ruins | Wheels and Sails

We are STILL in the Williams, Arizona area, but not for long! I am happy to report that all reservations have been made and we are heading out on August 25th to go to California. We are first going to be staying near Sequoia National Park, and then at a resort right on the southern end of Lake Tahoe! California is the state that Elijah has been looking the most forward to. He was born there, yet remembers nothing about it as we moved away when he was less than a year old. We already have 5 weeks of campground stays reserved and I am sure we will be there for quite a bit longer than that.

As for this area, we are STILL finding brand new things to do. Over a week ago, Elijah and I went to Walnut Canyon National Park right outside of Flagstaff. We were totally blown away by it and then when we spoke with the park ranger we were were told about two other “sister” national parks that were within 30 miles of this one. So we ended up having a marathon national park day and we visited all three of them that same day! The second one was Sunset Crater Volcano National Park (which although he loved them all, this one was Elijah’s favorite), and the third one was Wupatki National Park. By the day’s end, Elijah had hiked almost 7 miles! Most of which was without me as Popeye was not allowed on any of the trails inside those three parks. :'( I had hiked over 3 miles myself and we both had an awesome time. We came home and told Greg about them (who had stayed home to work) so Greg and I ended up visiting all three of them again that weekend, without Popeye. Elijah opted to stay home for our second visit as well since Greg and I were overdue for a “date day” and he was still recovering from all the hiking he had already done anyway. Here is just a sampling of the MANY pictures taken at each park over the course of both days. First for Walnut Canyon National Monument (which was my personal favorite of the three)

Elijah posing for a picture before he began his descent down the Island Trail, a loop path that descends steeply (by 185 feet) via a series of 240 steps, then circles the island.

Popeye and I had to wait near the parking lot as Popeye wasn’t allow on the trail. 🙁

I don’t know if you can see him, but that is Elijah down there in the blue shirt. He’s heading down the trail.

I didn’t go down first time, but when Greg and I returned both Greg and I did the entire Island Trail. Yes… all 240 steps!

I am posing to show you this cool tree (and using this as an excuse to REST!)

So interesting and amazing to realize how resourceful these people were.

Not only did we get up close and personal with the cliff dwellings, from these views we could see other cliff dwellings all throughout the limestone layer of the canyon. There are over 300 cliff dwellings in this canyon alone!

After we left Walnut Canyon we headed to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. This one was both Elijah and Greg’s favorite:

Again, Popeye wasn’t allowed on the trails. This was taken in the parking lot showing Sunset Crater in the background

Eijah, doing some volcanic hiking on his own

Greg and I ended up doing the entire Lava Flow Trail. Which is a mile long. 1/2 mileof it is paved, but the rest goes over and around the lava flow.

No, that’s not a cane. It’s just a very short hiking stick!

This tree was creepy. We named him Egor.

Okay, so I know we are a bit obsessed with these trees, but they were so awesome!

Check out this landscape! Basalt EVERYWHERE!

Once you entered into Sunset Crater National Park area, if you just keep going on that same road you will get to Wupatki National Monument. The road is shared by both parks and extends for 30 miles. There is a visitor center and museum at each end for each park. Same setup as the Petrified Forest & Painted Desert National parks I wrote about in a previous blog post which you can read if you click here. Wupatki had more intact pueblo dwellings than we have seen anywhere. To say that we all loved this park as well is an understatment. There are no words for this place other than COOL!!!! Check it out…

There were several ruins sites at this park, but my personal favorit was this one, called Wukoki Ruins. Not only could I easily imagine someone living here I loved it so much that I could imagine living here myself!

Our little lizardy friend Elijah identified him as a Spiny Lizard.

Looking out the window from inside the Wukoki ruins. See what I mean?!?!? What a view!

That is Wukoki in the background. If this nomadic traveling life doesn’t work out…. I’m moving in here!

This was at Wupatki, the main ruin site. Although it was larger and more extensive. I still like Wukoki better.

This sign tells about my next picture. The ballcourt, which was a game arena

Due to the recent rains (being that it is “monsoon season” around these parts, their ballcourt looked more like a bathhouse!

I LOVE this picture. I took this while driving through the park. This is about halfway between Sunset Crater & Wupatki. It’s the perfect picture of our never ending road trip.

And now for the elk! Elijah is enamored with them and has researched and learned seemingly everything there is to know about elk. He says they are his “spirit animal” Look at what God sent us on our 5th trip (yes, that’s what happens when you stay at the same place for an extended period of time! We just can’t seem to get enough of it!) to the Grand Canyon. First, here is a super cool close up and personal video of our new beast of a buddy, Mr. Bull Elk.

We got up close and personal with this huge magnificent bull elk.

He circled around our entire picnic table during the course of our dinner.

He would go up to a bush and put his head down and intertwine his antlers into the entire bush. Then he would rip it out and start munching on it. I think he was doing it more to help his antlers shed than anything.

We were having a picnic at the Grand Canyon (yes, our 5th trip here!!!) and he was chowing down within sight of us!

The elk seemed mesmerized by Popeye. He started coming toward him so I had to quickly put Popeye in the truck!

Speaking of the Grand Canyon, here are just a few more pictures we took this same night.

Elijah looks like he’s trying to make a fire in the fireplace.

chilling out on a great spot overlooking the canyon just waiting for the sunset.

Greg trying to take a group selfie using his selfie stick. Popeye isn’t being very cooperative!

Popeye enjoying a Grand Canyon sunset. Such a spoiled puppy!!!

Here are some other places that Elijah and I also discovered around Flagstaff. There seriously seems to be now end of things to do and see around here!

Picture Canyon. This was right near the mall in Flagstaff so we didn’t expect much. We were pleasantly surprised as usual.

They had a bench in front of this little pond with sign saying it was an ideal wildlife viewing area. We heard an elk call while there, but never saw him.

Just to give perspective of how far the drop was down the canyon to the base of the falls.

We were surprised to see that it even had a waterfall. You don’t see many waterfalls in Arizona.

This is about 20 minutes or so north of Flagstaff and is called “The Chapel of The Holy Dove”

Inside the Chapel of The Holy Dove. It is only used for ceremonies, mostly weddings. It’s open to public for prayer 24/7 as long as no ceremony is scheduled.

Right across from the church was the Kendrick Park which features a “Watchable Wildlife Trail”. With that huge expanse of flat grazing land there are supposed to be lots of elk and deer here during early morning and early evening times. Unfortunately we visited smack dab in the middle of the day.

Some of the wildlife you may see at this park are Steller’s jay, northern flicker, pygmy nuthatch, hairy woodpecker, red-tailed hawk, mule deer, porcupine, pronghorn antelope, elk, Abert’s squirrel, badger and coyote. We went in the middle of the day, so the only wildlife we saw were several Abert’s squirrels. It was beautiful nonetheless.

I loved the look of the Aspens against the dark Ponderosa Pines.

There was a paved short loop trail that was only ¼ mile long. Elijah and I did this as well as the longer loop trail which was 1½ miles long. It was an easy flat trail and there was a cool breeze blowing and we both found our time there quite mesmerizing.

I can’t remember where this was… but it was beautiful!

An now for a glimpse of our normal every day life. I have spent much time on the computer lately, I have much I want to get done before we head to California. I’m about 90% done with my homeschool planning for the year and then I have some tax stuff and business stuff I must attend to. Remember, it’s not all fun and games! Here are some shots of our daily life:

Laundry… and loads of it! (Pun intended) This is a shot of my weekly laundry duty. I’ve been having to go to the local laundromat since we arrived here 6 weeks ago because the RV Park we are staying in only had two washing machines that worked. I have 4-5 loads every week and I want to do them all at one time. They recently repaired them so this last week I was able to do all four loads right here at our campground laundromat. Still not fun, but feels like a luxury compared to going to the “local” landromat. Fun times!

Our cute little red Igloo ice maker decided to die on us and let’s just say that I simply can not live (not with a smile on my face anyway) without ice! After much research Greg found the perfect (and upgraded) replacement for us at Kohl’s. He used his 30% off coupon and it was on sale as well. So this new, HUGE Magic Chef Ice Maker is the latest addition to our home. (See that big silver thing on the left?) After the sale & coupon we ended up paying less than half of the original price for it. Score!

This machine CRANKS OUT the ice! It makes 40 lbs. per day (the other made 27 lbs per day). I am very happy with our new ice beast!

I put stick on chalkboard thingies on the indentured area of the edge of our pantry. I really like it!

I put some on the inside door of the instrument panel and I use this to write down our current campground name, address, phone number, and campsite #. That way it’s easily accessible in case of emergency. (Wait, where are we?!?!)

This is UPS delivering a package right to our campsite! We don’t get this service everywhere, often they deliver it to the office. Very impressive!

I bought a wooden stencil of the word “Home” for our USA cutting board. It didn’t pop enough so I painted it… red, of course! 🙂

This was taken right here in Williams. You seriously never know what you are going to see around this town next! A white pony in a pickup truck bed hand-made trailer. Too funny.

What do you do when you need some warranty or service work done on your RV and you live in it… full time?!?! Well, when you have an awesome manufacturer like Grand Design, it’s easy peasy. We had some warranty stuff that needed attending to and since we saw this RV Mobile Repair truck several times right here we asked them if they did warranty work. They do! We called Grand Design and went over everything and they approved everything, sent us the parts asap and we were able to schedule Cory and his lovely wife to come right to us to do the work. How convenient is that? We only had to pay a small fee for their trip here, Grand Design covered all the rest. So, if you are ever near the Flagstaff or Williams area and need some RV work done, call Cody Herring at Aspen RV Services. His number is (928) 606-2082. They did excellent work! Thanks, Cody!