White Sands National Park

Once again I forgot to post a few pictures. These are from White Sands National Park.

 You would almost think we were back in the Bahamas were it not for the mountains in the background.

Here it looks more like snow.

In reality it is gypsum. Deposited here when the sea that once covered this area dried up.

That's really all!

Brian

Tucson and Las Cruces

Hi All,
my intention isn't to post once a week but it's working out that way. So first, some pictures that really belong in last weeks post. These two Susan took with her iPhone and are from Lower Antelope Canyon.

OK, Susan didn't take this picture but it was taken with her iPhone.

Last Sunday we took a day off (mostly so I could get caught up with the posts) but we did go back to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to get a few more pictures.

As the sun starts to set you can see some of the haze over the north rim where there are doing a prescribed burn.

Nice view

Monday we drove to our campsite a bit south of Sedona and then took a drive up Oak Creek Canyon before spending a bit of time walking around Sedona. It was a gorgeous evening and we were able to sit outside.

Tuesday we drove to Tucson. It was a pretty full day of driving. Wednesday morning we toured the Titan Missile Museum where the only silo not destroyed as part of the SALT-II treaty with Russia is open for tours. Wednesday afternoon we toured Biosphere 2 which is now owned and operated by the University of Arizona. People no longer live there but do large scale scientific experiments there.

The only remaining Titan 2 Missile (deactivated) stands in the silo.

These signs were pretty much everywhere we went around Tucson. They made Susan very happy.
NOT!

Our guide at Biosphere 2 explaining how the "lung" works. We are standing in one of the lungs at this point.
When the Biospherians (as they were called) lived in the Biosphere it was a completely sealed structure.
When the sun shone through the glass the temperature rose and the air expanded, it had to go somewhere or it
would have blown the windows out. The air was forced into one of two lungs like this.
The center of the ceiling is actually a 16 ton piece of aluminum with a 4 ton hypalon diaphragm attached to it.
When the air in the Biosphere expanded during the day, the ceiling expanded upward. At night when the air cooled and contracted, the diaphragm forced the air back into the main part of the building. Pretty amazing, really.  

Thursday we spent the entire day at the Pima Air and Space Museum. We didn't see it all but we saw the vast majority of it. We were beat at the end of the day, but it was a great museum. There was way more stuff there than I could photograph, or that you'd want to see here. You should go there to see it all.

SR 71

"The Guppy" was used for very large cargo, like a Titan Missile.

Boeing 787 (prototype)

This plane carried Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to airports that couldn't handle jets.

This jet was in the "Presidential Fleet" but carried support personnel, not the President.
The way you can tell is on planes fitted for carrying the President, the light blue paint
goes over the cockpit.

This picture and those following are taken from the bus tour of the "boneyard". 

F117 Stealth Fighter. You must have special glasses to see it.

Planes partially wrapped in white are being kept as backups.
If needed they can be put back into service.

The Boneyard isn't part of the air and space museum.  It is on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
It is the world's largest military aircraft storage facility.
From the museum you can take a bus tour of the Boneyard.

B1 Bomber

Now we're back inside the museum. I wondered what a nuclear
bomb of today looked like.

Not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it.

The museum is across the street from the Air Force Base that is home to many A10s.
They were doing touch and goes all day, flying outside the museum.

Friday we drove from Tucson to Las Cruces. Saturday we visited the White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Park.

Part of the "Missile Park" at White Sands Missile Range Museum

Susan standing next to a V2, the rocket we "captured" from Germany at
the end of WWII.

Today (Sunday) we drove from Las Cruces to Carlsbad so we can visit Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow. Our plan was to spend the night at Guadalupe Mountains National Park but the weather forecast was for wind gusts up to 70 mph tonight. We decided to move on. Tonight we're camping in the Carlsbad Walmart parking lot. How's that for elegant?

That's all for now. Take care.
Brian

Wildlife

Oops, I forgot to post the pictures of our furry friends. These are the deer that would visit every evening at our campsite in Utah.

About 40 feet away while I sat in my camp chair

While we eat on top of tables...

They were curious, until the camera clicked

Then they thought they'd move on

A picture of a pronghorn from Bryce Canyon thrown in for good measure.

This one was eating under our slideout just a few seconds before this shot.

This was the fist buck that didn't wait until after dark to move through our campsite.

Looked to be an atypical 6 point.

Now I'm really through for the day!

Brian

Arizona, Utah and back to Arizona

Hi All,
It is time for a quick, or maybe not so quick, catch up. The good news is there will be lots of pictures.

When last I posted we had crossed through Four Corners and gone into Arizona. Our campground in Arizona was in Page. Here are some pictures from our first couple of days in Page.

The Glen Canyon Dam. The other side is Lake Powell

The Colorado River as it heads downstream from Lake Powell.

It's a long way down to the river!

A bit of Lake Powell. A very small bit. That boat is a 40 - 45 foot houseboat.

We enjoyed a Ranger guided hike out to a hanging garden in the desert. You can barely see Lake Powell in the distance.

The scenery is stark but  stunning.

Rainwater permeates through the sandstone until it reaches a less permeable layer and then seeps out. In this case under a ledge where ferns grow because they are protected from the harsh sun.

From the hanging garden as the sun gets lower in the sky.

It's not a great picture of us but a pretty nice sunset.

The last morning in Page (for this visit) we took a tour of Antelope Canyon. There are several companies that offer tours, we used "Ken's" and were very happy with the choice. Our guide, Tim, was Navajo and also a photographer. He helped everyone, no matter what phone or camera you had, to set up for the best shots. Here are pictures from inside Lower Antelope Canyon.

You climb down into the canyon which is pretty narrow in most places.

All of the pictures are taken looking up from the floor of the canyon

Water has formed some pretty interesting shapes over millions of years

After our morning in Antelope Canyon we hooked up to the trailer and headed north to Utah. Our campground in Utah was pretty much right in the middle between Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park. But first we went to Cedar Breaks National Monument.

At Cedar Breaks we took a hike to "Alpine Pond" This is the view along the way

And this is Alpine Pond!

Going further down the trail we saw some Aspens that had turned gold.

I think I've already used "stunning" in this post but I'm wanting to again.

An interesting tree trunk. At least I thought so.

Heading back through the Aspens.

The view from one on the many scenic overlooks.

Along the road as we are leaving Cedar Breaks.

The next day we went to Bryce Canyon but we went through Red Canyon to get there. These first pictures are in Red Canyon.

Driving through Red Canyon you go through two tunnels that are close enough that you could stop between them and get to get a picture of both arches. Here's the one we just went through.

And here's the next one, just ahead of us.

On to Bryce Canyon!

Native American legend has it that Bad People lived in the canyon. They were so bad that the Coyote turned them into stone to stand here forever.

There must have been a lot of bad people.

Notice the ants (people) walking around on the floor of the canyon. Lower right.

After these pictures we moved to a scenic overlook to have a sandwich. While we were eating we heard two bangs. A woman had pulled out of the parking lot without seeing a car coming down the hill. After the oncoming car hit her it swerved into the parking lot and hit two other cars. Nobody was hurt but it caused a mess for a couple of hours. The car that had been coming down the hill was occupied by a couple from the UK. As there car was not drivable, we gave them a ride to their hotel and then in search of another rental car.

The next day we went to Zion National Park. It was our least favorite but that isn't to say it wasn't beautiful.

Checkerboard Mesa

From our campground in Utah we visited the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Susan hadn't been to the North Rim and I had never been to the Grand Canyon.

The North Rim is 1,000 feet higher in elevation than the South Rim but the steep canyon walls are on the south side.

On Thursday, September 15, we left Utah and headed back to Page for another couple of days. On Friday we rented a boat for the day and toured Lake Powell by water. We saw a fraction of the lake in 8 hours. Lake Powell has 1,960 miles of shoreline. You could stay there all week and not see all of it.

The water is currently 479.6 feet deep at the dam.

The white "bathtub ring" is approximately 80 - 100 feet tall. To give you some scale, that boat is 26 - 28 feet long.

The lake is 52% full. Lake Powell began filling in 1963. The first time it was full was in 1980. There are currently 4,200,885,420,657 gallons of water in the lake.

Saturday morning we made a quick (and early) stop at Horseshoe Bend, where the Colorado River makes a 270 degree turn.  The sun needed to be higher to get rid of the shadows but the real issue is just how close do you want to get to the edge to get a picture. This will have to do.

And this was taken by Susan, who is not the wimp I am when it comes to heights.

Sunday we moved to a campground in Valle, Arizona, just south of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Susan is right, it's prettier than the North Rim.

That's me, leaning against the wall. Pay no attention to the fact there is another 15 feet from the wall to the edge of the cliff

We went back for the sunset and are we glad we did.

That's all for now! Take care.

Brian