June 29 – July 13, 2019
Twelve volunteer days, nineteen 4-hour shifts, two sanctuary tours, three bunny sleepovers, two doggie sleepovers, and two day trips – one to Zion National Park and the other to Grand Canyon’s North Rim.
This was our schedule:
Continue readingJune 27 – July 17, 2019
We were restricted to THREE weeks with our granddaughter, Chloe, this year due to her schedule back in Maryland. Our original plan was to visit Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and possibly Glacier. That all went by the wayside when she learned that we had volunteered at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah a few months back. We sent her pictures from the sanctuary and suddenly, our plans changed. She wanted to go to BEST FRIENDS!!!! (That blog post is next).
Continue readingWe got lazy again and are catching up on our blog posts… again.
We just uploaded posts going back to April 17, 2019. These included:
– Lee’s Ferry & Marble Canyon (and California Condors)
– Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
– Zion NP
– Pipe Spring NM & Paiute Kaibab RV Park (& Kanab UT)
– Black Dump Valve (trials & tribulations)
June 10, 2019
On August 17, 1909 Earl Douglass discovered eight tailbones of an Apatosaurus, previously known as a Brontosaurus. Years of digging uncovered bone after bone, skeleton after skeleton. Thousands and thousands of fossil bones were carefully cleaned, logged, wrapped, packed and hauled away. The wall of bones was chiseled down bit by bit. Then they stopped. Time went by. The land was declared a National Monument. Buildings were erected and the public was invited in. So…
What’s left? About 1,500 fossil bones from about 100 individual dinosaurs lay out in a mosaic stretching far above your head along the length of the building. They are sheltered, they are protected, and they are there waiting for you.
May 18 – June 26 2019
Iconic view of Flaming Gorge
This is our first, but hopefully not last, Interpretive Host job. We found an opening online, called, talked, made a deal, and headed for the Flaming Gorge NRA, all within a few days. We knew NOTHING about the area so we searched the Internet and started browsing. WOW! We discovered that we would be working in a beautiful spot. It is exactly the type of place we would have visited if we’d known about it. Sometimes life throws wonderful surprises at you.
May 14… and, unfortunately, May 15, 2019
I include these “Trials and Tribulations” posts not to complain but because living in an RV is not all happy wandering and exploring with no worries. Sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to but we do survive and carry on. I figure we could be having problems with a stick and brick house or with a house on the road. I choose road every time.
This time there was a problem with the dump valve on our black water holding tank (this is the one with the poo in it for those that don’t RV). Continue reading
May 5-9, 2019
We visited Zion about 5 years ago but were cycling back to check out a possible site for our travel club’s 2020 reunion. John first asked why I booked four nights because we’ve been there – “What are we going to do?” Once we were there, he was totally happy once again. It is a beautiful, beautiful park with hiking trails for people of all skill levels, an easy and efficient shuttle system (free), and more to do than we got done in those four days. Why go back to Zion, indeed! Continue reading
May 1, 2019
Pipe Spring NM Visitor Center
In the arid southwest, water is life. Over hundreds or thousands of years, snow melt and rainwater seep slowly through the sandstone and other porous rock layers until it reaches a non-porous layer. It then travels horizontally until it finds an opening where it springs forth, allowing life to flourish. To the Paiutes, water was, and still is, sacred.
According to the Kaibab Paiute, they were brought to this area in a sack by Coyote. Their Sehoo (umbilical cord) is buried here. And this is where they will return to the spirit world. This is sacred land.
Mormons, persecuted for their beliefs back east, fled westward and settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Thousands more followed over the next 20 years, settling throughout Utah and neighboring states and territories.
Unlike the United States, the Mormons opted to work with the Native Americans, believing it was cheaper to feed them than to fight them. But the clash of cultures could not be avoided. For example, why could Mormons hunt deer, but Indians couldn’t hunt cattle? Why did the Mormons take the best water and land for themselves and deny it to the Indians?
Meanwhile, the United States aggressively pushed its boundaries ever westward, simply taking what they wanted and fighting anyone that stood in their way.
Conflict was inevitable. Sporadic warfare erupted between the United States, the Mormons, and the Native Americans, lasting from 1850 until 1870.
It was in this environment that, in 1858, Pipe Spring was “discovered” by Mormon travelers. By 1860 it had become a popular watering hole and campsite for ranchers. In 1870, at Brigham Young’s direction, a so-called fort, named Winsor Castle, was built over Pipe Spring. Pipe Spring eventually became one of several tithing ranches. Mormon families were expected to donate or tithe 10% of their income, often in the form of farm animals or agricultural products. These ranches managed livestock donated by Church members and their operations supported Church enterprises. Continue reading
April 30-May 4, & May 9-13 2019
Best Friends Welcome Center
While camped at Lee’s Ferry Campground we chatted with our neighbor and he told us we HAD to go to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. We kinda’, maybe, sorta’ heard of them before (probably back during the Michael Vick trial) but they were not on our radar and definitely not on our must see list. We were headed to Glen Canyon and Zion and Bryce and on up the road. BUT, we checked the map and we WERE going through Kanab on the way to Zion. The weather was good, the scenery was beautiful and we had the time so what the heck, let’s spend a few nights in Kanab and check it out. Those few nights turned into several weeks because we are animal lovers and they have over 1600 animals that need love and attention and socializing and walking (and cleaning up after) and forever homes. Continue reading
April 26-28, 2019
We were able to book several nights in Wahweap Campground at Glen Canyon. The large, full hook up sites book up months in advance but we were able to get a no hook up site with only a week or so notice (portable solar panel to the rescue again). The entire campground is on a slope above Lake Powell so most sites have some view of the lake. It was pretty crowded with boaters and families but it quieted down at night and we had a relaxing time there.
Spirit of the Woods 