Our AZ, COfest, Moab Trip

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Started about 5:30 AM 7/15.

Hit St Louis in morning rush



Spent a thrilling night in Elk City, OK, sorry no pics

Highlight of Saturday's driving was going through Albuquerque, with the Weird Al song by the same name playing in my head.

Spent the night in Chambers, AZ, so we could hit Petrified Forest NP next morning.





Then on to Walnut Canyon...

 

[in4aride]

Subd

 

[SteveT]

Ditto.

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We used some extra timeshare points for a place in Cornville, just south of Sedona.

Jerome is an old mining town, former ghost town discovered by hippies, now full of pretty cool art galleries, gift shops, and restaurants (and ridiculously expensive real estate prices)
But the fire department has their head on straight...



Heading into Sedona...



Didn't do Broken Arrow, last time we did it was like a Chicago rush hour with pink jeeps, most of the drivers were cool but one was a dig bick.

Did the Smiley Rock trail, did not see another vehicle. Couple rocky sections, knocked a hole in my muffler somewhere around here...



The rock...



Ate our lunch in the middle of the trail, no traffic except for one squirrel going the opposite way. Cindy forgot to bring forks, salad is not a good finger food...

 

[in4aride]

salad is not food

FIFY

 

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Yeah, would have preferred manifold burritos, but Cindy likes to eat all that healthy stuff.

Did a trip up to Sunset Crater and Wupatki NMs.

 

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Spent a couple hours at the Gold King Mine and Ghost Town near Jerome. Lots of cool old trucks ranging from pristine to modded to junk, and all sorts of other random old stuff...

 

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Couple more from the mine/ghost town/junkyard...





Took the back roads from there to Prescott, stopped at an O'reillys for a new muffler, then to Costco to stock up on beer, wine, and other essentials. When the cashier asked us if we brought our rowboat, we decided to wait out the torrential downpour by having their pizza for dinner...



Next day went to Grand Canyon, from the east entrance.





Found a nice spot to have lunch. Salad again, with Costco's cilantro/lime shrimp.



The farther west we went, the more crowded it got, no parking spaces at Grandview Point, so since we'd been there a few times previously, we headed south to Lava River Cave.

 

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https://www.google.com/maps/place/L...b002294!8m2!3d35.3421548!4d-111.8355739?hl=en

Been in a few other lava tubes in Hawaii and Oregon, this one was better than most. Somewhat crowded, which would have been fine except for the handful of retards that weren't careful where they pointed their headlamps. Was tempted to retaliate with my 500 lumen flashlight, but I figured they had enough problems being clueless, didn't need to be blind as well.

 

[SteveT]

Luv me some orange Power Wagon.

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[xj-grin]

Luv me some orange FC

 

[SteveT]

That, too. I was talking about two pics down.

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The Power Wagon has a huge PTO winch on the back also. Don't see plates in the pics, but the FC did have a current one.

 

[SteveT]

And some chubby meats. Me likey.

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Search youtube for Gold King Mine, looks like there's a bunch of videos there.

The owner, Don Robertson, is quite the interesting character.

So, those were the highlights of the AZ portion of our trip. It was time to pack up and re-organize the van for a week of camping in Ouray. Got there Sunday night, set up camp, then got up before 5 so we could head down to Durango for our train ride. Was an interesting drive, with a distracting sunrise...



and random deer on the road, in the still annoyingly loud jeep.

Train ride was cool, although we agreed that it would've been better to have opted for the bus ride back from Silverton.







We stopped by Silverton again on our way back, for dinner.

 

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Our campsite...



Tuesday morning, broke out the sawzall and other tools to finally replace that muffler, jeep is now the quietest one I've ever owned.

Then we headed up to Yankee Boy Basin to check out the wildflowers.



Found a nice spot to grill some steaks, grabbed the corn and pasta from under the hood. And of course it started raining the minute we were done grilling...

 

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A few more wildflower pics. Not that impressed with the macro capabilities of the Sony Alpha, even with a dedicated macro mode it wouldn't focus up close.







Wouldn't you like to be sitting in these chairs?

 

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Playing with the super-zoom (Panasonic FZ200)







Also works well for wildlife shots...

 

[in4aride]

Those things are so loud.

 

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More wildflowers



More wildlife