Ben's Blog

Waking up Monday morning in the Coconino National Forest:

 

The nice thing was that we were very close to the entrance to Walnut Canyon National Monument.  We drove over and hiked down the trail:

 

The trail explores 13th century cliff dwellings:

 

More cliff dwellings across the way:

 

After Walnut Canyon, we headed into Flagstaff to visit Lowell Observatory.  The first thing we saw was the 1896 24-inch refractor Lowell used to map the features on Mars:

 

The 1930 reflector used to discover Pluto:

 

The reflector’s observatory:

 

Research observatories:

 

A reflector chassis:

 

After Lowell, we went to Sunset Crater National Monument, a volcano.  We hiked up adjacent Lenox Crater:

 

Trees growing in the ash field:

 

Sunset Crater, seen from Lenox Crater:

 

 

We went for a hike through the Bonito Lava Flow:

 

 

Next we went to Wupatki National Monument to see 11th century pueblo dwellings:

 

Ancient ga-ga court:

 

Heading north, we arrived at the Grand Canyon.  We stopped first at Desert View:

 

Enjoying Lipan Point:

We arrived at Mather Campground in the Park towards sunset.  This is the first official campground of the trip.

We drove about 140 miles today. Walnut Canyon NM (B), Lowell Observatory (C), Sunset Crater NM (D), Wupatki NM (E):

We left Phoenix early Sunday and headed North to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, the largest travertine bridge in the world.  The “trail” goes along the bottom of the canyon:

 

 

At last we reached the natural bridge.  A spring dissolved the limestone canyon wall, and the dissolved limestone came out of solution to form a travertine dam across the canyon.  The creek at the bottom of the canyon then wore through the dam to form the natural bridge.  There’s some nice diagrams here.

The hole is 187 feet tall, so the travertine wall must be about 500 feet high:

 

Textures and contrast:

 

Trish and the kids are on the right side of the photograph:

 

Looking back the way we came.  The tunnel is 400 feet long. There was quite a bit of water seeping down through the ceiling:

 

A surface creek cascades over the edge:

 

There was a side trail to a nice little waterfall:

 

Saw this rice-grain-sized spider on the handrail.  He appears to have caught something:

 

Heading back up:

 

Continuing north, we crossed the Mogollon Rim and stopped at Meteor Crater.  It’s 3/4 of a mile across.  Click on the image for full resolution:

 

Tasty rock:

Mechel looks around:

 

Storms on the horizon:

 

Heading west on I-40, we visited the ruins of Two Guns, Arizona.  There was a zoo and other attractions here until I-40 was laid down, at which time Route 66 was decertified.

Route 66 bridge:

 

Abandoned buildings:

 

Checking out the zoo enclosures:

 

The sky grew stormy, but as the sun approached the horizon it punched through, so the ground was brighter than the sky:

 

The zoo entrance back in the day:

 

…And now:

Leaving at sunset, we continued West to dispersed camping in the Coconino National Forest, just outside Walnut Canyon National Monument.

We drove 244 miles today.  Tonto Natural Bridge SP (B), Meteor Crater (C), Two Guns (D):

We left the casino and headed down the street to the Titan Missile Museum:

 

Looks fairly non-descript from the surface:

 

We went down in for a tour.  Entry is through a non-hardened underground stairwell, which leads to the blast door into the hardened launch control bunker.  Behold the thick steel door:

 

 

Everything was spring mounted (the cylinder on the wall), and the cables have slack so when a nuclear strike occurs, the equipment bounces up and down and stays working.

 

The launch room:

 

We went through a launch sequence, complete with lights and sirens.  After the launch, the docent said that the launch crew would wait for further instructions, but there probably wouldn’t be any, as the Air Force base would have been a Soviet target.  The crew could either suffocate once the air ran out in the bunker, or they could go up the ventilation tube and be exposed to fatal radiation.  It was sobering.

 

We walked down the accessway to the missile.  The entire passage is suspended on springs.

 

The missile, waiting for a war that never came:

 

After the tour, we toured the museum upstairs which contained a mock-up of the warhead:

 

Here’s a painting of the complex, showing, left to right, the ventilation shaft, the command bunker, the stairwell, and the missile silo:

 

Next, we went to Asarco Copper Mine Museum, which is on the grounds of the Asarco Mission Mine.  It was interesting, if a bit propaganda-ish:

 

 

 

Leaving the Museum, we headed Southwest of Tucson to visit Kitt Peak National Observatory.  It was 3000 foot climb to the top of the mountain.  The SUV transmission got a bit warm towing the RV up there, but it was OK.

Kitt Peak is one of the largest collections of optical telescopes in the world:

 

The Mayall 4-meter reflector (right), next to the Bok:

  

  We took a tour to the Mayall.  We walked by the Bok:

 

 

Sun over the Mayall:

 

We got to see the Mayall on the inside.  Its mirror is 158 inches in diameter and weighs 15 tons.  The instrument is 92 feet tall:

 

Looking down from the Mayall:

 

 

Next we visited the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.  Pretty neat:

 

After a long, slow drive down the mountain, we came back down to Tuscon and hit the bowling alley:

 

The closest game in Wymore family history.  Quite a rally at the end:

 

That night, we stayed on BLM land outside Tucson:

 

We drove about 140 miles today.  Titan Missile Museum (B), Asarco Museum (C), Kitt Peak (D):

We got started pretty early to get to a tour on time later in the day.  But I was enjoying City of Rocks too much not to capture more photographs:

 

Panorama from the campsite.  Click for the full-size image:

 

Looking back as we left:

 

We made it to Kartchner Caverns State Park in time for our tour.  The cave was discovered in the 70s, and a good bit of effort has gone into not disturbing the hydrology of the cave so its formations continue to grow.  There’s a misting system that hosed us down as we entered the cave, to keep lint and other particles on us from floating off and sticking to the formations.  The walkway is a concrete trough that is hosed out every night.  It was pretty expensive, I thought, and perhaps not sufficiently different from Carlsbad to be worth it.  No cameras (or anything else for that matter) are allowed in the cave, so this is the best I could do:

 

Next, we continued West towards Tuscon, where we stopped at the Pima Air and Space Museum.  We first did a bus tour of the “Boneyard”, a storage facility for 4,400 planes.  Mechel and I enjoyed the tour, and Baila and Trish got in a nice nap:

 

 

After that, we toured the museum itself.  It has a number of hangers, as well as 300 or so planes on display outside.  It was over 100 degrees out, so we didn’t spend much time walking the tarmac.

 

After leaving the museum, we visited the Eastern unit of Saguaro National Park.  There was an odd storm coming in, so visibility was pretty poor, and there was a good bit of lightning in the distance.

 

We left Saguaro and headed a bit south to Sahuarita.  The Walmart there doesn’t allow overnight parking, so we overnighted at the Desert Diamond Casino.

 

We drove 307 miles today.  Karchner Caverns (B), Pima Museum (C), Saguaro National Park (D):

We got up early in the morning on Tuesday.  Trish did the laundry at a laundromat  next door to Walmart.  There’s something to be said for having half a dozen washers and dryers available at once; laundry went much faster than at home.

We packed up, dumped tanks at the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce, then went to the East side of town to the New Mexico Museum of Space History.

A Little Joe II in the background, in front of the fin unit of an American-built V2:

 

A docent demonstrated the insulatory properties of a Space Shuttle hull tile:

 

This sled track was used to do G-force and ejection system testing on astronauts:

 

We then headed West towards White Sands Missile Range, stopping briefly at White Sands again, this time to try sliding down the dunes on a snow disc, which was only marginally successful.

At White Sands Missile Range, we had to leave the vehicle outside the gate, had to show IDs, and could only take photographs on the grounds of the museum, and only facing West, away from the base and the test range.

The museum consists of a small building with exhibits, which we had to rush through as we arrived 10 minutes before the 4pm closing time.  They also have a building with a V2 rocket lying on it’s side.  It’s quite large up close.

There’s also a large outdoor area, showcasing missile systems tested or developed at the range.

Fat Man in front of a Patriot Missile rack:

 

Baila called this one the “Lipstick rocket”:

 

Posing with an F-4 Phantom II:

 

We left the museum at 4:30 or so, and headed West and then North to City of Rocks State Park.  We came over a rise, and there it was, a natural Stonehenge with hundreds of standing stones:

 

We were going to stay on BLM land just outside the park, but we decided to stay in the campground so we could hike around after sunset.  We had two neighbors:

 

Once out in the stone field, it became quite labyrinthine and exciting to explore:

 

Baila said “Take a picture with the sun coming through the hole.”  Quite the photographic eye, that one:

 

Moonrise over the stones:

 

Other than the low clouds on the horizon, the sky was beautiful, with the Milky Way quite visible:

 

Another great day!  We drove about 190 miles today.  Here we have the NM Space Museum (B), White Sands Missle Range Museum (C), and City of Rocks State Park (D):

On Sunday morning, we left Dallas and headed east on I-20 to the Odessa Meteor Crater outside of Odessa, TX.  It’s not a very big hole, or very deep, having been filled in over time.

Next we set up our first dispersed camping site near Carlsbad Caverns National Park:

We left the RV behind and drove up to the cave to watch the bats come out at dusk.  It was really something to see.  There’s a video here.

Here’s a map of today’s drive.  The Odessa Meteor Crater is point “B”.  We drove 521 miles today.

 

Monday morning, we drove back up to Carlsbad Cavern hiked down into the cave:

The chamber in the darkness beyond is where the bats roost:

 

The rooms were surprisingly large:

 

The entrance to the “Big Room”, which has a floor space of 350,000 square feet, and is 750 feet below ground:

 

We left Carlsbad Caverns around noon, picked up the RV, and went for a hike in McKittrick Canyon at Guadalupe Mountains National Park:

 

Baila was tired, so Mechel carried her for a bit:

 

After the hike, we drove towards White Sands National Monument to catch the sunset tour.  We took route 62, which was completely desolate for 100 miles.  Good thing we had enough gas.

White Sands is beautiful at sunset, and the sand is indeed white!

 

This shrub grows higher and higher as the dune moves in.  When the dune moves away, the plant’s roots hold back the sand to form a tower.  This tower was about 30 feet high:

 

Baila and Mechel sliding down the dunes:

We were going to spend the night on BLM land near White Sands, but decided to stay at the Walmart in Alamagordo so we could do laundry in the morning.

Here’s today’s driving map of our 277 mile route, showing Carlsbad Cavern (B), Guadalupe Mountains (C), and White Sands (D).

Last year’s vacation worked out so well, mechanical difficulties notwithstanding, that we decided to do it again.  A bit more South this time, and about 1,000 miles farther.  6,266 miles in 21 days.  The plan was to leave Wednesday night, be in Dallas for Shabbos, spend the first week working our way to the second Shabbos in Phoenix, spend the second week working our way towards the third Shabbos in Denver, and then drive the last 1,831 miles back over Sunday and Monday:

 

We left Wednesday night, and by early Thursday morning we had driven 300 miles were bunked down at the Walmart of Winchester, VA:

 

First stop Thursday, Shenandoah National Park:

 

We were more than a little disappointed.  Compared to the National Parks of the West, Shenandoah wasn’t at all impressive.  The vistas were comparable to the views from the foothills of Oregon.

 

We did see a bear family crossing the road:

 

Continuing East, we passed within 20 miles of the TrailManor Factory, but passed by too late at night to visit.  That night, after driving 816 miles, we stayed at the Walmart in Nashville, TN:

 

We drove most of Friday (451 miles) and spent Shabbos in Dallas, and had the pleasure of being hosted for meals by two very nice families (names withheld for privacy).  The house at which we parked had it’s own RV pad!  Dallas was hot, but the A/C held up OK.

Here’s a map showing where we overnighted: