Driving through west Texas is an experience. There are not too many folks so you pass cars only occasionally on the roads. Most everybody waves a friendly hello and you are soon doing it too. After gassing up the truck at Alpine and picking up some scrub oak firewood we headed in to Big Bend…
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We did not have the opportunity to stay at Guadalupe, but we did at least visit the Welcome Centre and have a small look at the park before we had to continue onward to reach Big Bend by the end of the day. The park is set in the same rock formation that contains the…
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Carlsbad Cavern is a wet cave. That is, the features that you will find in the cave are created by water dripping from the roof of the cave onto the floor. The cavern itself is very large and was created by the dissolution of limestone at a period when the rock was underwater. In fact,…
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From Gallup, we headed to Soccoro to visit with some friends who are stationed at NRAO and the VLA. As it happened we just arrived at exactly the right moment to visit the Trinity test site which was open to the public on that one day. For those of you not history conscious, this is…
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Towards that later part of the day we arrived at the Petrified Forest National Park. We had to rush through the park as we arrived at 4pm. and the park closes at 5pm. All visitors must be out by 5pm. — there is a large problem with folks stealing petrified wood. The Petrified Forest is…
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Leaving the south rim of the Grand Canyon, we planned a long drive to Gallup, New Mexico. Along the way we stopped in at the Wupatki National Monument. This is a old Anasazi site with several ruins set amongst some recent volcanic activity — indeed, it was the volcanic enrichment of the soil that made…
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The trip from the North Rim to the South is about 6 hours. We crossed the Colorado River at Marble Canyon, headed south and then entered the Park again from the east entrance. The South Rim is very developed and the crowds are large. However there are some spectacular views!
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From Zion, we dropped down into Arizona to see Grand Canyon National Park from both rims. The North Rim is less popular than the South Rim — this is a good thing! Though there are less developed viewing areas on the North Rim, the crowds are smaller! Also the North Rim has a more alpine character…
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The Cedar Breaks are another erosional feature similar to Bryce in appearance. The single amphitheatre is more than 2,000 feet deep and more than 3 miles in diameter. The Markagunt plateau in which it is carved is quite high at about 10,000 ft elevation.
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Hail and snow drove us from Bryce earlier than we wished, but as we travelled south and west to Zion National Park the weather cleared. We camped in the South Campground at Zion and while using this as a home base we travelled up the Zion Canyon, north to the finger canyons of the Kolob…
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