A descriptive look at traveling and full-timing with our second RV, a fifth wheel toyhauler.
Laura and Sasha started this adventure in April of 2005
for a two week vacation in a truck camper.
August 2011: Grand Canyon National Park
This is a new page. I have taken the information from Facebook to make the page. Ultimately I will have pictures in here, will have to resize some of them. Not only that, we moved to Grand Canyon and we are getting used to a new place, and I also had to work on more programs, so there was less time spent on the website. But that will be changing!
So anyway, here is what was happening in August:
August 1st: This is my Friday while it is other people's Monday! A couple of programs and then...Lala la for the weekend. We will be doing something fun, just not sure where it will be.
In the mornings that I work, I make breakfast for the both of us, and then sit by my window and watch the scenery. I usually see lots of birds, blue birds, wrens, humingbirds, the occasional squirrel or rabbit, in those morning hours. I also check out the sky; I can see the San Franscico Peaks from our window. I can see also the clouds around the sky and try to figure out the weather for the day.
August 2nd: So they passed the debt ceiling bill in the House, and in the Senate and an article came out that I think is pretty timely: Personal Saving should be a good thing, but they (the economic folks) are not happy about it. While I normally do not talk about politics or religion on this site, I do believe I have good ideas about economics, especially considering how we got out of the rat race early and are now living our dream.
I wrote: Why is consumer spending so important in the economic growth? I do not spend for a reason, which is I do not need more junk. Yet our economy is "stalling" because people aren't spending? And getting into Debt, again?
How about, instead of being discouraged by our non-spending ways, they only look at companies and government's spending and NOT citizens' spending patterns? I say, if you got extra money, SAVE it. You will need it sometime in the future anyway. Why not save it, and use it when needed? That way, no credit card needed. We do not need more people getting into debt to buy the next dohicky.
Anyway, so, Sasha and I decided to go north for my long weekend August 2-4th: We got a late start but we have three days off and we are going to head up to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Similar to Lake Mead, made by a dam. People go there to boat, fish and be on a lake.
Being from the east coast, lakes just do not have the same appeal to me. But seeing blue when the surrounding earth is red, well, that is nice to look at and I am sure, it is hot. So being in the water as much as possible is a good idea, but you could also go higher up in elevation. And then, you do not need to go in the water.
We stopped by Cameron to get ice and drinks for tomorrow morning. We then went over the Little Colorado River and we are seeing the badlands of the Navajo Nation. Unfortunately, the road is not good, very wavy. I do not know how to explain it really, but except to say that it feels like being on the ocean, but we are on a road.
The picture I keep trying to take (a little hard because the road is so wavy) may be the Echo Cliffs - right next to the road and very red colored.
We just went past some high-powered electrical wires. Our question, Why do they sag so much in the middle?
By Cedar Ridge at 4:39 pm, definitely Echo Cliffs.
At 5 pm: Vermillion Cliffs Picture (These will go up as soon as Sasha resizes them. I am not sure if we will GPS them or not.)
So we went on Route 89A - Beautiful area which I would strongly recommend to anyone.
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Shooting Stars: Sasha: 3 Laura: 5 Together: 1 - The one together was awesome - so slowly moving across the sky it was as if the sky was telling us, "Check me out you fools down below, Here I am just waiting to show you my magnificence.
There was also a huge log next to the fire ring, which came in handy as my three year old piece of xxxx cloth chair from Dick's Sporting store ripped and I could not use it anymore. So I ripped the bottom seat out, and used it as a cloth to put on the log for my seat.
The fire was fabulous; we had a fire when we had a cookout here at Grand Canyon after Memorial Day. But this was better because it was very impromptu. We were grateful that we had matches in the truck, dry pine needles on the ground, and a extremely dark sky. The night sky was spectacular, at least a 6.8 to 7 magnitude. We saw the Milky Way even though there were some trees that blocked the view. We saw Scorpius and the Teapot, a huge Big Dipper and Bootes, and I think we saw Pegasus (the huge square in the sky) and the Summer Triangle.
We went to bed around 10:30 pm, when only the embers were glowing from the fire.
We woke with the sun, Sasha a little earlier than he had planned. It seems the sun was poking through his eyelids around 6:45 am. It started to get warm in the tent, and I woke up. After being comfortable in the tent, not too hot or too cold, to wake up to some serious warmth, I was like, what is going on? Then I opened my eyes and found the tent surrounded and engulfed in sunshine. Time to wake up!
We had a huge ice tea together and each of us had an orange plus a Clif bar. We were standing in our site, talking about who knows what, and Sasha said, wait, is that a coyote? I looked where he was pointing, and not more than 100 - 150 yards away, a medium sized coyote was sauntering through the ponderosa pine forest. He did not seem the least bit frightened of us, looking over occasionally as we talked about him.
We tagged this place for future reference. We'll be back! Oh, and the Verizon data card was blazing fast at the site, faster than our home in Grand Canyon!
We saw small bees, white butterflies with black edges and yellow butterflies. There were a few flowers, red, yellow and purple, tiny and very delicate. And we were not very far from Rt 89A. We could see headlights and hear the downshifting of the trucks along the road during the night.
So the adventure continues on the next page: August 2011 Road Trip.
Check out Next Month: September for Pictures and Expenses for September.