2015-03-03 Death Valley(Natural Bridge & Badwater Basin) and Vegas

Monday it rained most of the day (snowed up in the mountains) so we stayed put in Pahrump visiting a few casinos and chilling out.  Tuesday we started out in Death Valley - Badwater Basin, Natural Bridge, & Artists Pallette.  Unfortunately, the higher elevation roads were closed due to snow or washouts. So, at 3PM with Vegas only being an hour away - I was able to get a room with a great view.

 Natural Bridge

Now on to Vegas

 A room with a view - day or night.

 This was the largest Elvis I have ever seen - good thing he could sing!

Vegas makes everyone's legs look better - I have got to get some of these stools for our bar.

2015-03-01 Pahrump & Death Valley

Yesterday was a road day - 340 miles from Black Canyon City, AZ to Pahrump, NV.  Our Garmin flaked-out on us and tried to take us on a 950 mile tour of Utah instead.  Had to go back to the old fashioned way and use our maps - haven't done that in a while.

We passed Hoover Dam and Lake Mead on our way and was at least able to see the Colorado River from the highway.

Pahrump is a nice size town with all the necessary shops and restaurants crammed into a one mile strip which includes lots of casinos with old Vegas style buffets and old Vegas prices.  Awesome!

Today we drove through part of Death Valley.  I can't imagine what settlers felt travelling through here.  It is miles of low brush, rocks, and sand - and then you reach the base of these mountains. We went from 50 degrees to 70 down in the valley (Furnace Creek) and then back down to 50.  It looked like a mix of snow and rain in the mountains so we stuck to the main roads (no Jeep trails).

We also took a side trip through Twenty Mule Team Canyon - it was like being on another planet.

Here is a short video of the end of the drive through the canyon - 

http://youtu.be/vvoCM5qhtXY

(Sorry for the bugs on the Jeep window!)

In Rhyolite Ghost Town there was a house built mainly from bottles - you can see all the bottoms facing out.

On our was back to Pahrump we saw signs stating to watch out for wild burros - we did happen to see 3 close to the road.  This fellow was nice enough to smile for me.

2015-02-27 Sedona Arizona Area

Seeing we are staying in Black Canyon City, and Sedona is only a hour away, we decided to head up for lunch. On the way we hiked Bell Rock in Oak Creek.

 Named for its shape - we only hiked the base of this seeing our legs were still crying from earlier hikes.

 Another beautiful formation in Oak Creek.

 This amazing church (Church of the Holy Cross) is in Sedona built into the side of a red rock cliff.


 This is a cliff dwelling at Montezuma Well - see top left corner of the panoramic below.  The pool is fed from underground springs and contains forms of life never seen anywhere else in the world.

 The picture below is from the bottom of the pool area - there was a staircase built to allow you to hike down into the big hole to see the dwellings at the base.

From here there was an underground outlet for the water to flow down along the creek in lime-coated irrigation ditches for the Sinagua Indian corn fields below.

This is where the water comes out the other side of the hill from the base of the pool.  The extremely large tree on the left of this picture is an Arizona Sycamore.

Our next stop was to see Montezuma Castle.  The Southern Sinagua's built this 5 story, 20 room swelling into the side of a cliff sometime between 1100 and 1300. It is over 100 feet above the valley.

2015-02-25 Picacho Peak

Picacho Hike is the most difficult hike Vaughan has ever done.  I say Vaughan because I only went up part way.  Once I climbed up a few places with cables I said "ENOUGH".  Of course, Vaughan never learned how to say "enough". This was 4 miles round trip.  I took some pictures before handing off the camera to him.

He said "This made Angles Landing in Zion look like a stroll down Main Street".  This one actually had him worried and wondering why he felt the need to do it.

He found a youtube video that shows a few of the difficult spots.  The video starts at the "saddle" which is one mile up the trail.  At this point the trail rating goes from "moderate" to "difficult".  As with all gopro videos it is difficult to show just how steep some of these things really are.  

Hiking Picacho Peak W/ GoPro - BananaBuzzbomb.com

2015-02-23 Pima Air & Space Museum & Boneyard

Today we spent a few hours at the Pima Air & Space Museum & 309th AMARG Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base - Vaughan's idea of "awesome".  There are numerous hangars full of restored planes of all military eras.  We then walked the lot with 100's of planes - most too large for a hangar.  We also took a bus tour of the "Boneyard" - where old military planes go to die. They are stripped of anything reusable and later all metals will be recycled. At one time there were about 6000 planes here - they are down to about 4000 now.

 This "Bumble Bee" was  the cutest and smallest of them all.

 Sikorsky Sky Crane

Super Guppy

 YC-14

 F-16A "Falcon"

B-52

Then off to Saguaro National Park West with an old stone structure.