CELEBRATING ARIZONA’S CENTENNIAL AS A STATE FEBRUARY 14, 2012, WITH A RIDE ON THE GRAND CANYON RAILWAY

We drove to Williams AZ with Jo’s sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Mike Williams, on Feb 13 to ride the Grand Canyon RY up to the Grand Canyon on February 14. The railroad had a special offer for the day we could not refuse! The 1912 price for the round trip ride was $7.50, and that was the price for our centennial  trip. The ride was a sellout, with 1200 passengers in 12 coaches, including all of its Pullman-built coach cars made in 1923. The railroad could not add any more cars to the train for lack of passenger loading and unloading track length at both ends. There was snow on the ground at both ends of the trip.

 

  

Here is the interior of our coach. Mike Williams is in the lower right corner.

 

 

To help passengers while away the time in the 2:15 hour ride, the road ordinarily provides musicians walking through the cars.

 

 

As we neared the Grand Canyon, the snow became deeper with the increasing  elevation. The train was pulled by a steam locomotive helped by two diesel units.

 

Two of the road’s newer higher fare cars brought up the rear of the train, here unloading at the Grand Canyon Depot.

 

Our first stop was the main dining room at the historic El Tovar hotel for a gourmet lunch. I am at the left, with Jo, Barbara and Mike Williams, and Jerry and Nancy Grout.

 

 

Our 3:15 hour layover gave us time to walk along the rim of the canyon to take in interesting sights as the high clouds created moving patterns in the canyon.

 

The long Bright Angel Canyon comes south from the north rim to meet the Colorado River in its inner gorge. I watched snow flurries making their way down the side canyon.

 

 

 

Snow flurries from scattered clouds are spreading over the Grand Canyon, blocking the view of upper Bright Angel Canyon.

 

We had the opportunity at Grand Canyon to get a good look at the motive power for our train.This was the first revenue run for steam locomotive 4960, a 2-8-2 Mikado,  after a major overhaul in the Grand Canyon Railway shop in Williams.

 

 

The two diesel units helping the steamer were made by EMD and were built for AMTRAK.

 

  

Members of the Winslow AZ Harvey Girls Club provided special entertainment on our trip by giving kisses (Hershey) to the passengers.

 

 

The last entertainment was a train robbery, done on every trip made by the GCRY.

 

We returned the Valley on Feb. 15 via Chino Valley and Prescott. A group of school children was at the Yavapai County Courthouse which featured a display of a new postage stamp celebrating the Arizona centennial.

JEEPERS CREEPERS FEBRUARY 2, 2012, TRIP TO VERDE RIVER

Our announced destination was the east end of Sheep Bridge via the road on the east side of the Verde River. Those on the outing were Trail leaders Jerry and Nancy Grout with guest Elsie Tennant, Mike and Barbara Williams with Marv and Marsha Jeck as passengers, Bill and Jo Strong, and Sid and Maxine White with guests  Jerry and Maxine Walters.

 

Sheep bridge originally was built by sheep raisers who herded their flocks from the Phoenix valley area to high country for the summer and back in the fall to winter in the Valley. The main trail crossed the Verde River, and the bridge was built to avoid mortality of sheep in crossing. The original suspension bridge became weakened with age and the State built a new steel suspension bridge a few years ago. This year, for the first time, no herder is driving sheep to the high country. Now they are bring trucked. Sheep Bridge probably will never see another sheep!

 

  

 

From the Horseshoe Dam road, Jerry found the road to ford the Verde River a couple of miles south of Horseshoe Dam. As we crossed this body of flowing water, we all thought that the crossing was a “piece of cake”. But then we encountered the second crossing below, not so easy. No driver had the intestinal fortitude to try to cross it. There was too much water flowing too fast.

 

 

 

So we turned around and visited Horseshoe Dam. There was no water behind the dam; all of the Verde River was being allowed to flow through to be stored in Bartlett Lake downstream a few miles.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Our lunch stop was in a broad wash off the Horseshoe Dam road. It is amazing how fast we can get a fire going and set up the tables for the potluck lunch.

 

Here is a wider view of our lunch stop.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

In the lower left is a Crowned Saguaro, said to be rare. Something has happened to the plant so that instead of growing taller, more growth causes the top to spread out.

 

 

After returning to the Bartlett Dam road we headed toward Carefree, to turn off and drive down the Camp Creek wash a few miles. When we reached the bottom, here was a developed area (Needle Rock)on the Verde River. This is very popular in the summertime for water recreation. This time of year the water is far too cold for wading. From here we continued south through the Ft. McDowell reservation to Bush Highway and home to Mesa.

ROADRUNNER VISIT TO QUARTZSITE JANUARY 27 - 29

The MFC Roadrunner camping group was formed in 1966. The group went camping once a  month for many years, usually to undeveloped campsites for dry camping. Lucy and I joined in 1966 when we had our green Volkswagen Westphalia camper. Over the years members’ equipment migrated from tents and tent trailers to trailers and finally to motor homes. Anyone with any kind of equipment was and is welcome to join.

In recent years enough members are on the road with their RVs in the summer that there are no regular summer campouts. Now our largest annual outing is at Quartzsite AZ during the RV show period in January. In the winter thousands of RVers gather around Quartzsite to camp, some for many weeks, on the nearby BLM land or in RV parks in the area. There are lots of vendors booths selling a wide variety of wares. The area looks like a very large swap meet. 

A gem and mineral show is held there annually, with many vendors having permanent buildings for selling their minerals. This year Jo bought a cut stone  which a friend has cut and finished into earrings and two pendants.

 Our main socializing is around an evening campfire. This year, as in many earlier years, we were joined by a group of machinists from the Phoenix area who are friends with some of our Roadrunner members. There were 45 in our extended group in all. I will identify just the Roadrunners in the below pictures.

 

Second and third from left are Greg and Cheryl See, the hosts of the outing.

 

Jo’s son, Jeff Clyde, is at far right.

 

 

 

Beginning second from left, Jeff, Jo, Mike Williams, Barbara Williams and Maxine Stone.

 

The red lines appear to be fast-flying sparks from the fire. In the center are Gayle and Bill Kaml. Gale and her sister, Cheryl See, are daughters of one of the founders of the Roadrunners, Hamilton Bushie. Ham  loved large campfires, and he often threw enough wood on a fire to make one with flames five feet high. Such a fires became known as Bushie fires. Our fire at Quartzsite resembled a Bushie Fire!

JANUARY VISIT TO GRANDDAUGHTER SAMANTHA’S FAMILY AND GARDEN RAILROAD IN LAS VEGAS

After leaving Indio, we made the now familiar run up to Mojave CA to visit my granddaughter and family. Chris Gustin left home for his job in the I T department of Union Pacific the morning after we arrived. Sorry that he is not in any of my pictures. Samantha  took us to the nearby Mojave airport to look at old planes hangared there. The ones which are flyable sometimes are rented to movie and commercial makers.

 

 

French two place  trainer jet.

 

Great-granddaughter Tabithia in the French jet

 

“Mighty Mite” Jeep. Its aluminum body makes it light enough to be transported by helicopter!

Samantha and great-grandson Luke, now 13 and taller than his mother!

 

Me, Luke and Samantha. I sill have the facial hair started in the rafting trip down the Grand Canyon.

 

 

My two great-granddaughters are just 1 1/2 years apart , but Tabitha, the younger, is almost as tall as her sister, Ivy. Ivy is sitting on Luke’s lap here.

 

GARDEN RAILROAD IN LAS VEGAS

We left Mojave a day later than planned, leaving us with one day in Las Vegas. We hoped to visit with 4 folks there , and in one day we were able to see three! The first were our friends Ed and Shelly Clary. They moved to Henderson NV last summer from Grants Pass OR and already have their garden railroad well set up.

Narrow gauge train, with water tank, coaling tower and depot in background.

 

Here is the busy depot awaiting arrival of the passenger train.

 

Downtown of village of Pine Lake and two other views of downtown.

Here is the bait shop. The boy is displaying his latest catch. Below is hobo jungle and next is the farm..

 

Rhonda was my legal secretary for almost 9 years in Phoenix before she moved to Las Vegas. We were glad that she was able to visit us in our motor home parked at Sam’s Club.

JANUARY TRIP TO INDIO CA FOR REGIONAL FMCA RALLY WITH GOLDEN SPIKE CHAPTER, PLUS VISIT TO PALM SPRINGS TRAMWAY

For 11 of the past 12 years I have attended the Indio regional Family Motor Coach Association rally. Jo has attended all of them since we were married. Our Golden Spike chapter parks together and we treat the rally as one of our chapter rallies with our own events interspersed with events of the main rally. For better coverage of the rally, you can look at the blogs in early January done by a member of our Golden Spike group, at http://travelbychance.blogspot.com

 

 

On Sunday Jan. 8 chapter members gathered at the parking lot of the closed Sams Club in LaQuinta about 3 miles from the Indio fairgrounds where the rally is held. We gathered so that we could arrive as a group Monday morning and be parked together. We were given extra space for holding our chapter events in  the midst of all of our parked motor homes.

 

After parking our motor home Monday morning and setting up, Jo and I set off for the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, perhaps a 30 minute drive from Indio. It was completed in 1963. The parking lots are just off I10 a few miles up Chino Canyon. Here we had just started up the tram. Neither of us had ridden it before. We highly recommend it!

There are five towers from which the cables are suspended. In passing each one to car swings back and forth a bit. The car takes its passengers from about 2600 ft. to 8500 ft.(a little over a vertical mile!) in 10 minutes!

 

The views from the top are spectacular, especially on a clear day such as we enjoyed. Below, Palm Springs is in the Cochella valley foreground and Indio is in the far right distance.

 

 

 

A great view of the wind turbines lined up to generate electricity in the windy pass.

There was snow at the top, but we nevertheless took a 3/4 mile walk along Long Valley.

 

 

Jo enjoyed a bit of a rest along the trail while waiting for me to catch up. The sudden change in elevation made walking uphill a challenge because of my mild COPD.

 

On the way down I caught the other car coming up. The cars are quite new and most of the car rotates as they go up and down, except for a few feet in the center where the operator is stationed.

 

As we were coming down afternoon shadows highlighted the topography of the surrounding mountainous area.

 

Our group gathered at all hours for camaraderie . My railroad lantern adds to the illumination behind the white bowl.

 

Bob and Dottie Poole were given a cake in recognition of their 50thweddding anniversary.

 

 

About 35 members of our group are gathered  in front of a mural in the auditorium building. Jo and I are near the far right. This usually is our Golden Spike Chapter’s largest rally during the year.

Here is a daytime view of our socializing area. We had two group meals here, with a few happy hours, too!

 

One of our chapter’s jobs at the rally is to distribute ice cream bars for ice cream socials at noon on Friday and Saturday. We enjoy making so many people happy. We gave out over 5000 ice cream bars in the two days.

 

Of course, the ladies handing out ice cream bars require supervision!

 

Here are just a few of the motor homes lined up for display and sale at the rally. Many of them this year were used top-of-the-line models, with pricing accordingly!