We’ve been chased by weather for the past few weeks.  It seems that lately every time we leave a place, it gets inundated with horrible weather.  We fled the upper peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Wyoming, and Colorado, each time two steps ahead of cold rain, storms, and even snow.  The weather we have experienced has been very fine almost consistently, despite the fact that we have been running on the ragged edge of winter in these northern states and higher western elevations.  We’ve been lucky.

As I mentioned, traveling in the shoulder season also means fewer campsite choices, but there are still options.  We wanted to visit Walnut Canyon National Monument after leaving Petrified Forest.  There’s no campground at Walnut Canyon, and the Coconino National Forest campgrounds closed over the weekend, but there is a Cracker Barrel restaurant and a Wal-Mart just a few miles away in Flagstaff.  That’s what I meant yesterday when I talked about flexibility.  There’s always a way, even if it is perhaps not the most glamorous.  So from Petrified Forest we drove directly to Walnut Canyon, hiked the 0.9 mile Island Trail (with 240 stairs up and down), and then continued on to Flagstaff for the night.

Walnut Canyon is a remarkable ancient cliff-dwelling site, with literally hundreds of ruins in a relatively small area.  The Island Trail brings you past 24 cliff homes, many of which you can enter.  The trail is a little strenuous if you aren’t in shape because of the 185 foot stair climb at nearly 7,000 ft elevation, but most people seem to handle it just fine.

We’ve seen a lot of cliff dwellings over the past couple of years, but they still inspire a tingly sensation of ancient mystery for me.  For hundreds of years, people lived here in these lofty rock homes.  They struggled hard to build houses of stone where mountain goats would struggle to walk.  They farmed squash and corn in a climate so dry and soil so sparse that large trees cannot live.  Generations of people, raising families communally, experienced all the drama of our modern lives, rich with stories … and hardly any record of their experience survives.  I can only look at the stone alcoves and wonder.

The park closed at 5 p.m., before we had time to see everything.  So in the morning we towed the Airstream back over to hike the Rim Trail (flat) and complete the Junior Ranger program.  (Emma now has over 50 badges, nine of which were acquired this summer.  We’ll do a full inventory when we get back to Tucson.)

We could have lingered in Flagstaff, or detoured north to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, but we’d already made the decision to head home.  From Walnut Canyon it is an easy drive to I-17 and then down, down, down from Flagstaff off the rim of the Colorado Plateau.  Farewell, high elevations and chilly weather.  In less than two hours we bottomed out at 3,400 feet and then climbed back up to 5,000 in the town of Prescott, AZ.

We are still at moderately high elevation but we’ll continue downward soon enough. We are making one last stop before we return to home base. Prescott is where our friend Rich C now lives.  We traveled with Rich for months back in 2006 while he was full-timing and searching for a new home.  He found a new life in this funky western town, and has built a small business downtown making art prints and selling his photography. We haven’t seen him in over a year, so it was time to drop in and check on things.  As a bonus, our gruff and itinerant friend Gunny also happens to be visiting Prescott, so it’s a reunion of sorts.

The final trip segment is now determined.  We’ll spend two nights here in Prescott, then drive 222 miles to Tucson (with a brief stop in Tempe for an extra bag of frozen Swedish meatballs from IKEA).  Our summer travels began on June 17 and will end on October 16 — almost exactly four months on the road. The total mileage will come to about 12,000 (including side trips and unhitched travel), of which about 85% is towing miles.

If you are looking for grand conclusions, you might be disappointed.  Although our travels will cease again for a little while (perhaps six weeks, perhaps longer), I don’t see this as an end at all.  We are simply switching gears for a little while.  I can’t conclude my thoughts because I don’t see a conclusion yet.  We are still traversing the Maze of life, still trying to grow bigger in relation to our surroundings, still trying to understand the world.  At most, we will pause to reflect, but the long walk through The Maze will continue.  I’ll keep writing, too.

There is always a way.  Keep that in mind when you travel.  When you have little time off (say, a long weekend), and many things you want to do it’s easy to get worked up when things don’t go exactly to plan.  In the Tour of America blog I always emphasized the importance of flexibility, because only by being flexible could we deal with the many unexpected events that travel threw at us.

In other words, we had a choice:  we could go through life on the road constantly being disappointed by things … things we couldn’t do, things that went wrong, things that made life a little harder … or we could roll with the punches, think creatively, and look for alternatives.  “Always look on the bright side of life.“  This has been particularly applicable to our overnight stays lately.  To get to the places we wanted to be, we’ve had to work a little outside the box.

On Monday we drove from Cortez CO down through the Navajo Nation on Rt 491 about 100 miles to Interstate 40.  As drives go, Rt 491 is not especially fantastic but it is not bad. The Navajo Nation is sparsely settled, with a few small towns that hold most of the population.  Along the road you’ll see scattered homes and small farms, and almost every home has a traditional hogan beside it.

If you look closely you might see small hand-lettered signs for “Indian Frybread” or other items for sale, but it’s not until you reach I-40 that the big-time tourist traps start to appear.  There are several along I-40, including Geronimo’s, Chee’s, and Indian City.  You can get authentic Navajo rugs and other crafts in these places, but beware … if you see a rug (not a wall hanging) that costs less than $200, it’s probably not a true Navajo rug.  They are meticulously hand made and quite expensive, even in the small sizes.  $600 for a 3×2 rug is not uncommon, if the quality is high.

Our goal for the day was Petrified Forest National Park.  For drive-by park visitors, this has to be one of the most convenient in the USA.  You just exit I-40 and there you are at the Visitor Center.  The entire park is a drive-through, with pull-outs or parking lots at all the interesting spots.  Almost all of the parking lots are big enough for any RV.  If you have a full day, you can putter down the 28-mile road, stop at half a dozen good places, and exit the park at the southern end with time to spare.  That puts you on Rt 180 which brings you northwest to I-40 again.

There is a little hiking to be done in Petrified Forest.  We’ve done most of the hikes before, but somehow managed to miss the “Long Logs” and “Agate House” trails from the museum/visitor center at the south end of the park, so we did those this time.  Both are well worth the short walk (about 3 miles in total on level ground), but don’t be surprised if there’s a strong breeze.  There’s not much to block the wind here, and it seems to be windy more often than not.

Along those trails are the best concentrations of the beautifully agatized ancient pine trees that give this park its name.  You’ll also see a partially restored home (dating from about 1100 AD) made from blocks of petrified wood — that’s “Agate House.”

When you see all of the incredible and colorful petrified logs, the temptation to pick up a tiny piece as a souvenir is strong — but don’t do it!  The park is amazing because people have been restrained enough not to loot the logs, and so they are still lying there at your feet as if you were the first person to discover them.  Besides, the fine for taking a piece, no matter how small, starts at $325, and every visitor to the park gets a “snitch sheet” for the express purpose of turning you in to the authorities!  (If you want a big chunk, wait till you get up Rt 180 to the town of Holbrook, and you’ll find “Bob’s” has an incredible amount of legally-collected petrified wood for sale.)

There’s more to the park than just petrified wood, too.  You’ll find some fantastic concentrations of petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock, and the remains of a small Ancient Puebloan settlement, called Puerco Pueblo.

For RV’ers, the minor challenge of Petrified Forest National Park is that there is no campground anywhere in the area.  You have two choices: just drive through and continue to your destination elsewhere, or spend the night at one of the two large gift shops at the southern entrance of the park.  Overnight parking there is free there, but if you want them to turn the electricity on you need to buy something in the store.  Since there is no traffic in or out of the park at night, it’s beautifully quiet for sleeping.

That’s where we ended up for the night on Monday.  On Tuesday we towed the Airstream back into the park for a second shot at some of the places, then had lunch in the Airstream, and finally departed to the west. I’ll describe our next stop, and the dodge we had to invent to make a national park visit possible, in tomorrow’s blog.

Staying a third night at Horsethief campground turned out to be a good move.  Eleanor’s  back was not ready for backpacking, but just a short distance from the campground was a 12.9 mile dirt road (Mineral Road) that led through BLM land to Green River just west of where it enters Canyonlands National Park.  This road is favored by mountain bike touring groups.  They start at the Rt 313 end (8 miles from the Visitor Center of the park) and cycle to the edge of the canyon, then get a ride back.

The sad thing is that they see the least interesting part of this long dusty road. It rolls up and down across a fairly featureless scrub plain with almost no canyon views until the very end.  But just a few feet further, the road becomes an adventure, zig-zagging down into the river canyon to the banks of the Green River.  In the photo above, you can see us starting the trip down.

This road is much easier and more civilized than the Shafer Trail, and easily twice as wide in most places, but there are still a few tight and “interesting” spots to keep you awake.  It might look smooth and easy from the picture, but that’s deceiving — 4WD is a very good idea and don’t expect to go more than about 8 MPH at any point.  Still, it’s a drive almost anyone who is not terrified of heights can make.

At the bottom you have a choice: left to follow the river, eventually to enter Canyonlands and the White Rim 4WD road; or right one mile to the Mineral Bottom boat launch.  We tried left and explored along the river for a while, then turned around after a few miles and went to the boat launch for a picnic. Rafters launch here for multi-day trips.  A few miles from this point, the Green and Colorado Rivers meet in a confluence and then begins some of North America’s greatest whitewater rafting, so I’m told.  The group we saw departing was off for a week, heading all the way to Lake Powell.

Once back, we decided to check out the Gemini Bridges, also near the Horsethief campground.  No 4WD needed for this trip, since it’s just a typical dirt road most of the way.  The Gemini Bridges are a pair of natural sand stone bridges that you can walk over (or beneath if you approach by a different route) — well worth the trip off pavement to explore. The hike from parking lot to the bridges is only a quarter-mile or so.

We left the Canyonlands early this morning, spurred on by the need to get to Cortez CO (150 miles away) before the post office closed.  Before departing Cortez I felt the need to pick up some diesel and ventured into a Shell station that I shouldn’t have.  Normally I check carefully before turning into a station but in this case the sun was right in my eyes and I couldn’t determine the situation clearly until we were committed.   Of course, it was one of those impossible arrangements for trailers, and we got wedged in between some pumps and the building.

What to do?  Well, first, may as well fill up.  So we did that, and evaluated the situation while the pump was running.  There was no chance of proceeding forward, and no room to back up.  We’ve been in tight spots before, and one thing I’ve learned is that you never panic, and always remember that other cars can be moved.   Eleanor got out and started negotiating with a guy parked behind us so that we could carefully back up into his space.  Then another parked car moved and we were able to start see-sawing back and forth to straighten the trailer a little.

To escape, we needed the cars in the middle pump aisle to clear out entirely.  This was tricky because the gas station was very busy, and clueless people in little cars kept zipping in and out.  Meanwhile, the owner of a Porsche Cayenne seemed intent on not merely washing his windshield, but detailing his car right there at the pump.  Once he finally cleared the aisle, Eleanor stood blocking the entry.  I maneuvered the trailer a little more — veeeeery carefully — to both get a better starting position and to intimidate anyone foolish enough to try to slip past me.  A little more negotiation ensued, and soon the next car left. Vroom!  We were outta there.

And of course as we drove through Moab, we passed at least three other stations with wide open spaces for big trailers and diesel fuel for five cents less per gallon…

Our big day of hiking turned into a little day of hiking.  Eleanor did something to zing her back and was in such excruciating pain that wearing a backpack for six or seven miles on the trail was not realistic.  This was disappointing for all but I had great sympathy for her predicament, since the exact same thing happened to me about two weeks ago in Wyoming.   Neither of us has a history of back trouble, but we both celebrated birthdays in the, uh, latter half of our 40’s, and we suspect that we are facing the reality of so-called middle age.

Well, not wanting to go quietly into decrepitude, Eleanor took a few Motrin and shouldered her burden long enough to hike a two mile trail at the spectacular Grandview Point of Canyonlands National Park.  It was worth it, I think, but after that we needed to give her break.  Fortunately, you can see a lot in this park just by driving to overlooks and walking short distances.

Driving in the park is kind of fun, thanks to squiggly roads and great scenery all the time.  I really didn’t mind cruising around and stopping at overlooks, and it was a good excuse for a roadside picnic.  Emma and I did get in one more short hike, at Whale Rock.  It’s described as “good for families” with some slickrock climbing, but on a breezy day like yesterday the final stages of the hike can be a little intimidating.  Zoe the Stuffed Cat (who always rides in Emma’s backpack) had to be securely zipped inside so she didn’t blow out, and we could hear her yowling the whole time.

We have decided to stay another day, in the hope of Eleanor’s recovery, and in any case because we can’t think of any other spot we’d rather be at the moment.  The weather is fine, the campground is pleasant and cheap, the scenery is fabulous, and there is plenty to do whether we choose to drive into the park or just play around here. Most importantly, our water supply is holding out, and there has been sunshine to recharge the batteries.

The major reason to depart may be our next mail drop.  It is awaiting us in a town three hours south of here, and the post office in that town is open on Saturday for only two hours.  This means we must leave early Saturday in order to get the mail, or wait until Monday to pick it up.  Normally a mail pickup is not a big deal, since the post office will hold mail sent to General Delivery for three weeks.  It’s just one of the many factors we consider as we develop our ongoing itinerary.

In this case, however, I need that mail ASAP.  It contains the registration paperwork for our car.  There was a SNAFU with the title and as a result our temporary registration expired yesterday before the permanent registration was processed.  As of today we are legal again, but we don’t have any paper to prove it, so I’d like to get that document before we go much further.  In four years of full-time and part-time travel with the Airstream, we have not been pulled over by the police once, but of course Murphy’s Law says that’s what will happen if we don’t get that paper in the glove box soon.

We are in the “end game” of this trip now.  There are only a few stops left before we end up in Tucson.  We’re weighing the final stops carefully now, trying to get the most out of the high-altitude sites before we flee to the low desert and winter warmth.  We will definitely be at winter home base before Halloween, and our next scheduled Airstream adventure will not be until after Christmas. Knowing this gives us reason to drag our wheels as we drive through the Four Corners region.  For you, blog readers, this means perhaps another 10-14 days of travel blog before we switch gears to home life (and three-quarters of you tune out!)

We decided to skip Dinosaur National Monument this time around and head straight to Canyonlands.  Dino is operating under some restrictions due to the visitor center being closed, and the fact that it is off-season.  We’ll visit that park on another trip.  So our route took us down from Blue Mesa reservoir along Rt 50/285 to Montrose, and then northwest to Grand Junction CO, where we picked up I-70 to Utah.

As I’ve mentioned before, the drive along Rt 50 across Colorado is a fantastic and worthy roadtrip.  I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction is pretty good (for an Interstate highway) as well, but given the choice  I’d pick Rt 50 except in winter.  I can’t say the same for I-70 west of Grand Junction, because as soon as you cross into Utah it becomes a pretty featureless and dull road.  The compensation is that you’re out of the mountains and on the straightaways, and so you can go fast.

I upped the rig to 65 MPH just so I wouldn’t get blown away by cars and trucks going the legal limit of 75 MPH.   The increase in speed dings our fuel economy but we still got an overall 13.5 MPG for the segment, which isn’t bad for towing.  We could have gone the speed limit with no problem, but as a general rule I don’t tow that fast.  The trailer’s tires are rated for only 65 MPH and the fuel cost would have been high.  As another GL320/Airstream owner once told me, “The GL will tow at any speed you care to pay for.”

The entrance we used to Canyonlands National Park is  just north of Moab UT.  The park is divided into four districts, each separately accessible: Islands In The Sky (where we are), Needles, The Maze, and Horseshoe Canyon.  The districts have completely different routes leading in, and this makes it virtually impossible to visit all of the districts in less than a week.  The distance from one entrance to another can be several hours.  We chose Islands In The Sky for its accessibility and features — it should be a good orientation to the park overall.  We’ll have to visit the other districts in future trips.

You have to come prepared to visit this place.  Visually, it is like a mashup of Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon.  The views are stunning.  But there is no lodging, no water, no fuel, and no services (restaurant, repair, or otherwise).  The only campground in this district is called Willow Flat and it has just 12 sites.  It fills every day this time of year.  It has no dump station or water either.   For just about anything, you have to drive 25-30 miles to Moab along a circuitous (paved) road, which means a minimum 45 minute trip one-way.

We arrived at 3 p.m., far too late to get a campsite in either Willow Flat or the nearby Dead Horse State Park (just outside the park boundary).  We ended up at a Bureau of Land Management campground called Horsethief, about 5 miles from the park.  No water, no dump, no hookups, but nice scenery and well-spaced dirt sites in the boonies ($12 per night).  Amazingly, my cell phone and Internet work just fine both here and at the Canyonlands visitor center, so I’m able to keep up on work and post the blog. That means we’ll stay at least two nights and perhaps three.

Our usual program when arriving at a national park is to drop the trailer and immediately hit the visitor center for orientation.  The rangers are always happy to meet someone who is going to stay a few days (rather than the usual, “We’ve got two hours — where are the good views?”) and they will provide insider tips on where to go.
With only a couple of hours of daylight left (after Emma finished browsing the visitor center for clues for her Junior Ranger program), we decided to drive down into the canyon on a four-wheel drive road called Shafer Trail.  Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s a Mercedes — it doesn’t go off-road,” and I’ll admit I was thinking the same thing.  But Mercedes says that this SUV has parentage from their famed off-road beast the G-wagon.  The GL comes standard with all-wheel drive and an air suspension that can be lifted two inches at the touch of a button. (In the photo at right, you can see the suspension in the “raised” mode.)  I wouldn’t take it on major 4WD roads that require very high clearance because our hitch reinforcement would probably scrape, but the Shafer Trail looked like a good bet — and if it wasn’t, I was prepared to turn around or back up, and go home.

Well.  I was pretty busy trying to observe the incredible, occasionally terrifying, view while driving the car around steep hairpin turns over loose rocks … so I did not get any photos of us coming down the road.  However, you can get a good idea of what it is like to drive the Shafer Trail from videos taken by other visitors. The photo at left (click to enlarge) shows part of the descent we did.  The car did just fine, had no clearance problems, and handled as well or better than the Nissan Armada we used to do these sorts of things with.  So I’m amazed that Mercedes managed to engineer a car that can go 150 MPH all day on the Autobahn in comfort, tow a heavy Airstream with good fuel economy, and still be a capable rough-road vehicle too.

The trip down Shafer Trail takes a while.  We put the car in “Downhill Speed Regulation” mode, set the limit to 6 MPH, and it crept down the hairpins while I tried to avoid sharp rocks and major potholes. In about 40 minutes we were down to the Gooseneck hiking trail, parked the car, and hiked 0.3 miles to a stupendous overlook of the mighty Colorado River grinding its way through the sandstone canyon.

Yes, it was worth the trip.  I would have liked to have gone farther, but the setting sun dictated that we head back up.  I could not imagine driving the Shafer Trail in the dark.

At Gooseneck, the road we were on was part of the White Rim Trail, which is a backcountry 4WD adventure of over 100 miles.  It takes at least two days to traverse completely.  I am sure there are parts of that road I wouldn’t have taken our car on, but the rangers indicated that if we had time we could have gone at least to Musselman Arch.

Today we are going hiking. I have the Winter 2009 magazine 95% wrapped up, and my major task in the next few days is to review layouts and resolve last-minute problems before we go to press.  This is work that can be done at any hour of the day, which means we can play in the sunshine and I can work in the early morning and at night. It makes for a long and peculiar day, but it works for me.  I see the kid is waking up now, and that means it is time for me to wrap up the morning’s work and start preparing for a day in Canyonlands.