperatures would come down. They've been experiencing abnormally high temps for this time of year. We've even been debating about whether we should go or not. We know we won't be able to do the hiking we had hoped, but we've already missed out on this park several times. Worst case scenario, we'll just do some driving tours and stay one night. Actually, I guess worst case scenario will be death in Death Valley...but we're not going to push ourselves.

Cross your fingers and wish us some cool weather - anything around 100 degrees would be perfectly acceptable!

Great news!! My girlfriends, Tatiana and Stacy, will be joining us in Kings Canyon. They live in San Fran and are driving out to meet us since we're not heading to the coast this year. My sister, Karen, and her husband, Craig, are also trying to meet us in Yosemite. So, the question remains - is it us or the parks that they're coming to see? Either way, we're tickled.

Las Vegas, NV - The Strip

Our friends, Gail and Merle, recently went to Paris - well so did we! We can't let our old neighbors top our travels, can we? Just kidding! Doing Paris our way is not quite the same, but its still fun to tour all of the casinos and check out the over-the-top designs and decor. Its one of my favorite pasttimes when we're in town. I'm not much of a gambler (unless I win again), so I would rather see the beautiful and interesting themes of each property.
I also enjoy trying to schedule our walks to take advantage of the free attractions The Strip has to offer. Here's The Mirage's volcano eruption:

This was our first visit to the new and elegant Wynn Casino. This place is gorgeous, but we couldn't afford the $15 minimum roulette tables. We prefer the $5 or $2 tables so I can stay in the game for more than 5 minutes before blowing my nightly gambling allowance.
The Wynn had a interior courtyard with trees dressed with these incredible flower-balls. They also have beautiful, eclectic, chandeliers in an atrium that move up and down or spin. I could've spent more time looking around, but Andy promptly dragged me out and across the street to the cheesy Frontier so he (I mean 'we') could gamble.

Las Vegas, NV - Trading vs. Gambling

We came to Vegas to attend a class on options trading and to hit The Money Show. Our initial plan was to go to Monday morning's class, check out the booths in the afternoon, and maybe attend a few more classes before leaving Tuesday or Wednesday. Well, the classes/seminars were so helpful we attended many until close of the show on Thursday afternoon. We were mentally exhausted. And physically, too, from sitting for ten hours a day. But it was worth it. We had hit a wall with our trading - partly because we have tried several different strategies, each failing; partly because there has been less time to focus on trading with our new lifestyle of being on the road. Being at the show has helped put things back into focus for us. We've also kept in touch with members of our Ft Lauderdale Investor Group (via emails) which has helped us, too. Trading can be a very lonely business, so its more fun and more productive to have other people in your circle to help trade ideas and support.

Now we are eager to work and trade, but we are heading into the National Parks again - Death Valley, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite - and are concerned about not having the time to properly monitor new trades. Oh well.

It wasn't until Thursday night that we got out on The Strip. And, for the first time in memory, I WON! Not much, but a 2.5:1 return and Andy also walked away with a 2:1 return. Perhaps we should just gamble instead of trade? Here's the funny thing...I should've walked away with a 3:1, but what did I do? I removed my 'stop loss' and decided to bet another $10 because I wanted to stay in the fun. Even with my gambling I make the same mistake! Ha!

Las Vegas, NV - Natural Beauty?

Who knew?! There is natural beauty in Vegas! After arriving early on Sunday, we read in the RV brochure about the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. We weren't quite prepared to tackle The Strip so we drove to the western mountain range that hems in the valley. Usually we've paid no attention to these yellowish mountains because they don't look too appealing in the yellow smog that tends to hover over the Vegas valley. But we learned in Salt Lake City and in Albuquerque, that once you get into the hills, the beauty is there.

One area consisted of petrified sand dunes of red and tan. The rocks were like swirled ice cream with stripes of colors blended throughout. We also found Joshua Trees (cacti) here in the park.
The park also consisted of canyons that cut through the towering cliffs. These shaded canyons provided us with some relief from the blistering sun.

Wish we had more time (& heat endurance) to tackle some more of the many hikes here, but it's always good to save something for the next time. So, the next time you come to Vegas, don't forget your hiking boots!

Chloride, AZ

After leaving Flagstaff we wanted one overnight stop before hitting the Hoover Dam. We figured if we reached the Dam early enough in the morning there wouldn't be long lines at the Homeland Security Checkpoint. They check our outside compartments and take a peek inside the RV as well. The busiest time of the day for the them is around 1:30pm they said.

Andy had found this living ghost town, Chloride, that is just north of Kingman.

We figured this would be a fun stop. There are somewhere between 250-350 residents in Chloride depending on where you check. The RV Park was in the downtown area so we didn't have to detach and still got to walk around. Chloride is known not only for being a 1860 mining town, but for the decorations the residents have put out in their yard. Everything from the artsy: rusted iron sculptures, old cars converted into flower pots, creative use of wine bottles...to the funky: whirlybirds, bowling-ball centipedes, and skeleton-motorcycle riders.





The Historical Society is also rebuilding an old-west block which includes a saloon with the swinging doors! We've been looking for one of these! Ha!

We chose to drycamp at this RV Park. Otherwise we would've been squashed in between all of the other, mostly permanent, RVers. Think we made the right choice?

That night we were able to watch 3-4 nighthawks dart about collecting their fill of insects. There was a streetlight near our site that attracted the bugs and, therefore, these silent hunters. They flew like bats, but with long, narrow wings. And they were totally silent. Not a chirp or a wing-beat could be heard. Just one of those wonderful moments in life.

Flagstaff, AZ - Sunset Crater & Wupatki

These two National Monuments are on the same 35-mile loop road (545) north of Flagstaff so it makes perfect sense to visit them at the same time.

Sunset Crater Volcano is the youngest volcano in the Flagstaff area having erupted just about 800 years ago. Walking the short trails you can see cinder cones, lava fields, lava tubes, spatter cones, and the plant life that can survive in such harsh conditions.



Wupatki encompasses several different areas of pueblo ruins from the 1100's. Some were perched high up on a rock island while others built into cliffs or were sitting on the valley floor. Each were unique and told a different story of their lifestyles. The rock in this vicinity was very red which made many of these dwellings even more striking.




This was called a "blowhole" which allowed cool air to flow upward from an underground cavern. Not quite Marilyn Monroe-esque, but you can see the air was blowing strong enough to blow my hair out. If I had a white dress on, it would've been a better photo-op.

Flagstaff Bruathlon

Andy and I have come up with a new sport. It's definitely better than a grueling Triathlon. First leg: drink some microbrews - preferably in a cool town at high altitude. Second leg: go for a wild mountain bike ride into the mountains - preferably with a high-speed downhill spin. Third leg: repeat Leg #1.

It might not be any less dangerous or energy-sapping than a duathlon or triathlon, but definitely more fun! Just having a good high-octane microbrew at altitude is enough to sap most of our energy and make us dopey.

Following it up with a bike ride re-energizes you at the same time it takes everything you have left. The waitress at the Beaver Street Brewery said that the mountain biking in Snowbowl is "easy". So we went there, met up with another biker who said that the Schultz Creek Trail is a long 3 1/2-mile, steady grind uphill with a nice downhill, or we could make a loop with several other trails of varying technical levels. We chose the out-and-back on Schultz.

This Idahoan used the best words to describe the downhill ride..."killer" and it "keeps you right on the edge". It was a blast. If the uphill hadn't almost blown out our lungs going from 7,200' elevation to 7,800' elevation (with a beer in us), we would've done it again becuse the downhill was such a trip.
But I learned a lesson on this ride: don't squeeze the back brakes harder than the front. The back wheel will slide sideways most likely clipping the biggest rock in the trail and sending you over and into a tree. Ouch! Only minor bruising and scrapes reported.

We finished our Bruathlon with a stop at the Flagstaff Brewing Company. We got our kicks on Route 66 watching the 5-engine freight trains pass us by.

Side Note: Schultz Creek was part of the Coconino Nat'l Forest - Peaks District. There are tons more trails to do surrounding Flagstaff.

Flagstaff, AZ - Walnut Canyon

There are three National Monuments within easy driving distance of the city of Flagstaff. Not only do we like the town, but we thought this would be fun to collect 5 National Parks within a week - this might be a record for us!

Walnut Canyon was our first visit. These cliff dwellings are amazing. The canyon has been cut into a s-shape from the flow of the creek below and natural collapses and dams that had occurred over the years.

The "row-homes" were built under existing overhangs on ledges up and down the cliffs. We met a couple of gentlemen from South Florida on the trail and were trying to come up with the pros and cons of the different homes in this real estate market. Different views, sunny exposure, and the life-threatening hazards of some of the dwelllings. Did they have winter homes on the sunny southern slopes and summer homes on the cooler northern slopes? And, children were supposed to be able to play on the ledges...but some of these ledges were only a foot wide before the drop off. And imagine trying to climb down to the creek when you're hungry and thirsty?

The ruins gave us enough of an idea of to the hardships these people faced. But they did pick a pretty canyon to live in.

Time Warp

We arrived in Flagstaff, AZ Wednesday afternoon. Per usual, we verified we hadn't crossed any time zones to see if we needed to change all of our clocks and watches. Nope, we're still in Mountain Time Zone, we won't have to change til we hit Vegas. We spent a couple of hours walking around town refamiliarizing ourselves with the area and getting information on what to do while we're here.

It wasn't until the next morning at breakfast that we realized we were in a time warp. We had been up for an hour or so when the radio DJ mentions that it is 7:30 am. We both look up, look at eachother and ask, "what did he just say?". Here we thought we had slept in! Then we remembered - Arizona doesn't honor Daylight Savings.

We should've known the night before when the TV shows weren't playing at their scheduled times.

New Mexico - Land of Chilies

If my memory serves me correctly, we've always liked the food in New Mexico, albeit a bit spicy. Either that or we've been lucky finding vegetarian options, fresh vegetables, and generally some healthy meals. But, boy, do they love their chilies and peppers.

We stopped at a place in Ramah for some pizza. The waiter brought out the red pepper flakes, parmesan, and Thai Hot Chili Sauce. What? He must've saw the expression on my face, so he explained how he loves using the hot chili sauce on his pizza. I promised him we would at least try it. It was different and addictive, believe it or not. My lips were still burning when we left but sometimes you just have to try what the locals recommend.

DatastormUsers Map

I wanted to let you know that there is a feature available with our DatastormUsers Map. We can add your email on our contact list so that every time we move the RV you'll receive an email updating you with our new location. We didn't want to just add everybody's emails because we move every couple of days or so...that could be a nuisance for some people. But if you'd find it easier to get a quick notification - usually just a sentence telling you what city/state and a comment - just email us and I'll add your email address to the list. You can always ask us to remove your email as well if you decide you don't like it.

Either way, just thought I'd let you know that feature is available.

El Morro, NM - Wolf Sanctuary

We visited the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary to see the wolves.

All of these wolves or wolf-dogs were captive-bred or originally pets of people who thought they could handle a wild animal in their home. It's such a common theme at many of the sanctuaries that we visit - people think it would be really cool to have an exotic pet, but then realize when the animal reaches maturity that it has a mind of its own and can't be domesticated.
All of the wolves are part of the grey-wolf family. Most of the ones we saw were either timber wolves (yellow/brown color) or artic wolves (more white). The wolf-dogs were half-breeds with domestic dogs, but retained more "wolf" and couldn't be handled when they reached two years of age.
Periodically they would start howling. A haunting sound, but we started laughing when this guy was too lazy to get up from his nap - he just raised his head and joined in.

This couple was cute and fun to watch. The dark male is the sanctuary's primary educational animal. Since he is twelve years old, they are now trying to train some puppies to replace him.

Since we didn't know how many miles or how long it would take to reach the sanctuary, we ended up arriving early for the tour. We entertained ourselves out back watching the hummingbirds. Lots of feeders hung from the trees and the territorial-battle was on. I enjoy the sounds these little torpedoes make when they dart about.

El Morro, NM - El Morro Nat'l Monument

I thought El Morro was going to be just another "inscription rock". Don't get me wrong, I like to read the history of the people that travel through the area and imagine their lives and hardships in the years they passed by this rock and carved an inscription. Some inscriptions are just names and dates. Others were brief explanations on who they were or the mission they were on. Many travelers came to El Morro because it had a perpetual pool of water at its base. Its first inscription was in 1605. Many in Spanish, some Indian petroglyphs, and then in the 1800's were the American travelers.
The melting snow would cascade over the rock and hold in the pool below...


The 2-mile long loop trail wrapped around the point of this sandstone bluff and zig-zagged up the backside. That's when this rock became enchanting.

At the top of the bluff you realized that the rock is actually the walls of a box canyon.

The trail is now marked with cairns and etchings in the sandstone to keep you from getting too close to the cliff's edge.

A fast approaching storm is awesome to watch, until you realize that you are standing on the highest point in the area and there's not many places to hide on a rock and you remember that the rangers told you how the visitor center was struck by lightning just a week ago. The high iron content in the lava fields attracts lightning to this area.

The Atsinna Ruins sit high atop this sandstone bluff and date back to the 1200's. Beautiful location, but I'd question living here because of the strong winds and lightning. But the sandstone would hold small pools of water in the divets and pockets in the soft rock and they had the pond down below on the desert floor. Probably strong reasons for choosing this location.

We would've loved to have spent more time on top of Inscription Rock, but perhaps another day. Just to note: it snowed here three days ago. Six inches fell. That would've been pretty to see. The ranger laughed at this memory considering today he was in short sleeves...note, we were in fleece, HE was in short sleeves.

El Morro, NM - Land of Lava

The Ancient Way (aka NM Scenic Hwy 53) takes you into a beautiful area of New Mexico where there are old volcanoes, lava fields, and sandstone bluffs. There are several attractions off of Hwy 53 that brought us here and in order to stay in the thick of it all, we chose to stay at El Morro RV Park & Cabins (aka Ancient Way RV Park). The location is prime - putting us right in between El Mapais Nat'l Monument ("ma-pa-ace"; we struggled with the pronunciation so we just called it El Magpie) and El Morro Nat'l Monument. It's a pretty rough campground. We had water, sewer, and electric, but all were in such crazy locations that we had to double our water hose, use the electric extension, and not even try to connect the sewer. We'll dump when we leave. The sites are so unlevel, that after putting our levelers three high and not seeing a difference, we just used some cinder blocks as chocks and are living at a slant. But the park has lots of pinyon pines and junipers, but none too tall to affect our satellite dish. And since we have no TV or cell service, we are sooo excited about having internet. We can even watch some of our favorite TV shows on our computers. Did you know there's a bonus to watching TV on your computer? 20 second commercials! And only a couple are interjected into the show. That makes up for the small screen.

But, again, the location was perfect for accessing all of the things we wanted to see.

Bandera Volcano & Ice Cave
We've seen several volcanoes over the years, but felt that this volcano crater was one of the most defined. The trail that winds you up and into the cone shows off the lava fields.

Another trail takes you over the lava field and past lava tubes to the Ice Cave. After hiking at these elevations, the 31 degrees of the Ice Cave felt great.


El Mapais National Monument
We hiked the El Calderon loop. We told the ranger we wanted to see lava tubes, and she complied. At Junction Cave we could scramble down the rocks and through the tube for about 50 yards to the other opening. Now, if you have helmets, headlamps, ropes, and some knowledge you could actually go caving in many of the lava tubes at the Monument. We did take some flashlights and went into the "dark side" for a ways before going the direction we were told to hike. Loose, sharp, lava rocks kept us from going too far in. El Calderon Loop took us past several caves, a lava trench, to the top of a cinder cone, and through some pretty scenery.

The cinders here were a rich-red color.

There's a lot more to this park than we were able to see on this visit. We'd like to hit it again some day and visit the area along Hwy 117. Probably the best way to see it is with 4-wheel drive. But even that sounds like it could be hit-or-miss. In the rain, these dirt roads turn into slick mud sending 4-wheel drive vehicles careening sideways. The ranger shared stories of drivers getting stuck, tow-truck drivers getting stuck trying to pull them out, and then the tow-tow-truck drivers getting stuck trying to rescue the other two! We had thought about taking our mountain bikes into the park on these roads, but the rains scared us off.

A Crimp in RVing

Gas prices are going to cause a crimp in our RVing lifestyle. We've already started paying $3.19/gallon...even in the Texas Panhandle. And we thought Texas would be the cheap state. Part of our dilemma is that the Regular grade gas in west Texas and New Mexico has been 86 octane. We're not supposed to put in less than 87 octane when at high elevations. And considering we are now sitting on the Continental Divide at 7,700', we figure this classifies as "elevation", right?

We're just praying that gas prices start coming down before we hit California. Otherwise we might need to stay put in Yosemite til gas prices drop!

By the way, we do use Gas Buddy to help us locate the more reasonable stations or areas. It's not perfect, but it is better than being blind. The "temperature map" for gas prices is pretty interesting.

Canyon, TX - Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Palo Duro Canyon...We can't say enough about this place. We just love it. It's another repeat visit for us. Read the bottom of this linked page for details on our Nov '04 visit.

This visit was in springtime, whereas the last was in snowfall. We also camped in a different campground. This visit we were put in Mesquite because the rangers thought our satellite dish would get a better reception than in Hackberry. The dish did work great...until we had to lower it because of periodic wind gusts that were close to 40mph. We were too busy playing anyhow!

It only took us a minute to set up camp and start enjoying our backyard view.

We had to first shoo the wild turkey out of our driveway.

We took a hike around the campground and took in some of the views: caprocks....

Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes (this was one of three we saw in two days)...

Here's one of the cabins available to rent...

And when the sunset colors hits the canyon walls, it just glows.

Saturday we went for a bike ride through the park. Here's Andy near Capitol Peak:

And me at a lookout near Lighthouse Point.

This Horny Toad Lizard was only one of the critters we saw on our ride. Andy scared off four Javelinas crossing a drywash and we saw a rattler cornered by 6 people trying to get his picture - we warned them that it wasn't a good sign when they rattle, but you "gotta get the photo", right?!

The colors in this park are so varied: reds, purples, greys, yellows, creams. Just lovely.

Later that night we decided to go exploring. The park is completely open, which is kinda foreign to us to be able to hike anywhere we want. We decided to scramble up this wash area and we were near a crest about halfway to the rim when Andy noticed two holes in the earth near one another. After looking into the second chamber he guessed that the 6' diameter opening was hollowed out below the surface and at least 30' deep. All of a sudden the ground we were standing on didn't feel so solid. We scrambled quickly back down figuring it was not prudent to keep going up...15 minutes before sunset...and *no one* knowing where we were.

Quanah, TX - Copper Breaks State Park

We've been here before in 2005, but we've found that some places are worth visiting again and again. This State Park is one of them. On our last visit we thought it was wonderful that we were the only campers. On this visit I'm worried that, being one of 5 RVers, that this park can't maintain itself - so come visit and give them your money! It's beautiful with it's red rock canyon, ponds & lakes, and riparian areas. It's also has a small area that is like a painted desert and badlands.

This visit we caught the wildflowers in bloom. I told you we'd find some Texas Bluebonnets....

And this year, some of the Longhorn herd was near the fence for us to look at. You can also see the Yucca in bloom - we're in the desert now!










Each campsite has a tee-pee shading the picnic tables.

Being in the desert means you have to watch out for cacti. This variety is called the Horse Crippler. We figured that it could also be called a Hiker Crippler or a Mountain Bike Crippler being that it lies low in the grass with these big spines. Fortunately for us we weren't crippled on this trip!

Somehow we also missed this desert hazard while mountain biking, too. His thick body was taking up the bulk of the trail when Andy zoomed past without even knowing it. I didn't process the sighting either until after I passed him. All I could think was "yellow/black, head up, thick body...aaahh, snake!". This just proves that most wildlife won't attack unless provoked. I was within easy striking distance when I rode by.

The rains kept us from mountain biking after we arrived yesterday. And this morning, the sun rose above the mist, and slunk behind some clouds within minutes. We were afraid we wouldn't get a bike ride in on this visit. But it cleared and we had a beautiful ride:


One loop called Rocky Ledges has eroded quite a bit. What we remembered to be some easy sections were no longer doable because the erosion has changed the landscape. It is a gorgeous trail, though, so definitely worth a hike.
This part was not doable the last time, though, either!

Lewisville Lake Park Campground

We didn't spend too much time, physically, in Lewisville, but the time we did spend was just walking around the campground and enjoying the birds and the view of the lake. Here are just some of my photos...
This yellow bird was intrigued by the bright kite caught high in the tree...









This grackle caught himself a baby turtle for a snack...









I'm not sure what kind of birds these are. I think a type of swallow, but if anyone knows - please let me know!









The following pictures are of the scissor-tailed flycatcher - beautiful with their long, long forked tails and orange underparts...
























I knew this mockingbird was up to something...they always are, aren't they? So I waited for him to pounce on this unsuspecting squirrel.

















A female grackle was trying to collect some material for her nest. She struggled with this ball of fishing line before finally giving up and taking a piece of grass instead. I thought I would have to do a rescue if she got herself tangled during her dancing...














Here are some general photos from the campground. It was a nice place to stay:




















There was a rock garden...reminded me of picking out shapes in clouds. What does this look like to you?

Texas Tornadoes vs. Florida Hurricanes

The night before flying out to Philly was a scary night. The local news stations took over the TV channels with up-to-the-minute news tracking all of the tornado sightings in the area. When a tornado was sighted they would give the next town a five-minute warning to find shelter. The storms were moving at 40 mph. Winds were around 60 mph. We experienced some small hail. With such short notice for us to run to the only non-mobile shelter (the public bathrooms), we ended up getting dressed and putting on shoes in order to be ready to run if necessary. I'm not sure I could live like that. I prefer having my 5-days notice and I could fly out of the area if I choose.