Red Tail RV Trips

Beautiful morning in Flagstaff, down to 33 for the nights low. Felt refreshing compared to Phoenix. Headed out at 0800 as we will be losing an hour once we enter New Mexico. Not much traffic, which was nice.
As we approached Gallup, we decided to drive down Main street or old RT 66, as Myron and Gayla had never been there.
Continued on east to the TA and stopped for fuel and lunch. Then on to Albuquerque and the campground. Several others were already there. A great social hour, then some left over pulled pork from the birthday party and to bed. Sunday will be a busy day.

Well after a BIG SURPRISE birthday party last night we headed up to Flagstaff on our way to Albuquerque for the RNPA convention. It was 101 leaving Sun City and cooled off to 78 in Flagstaff. Myron and Gayla were with us, as they were helping carry all the items for the convention. At Flagstaff we met Dino and Karen, had a little happy hour and then went to Black Bart's for dinner. Another great meal and singing by the waiters, all students at NAU.

END OF THE TRIP. Weather was great in Flagstaff, high of 85 and cooled down to 50 at night. Much better that where we are going today. Cleaned the inside of the coach while still at the campground because of the cool weather. Head out and down the hill to Phoenix. When we arrived at home in Sun City the temp was 112, HOT. Got most of the coach unpacked and will finish on Saturday.

This has been a great trip, lots to see and do. Don't know when the blog will start again. Hope to post some more pictures of this trip.

Out of Mesa Verde RV Park and on the road towards home. Anxious and not anxious to get there as Phoenix is still having triple digit temperatures. The road out of Cortez towards the Four Corners area was terrrible. Like a washboard, only allowing a speed of 30-35 mph. At this rate it would be a very long day. But after crossing the Arizona border the road got better and normal speeds could be driven. We stopped in Tuba City for lunch and then found a nice Indian store. So one purchase later we continued on.

Got into Flagstaff and Black Bart's RV park mid afternoon. Still nice up here at 7,000 feet, 85 degrees and cools down at night. We went to the Black Bart Steak House for dinner located in the park. This is a well known eating establishment in the Flagstaff area. The serving personnel are all NAU college students that sing. It was a very nice meal and great entertainment.

After several times of trying to visit Mesa Verde we were finally able to enter the park and obtain tickets for a tour.
Mesa Verde is a series of mesas covered with vegetation, thus Mesa (flat top hill) Verde (green in color) It is many mesas and canyons linked together. The people, probably part of the Anasazi, lived here for many years in the early 1200's. They built many pueblos, some large like the pictures below and some very small. They left very few petroglyphs to explain their life. Researchers have been trying to piece together their existence by the remnants found.

We chose to visit Cliff House. This pueblo consists of over 100 rooms and several kivas. The thought is this area served as a communal area for food storage, ceremonial gatherings and home for over 100 people. The National Park service has put in large steps to decend and enter the pueblo, but the exit are the original steps place there when the area was found. They are narrow, much narrower than the picture indicates. They are steep, nearly straight up. There also is a series of four 10 foot ladders, made of tree limbs. All this is to climb some 100 feet out of the canyon up to the road area.

Some of the pueblos, such as Spruce Tree, are open to self guided tours. Rangers are present to answer questions and prevent vandalism. The museum has an excellent movie and artifacts of the area. This is trule a place to visit.

Woke this morning to dense fog, because of the rain all day yesterday. We had an appointment in Durango for new tires so left early, 0830 and proceeded down the Million Dollar Highway. Dropped the pickup off at Goodyear tire and we went onto Walmart for some supplies. Shopping done, lunch over we went back to pick up the truck and proceeded to Mesa Verde National Park. We have tried to visit the park several times but each time the forest fires had the park closed. This time it was open and not crowded. We drove to the vistors center, bought our tickets for a later tour and then drove a scenic loop. This area was filled by natives in the early 1200's, building their pueblos into the sides of the mesa. It was sad to see all the trees that had burned during the earlier fires. New growth was taking root and the cycle of the forest will soon be repeated. We saw many deer foraging on the new growth of willow and grasses.

RAIN - RAIN - RAIN We have been most lucky not a drop of rain here in the San Juan mountains for over a week. But today made up for it. It was raining hard when we awoke and continued most of the day. The rain was needed as the forest was getting dangerously dry and the dust on the roads was getting thick. Did some last minute shopping and then in the evening we and several others in the park and the town went to the Brown Bear cafe for a birthday dinner for Sig (she and her husband own the Silver Summit RV Park).

Sunday and another great day in Silverton. Today we visited the ONE HUNDRED mine north of town. This was a guided tour thru the mine by one of the miners. We rode the ore car into the mine some 1700 feet. Here it was explained how the miners, at the turn of the century, mined and extracted the ore from the tunnels. As it turned out this particular mine was a dud, very little valuable ore was taken from it. After we panned some of the gravel and sand for particles of gold and silver. Not much gold, but I did get a bead of silver.

From the mine we proceeded to and took the tour of the mill. This mill served several mines in extracting gold, silver, lead and zinc. It was done with agents (liquids) and weights of the particular mineral. When the mill was closed in 1991 it was donated to the Historical Society of Silverton for preservation. The self guided walking tour was established and it has been a great learning facility for the area.

Time once again for a delictable meal at the Pickle Barrel. We had just been seated and ordered our drinks when we heard a noise in the street. It was the local Brass Band marching to the corner to give a 30 minute concert. Great show. AND the food was a good as always.

As you can see, Barbara has downloaded some of the pictures of our off roading in the San Juan mountains. There will be more posted at a later date. This county is beautiful and well worth spending LOTS of time here. The Silver Summit RV Park is also the best one in the area.

Down day, time to get the truck cleaned and reorganized. Since the spare is not the same size as the other tires I am reluctant to drive it more than necessary. Got it all washed and repacked for the trip home in a few days. I did make contact with a tire store in Durango and will have new tires put on as we pass thru on Tuesday.

Being Saturday, Silverton was busy with tourists from the train. Mid afternoon the clouds started to build and look very ominous. Thunder could be heard in the distance. We got about two dozen large drops of rail and then it started to clear. We were hoping for a good rain.