Bearizona

  If you haven't been to Bearizona you should really go.  It's awesome!  Jump off I-40 at Williams...you know...on the way to the Grand Canyon.  On the east end of town is Bearizona.  You'll get to drive through the habitats and see donkeys, big horn sheep, buffalo, white buffalo, wolves, and of course BEARS!  They also have a walk thru area that has seen much growth in just over a year's time.  All the little babies are there....soooo cute!  You won't want to miss this...wolf pups, bear cubs, raccoons, bobcats, and more.  Oh, there's a petting zoo area as well now.  Seriously, if you are traveling accross Northern Arizona on I-40, stop in Williams for a fun Route 66 experience and visit Bearizona.

Death Valley...part one

For Crystal's birthday we did a day trip to Death Valley National Park.  Our original plan was to make a run through Titus Canyon (it's a 4 wheel drive route) but the road was closed with the rains and snow last week.  So we moved onto plan B and enjoyed the desert with all the other visitors.  Our first stop was Stove Pipe Wells, that's where we found out why Titus Canyon was closed.

Not far from there is the Mosaic Canyon hike.  It's quite popular apparently.  It doesn't look like much at first...but...it's a really neat hike up a narrow section with a congomeration of rocks and stone.  I can see how this place got it's name, Mosaic...the layering and mixes of types of rock are just amazing.

The forces of nature have been busy here, there is no doubt.  The power of water filled with rocks and debris that rushes through here must be incredible to witness.   Having never seen that myself, I am able to see the results of such power.  The trail works into a 'narrows' section, the stone has been polished smooth by wind and water. 

At one point many years ago, someone put in a "ladder" into the stone.  I'm thinking that the opening to the right was not there at the time and a person had to climb up the rock to get further up the canyon.

Cassy, of course, had a great time exploring.  She runs ahead, comes back to see where we are, and runs ahead again.  She puts on a lot more miles than we do.  She is a happy girl when she gets out, for sure.

In part two, we'll continue the adventures on our day trip to Death Valley.

Adventures Around Williams, AZ...Part One

Wow, it's taken me a while to get these posts up lately...stupid computer.  Anyway, it's about time.  After our BBQ competition (you can read all about it on the Trailhound Smokers BBQ blog) we stuck around the Williams area for five days and enjoyed an imprompto vacation. 

We rode the train in Williams.  The Cateract Creek Rambler was running for the holiday weekend.  Did you know it runs on recyled vegetable oil?  Seriously...I'm all for saving our planet but this is just a little wierd for me.  I like the steam engines better.   It was Christy's first time to ride a train and she enjoyed it.  As for the rest of us Martin's, we all enjoy trains so I'm glad she did too.

After the kids and my parents left the BBQ, we took a day and headed to Sedona and Jerome...after dropping the truck off at the Ford dealer in Flagstaff.  We had the transimission serviced since the warning light came on outside of Kingman...at least we didn't buy a new truck on this vacation.  lol  Yes, we did that one time if you must know, and we didn't regret it either.

We left Flagstaff, which is a beautiful place, and headed to Sedona via Oak Creek Canyon.  That is one beautiful drive along the creek, I can only imagine how gourgeous it must be in the fall.  Not a lot of places to pull off and enjoy the area though without paying to park.  As we got closer to the bottom of the canyon there were more places and they were full of cars and people carrying ice chests, chairs, and stuff as they made their way to the creek.  It's quite a popular place.  We only drove through Sedona, but it was full of upscale art type shops, tourists running amuck...and Pink Jeep Tours vehicles. 

Our real destination was Jerome so that's where we headed.  It is really is built on the side of mountain with narrow, winding streets.  It reminded me of Virgina City, in fact. I'm glad we had the Trailblazer because parking is at a real premium there.  At the end of town, there is an interesting little 'ghost town' full of old buildings and a huge selection of old trucks and cars...over a hundred of them. 

Chris and Scott, especially Scott would have been here all day checking each and every one of them out.  Man you could take a million pictures there...if only I had me a uber cool digital camera...hint, hint.

Cassy toured the 'town' with us, and even tried to make friends with the goats..well sorta. They didn't like her very much.  Had it been a cooler day we would have spent more time there but Cassy was getting pretty warm.

Another day was spent at Grand Canyon.  It's been so long since we were there, and it still takes my breath away everytime I see it. We hiked along the rim trail and a little more.  Cassy was great at first but as time went by she was on the hunt for shade every chance she got.  We hiked about 2 miles that day so I think she did really well.  We took the shuttle bus back to the car...she was thankful for the cool air in the bus and her service vest...as were we.

How do you like Timm's shirt?  It's just one of many sayings on the shirts you can get from Sin City Smokers.  It's BBQ people...what were you thinking?

Since we were all pretty much done walking, we drove out to the east enterance to the Watch Tower.  I don't recall ever going out there.  It's a long way but the drive is relaxing, full of trees and viewpoints.  The road is right at the edge of the canyon at many points.  There is reconstructive work being done on the tower so no great photos of it because of the scafolding and a boom lift. The canyon view is amazing though.  The river turns at that point and the views in all directions is incredible. The river is visible for a long distance.   We even saw 3 cow elk near the campground...and the road.  They could care less about people.

 

Adventures Near Willams...Part Two

Camping without our quads was kinda unusual for us anymore.  In Arizona, you can license your ATV and drive it on the street...they were all over Williams.  Since we didn't have ours, we resorted to road trips...which were still enjoyable but a little different for us these days. 

Did you know there are 7 lakes within the city limits of Williams?  The city limits are extended out for quite a ways.  We were on a mission to let Cassy swim in as many as possible.  She enjoyed swimming and retrieving in 5 of the 7 lakes.

She swam in Dogtown Lake...what a great name for her first one.  They have a nice little campground with a great and informative campground host.  We'd like to go back and stay there sometime.   Cassy also swam in Kiabab Lake, White Horse, and Buckskinner lakes.  She had a great two days for sure.  JD Dam was gross with slime and weeds and we couldn't get to Cataract with a long walk so she didn't swim in them.

At Colman Lake, it's really more of a marsh land now.  We were out spotting deer one evening and came accross it.  There we saw 16 elk, 6 of them were babies.  We went back the next night to spot more of them...24 that night with 10 babies.  A couple of ladies said they counted +80 elk out there earlier in the week.  A small flock of Canadian Geese were also among the wildlife we saw there.  Cassy enjoyed herself romping thru the grass and water there.  The sunset was beautiful there.

On the advise of the campground host, we drove out to the Sycamore Canyon overlook.  It's a pretty place as well.  We didn't see anyone on that part of the day.  Solitude is a great word for that spot.

We saw lots of these flowering cactus out there.  Not sure which kind they are, some kind of yucca I think but the flower stalk is really tall on this one.  Timm is 6'3" so you can get idea of how tall it was. 

There is a new place open just outside of Williams called, Bearizona.  It just opened in May so there is still much work to do but the place is pretty cool.  It's a drive through wild animal park. 

Burros, buffalo, big horn sheep, dall sheep and more can be viewed from your car.

White buffalo, a sight I've never seen before.  How cool is that!

Baby Bears! So cute.  There were also baby wolves.  There will be many more habitats like these on the walk but only two are open now.  

Big Bears!  I think there were 7 or 8 of them.  Must be mating season because there was bear porn to be seen.  These two just wanted breakfast.  I highly reccomend Bearizona to anyone who is visiting the Grand Canyon-Williams area.  We enjoyed ourselves while in Arizona...our first BBQ competiton, the Grand Canyon, Williams, and the surrounding area.  We saw lots of wildlife, Cassy explored and swam.  It was a great trip!

Memorial Day...part 3

Thank to Alan for sending over some pictures so y'all can see.

Here are some of the burros we saw almost daily. This group actually had 7 in it at the time. Never could get very close to them. They run pretty quick too...not like the lazy ones you see in Red Rock waiting for food by the roadside.

Taking a break on the trail.

No place to turn around up here guys...stay on the lower level.

Another old mine structure...how did they decide where to look for gold anyway. Did they say "This place looks good I guess, let's try here."?

This is the Carrera Marble Quarry. Each tier is about 10-12 feet tall (I know, it looks so tiny in the picture). So gold isn't the only thing they looked for around here. We even found the fountain in the middle of the Carrera town sight. Awesome! They ran wood piping from Rhyolite for the town. You can still see some of the remains from it. Apparently, Carrera was a busy place.

Memorial Day...part 2

Yes, it's a desert...watch out for snakes! Please don't remind me. Fortunately, I didn't see any. Keith ran over ones rattler on the trail...does that still make him a rattlesnake...hmmmm. Well, he's a sneaky snake now so watch out for him!

This radio tower must be fairly new...there was no conduit running from the tower to the building. The Nevada Test Site isn't too far from Beatty...I wonder what it will be for? Tracking aliens? lol

We had to run through Rhoylite everyday to get to one destination or another via the back roads, can't ride ATV's on designated streets in Beatty...yet. Nevada really needs to look at Utah and how much of a boost to the economy ATVs are to small towns...but I will get off me soap box now. :o)

The Beatty RV Park was the spot to be each evening. Yummy potlucks with way too much food, campfires for everyone to gather around, and lots of fun conversations. It was so nice to come back to the RV's with the air conditioners running to keep them cool, and endless water for showers. That's quite a treat for us dry camping, gravel pit staying ATV group. There was cell phone service and WiFi there too. Some of the girls even drug their laptops out to the campfire to check up on and add friends to their Facebooks. It was nice to have a few more of the comforts of home for a change. We look forward to the upgrades they will be doing to the RV park for the next time we stay there.

Memorial Day Vacation...part 1

We took a couple of extra days for Memorial Day and headed to Beatty, NV. What is in Beatty you ask? Most of us only stop there for gas and potty break (and some candy from Eddie's World) on trips between Reno and Vegas; but, for those that like to explore and wonder there is lots to see in the desert around Beatty. Well, that's us and a few of our friends (14 joined in for the adventures). Each day we took off from the RV park on our ATV's to explore and find interesting stuff...and we weren't dissapointed.

Rhyolite is a ghost town just a few miles outside of Beatty that was a hopping place in it's hayday. Banks, bars, brothels, hotel, and a school among the bunch of buildings that remain in this once thriving mining town. If I remember correctly, the volunteer at the bottle house (yes, someone used bottles to build his house) said there were 53 bars in town. No wonder that guy had plenty of bottles to build with...a great recycler! That's my hubby, Timm and my BFF, Liz in front of the Mercantile in Rhyolite. I'm in the picture with my hubby that overlooks the town and the valley beyond.

Out in that valley roads wonder off the highway up to the mountains to many mining ruins. This is one of them. It's hard to believe that folks could and would drag such heavy materials up the mountain side to construct these pieces so they could mine for gold and other minerals. We found more than a hand full of these structures. They are kind of a hopper where the ore would be dumped into then it would slide down thru the shoots to fill trucks, ore carts on train tracks, etc so it could be hauled off and be processed. What a hard life that must have been.

Here are some old buildings still remaining from another day's adventures. They are for some sort of storage I think...to small for people. They were next to a larger building that had collapsed. There were several large structures like the one above as well as several others, but seeing how my camera battery died I can't show them to you. I was so bummed. So I'm waiting for photos from friends to show you the rest.

Look for part 2 of this adventure in a few days...when I get more pictures.

New Years at Rasor Road

We spent our New Year's weekend with friends at Raor Road, outside Baker CA. Timm and I didn't get out until Jan 1 along with a few other couples. The rest arrived the last day of 2008. Our youngest son, Chris tagged along this time. It was nice to have him there with us for a change. His dog, Shelby came along and it was her first camping trip. Cassy showed her the ropes and she did well.

Our fist day took us to Afton Canyon. Along the way we stopped to play in the dunes, ran amunck along the valley floor (it's practically all river bed and washes), and splashed our way through the water in the canyon. I think the most fun was the river crossing near the Afton Canyon Campground. It was quite a bit deeper than las time we were there and Chris had never been there. Here is Liz trying not to get wet, and Chris...well...he's all wet!

On the way back out, there were a few stops we'd like to have made but there were all ready several groups at each location so we continued on. We did stop at the mine though. Some folks drug their trailers all the way back there and had set up camp. That's a rough road in many spots. Again, we all ran amuck and we lost Chris for a bit. I can see how people get lost in the desert. Here are Chris and I in one of two cabins that we found. We've been to this one before but found a second with all kinds and of fun and wired stuff in it.

It was a little chillier than expected with the wind that blew through at night but campfires kept us all warm. Keith is our designated 'fire dude', he can build quite a campfire and we all stayed warm.

If you don't know, sunrise is awesome in the desert. This was Saturday morning.

Saturday's ride took us south through the desert and the sand past the railroad tracks to the Desert Megaphone. I've got several books on the area, and no one can figure out why it's there. Just beyond it is the Bacon Strip Ranch. Yup, I know it's wierd but someone actually has an air strip on the dry lake bed, has built a couple of buildings and a shade structure and call it a ranch. Believe it or not, a person can actually rent the cabins out there. He will supply water, firewood, and a cabin. That's an entreprenuial spirit for ya!P.S. We're really not that chubby, just have 4 layers on (including some rain gear). On the way back we hit a really awesome dune area with tall hills. All the guys had a great time racing around on the sand. Chris was in his glory.

It was a great weekend capped off with delicious food, good friends, and fun for all. Can't wait for the next one.