Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the tag “Tusayan”

14 May 2015
9 Comments

The Canyon Grand

Duck on a Rock. Toward the left is a fat boulder, the top of which has eroded to form a part resembling a duck's bill. It's kind of like cloudgazing, but with a a lot slower change.

Duck on a Rock. Toward the left is a fat boulder, the top of which has eroded to form a part resembling a duck’s bill. It’s kind of like cloudgazing, but with a a lot slower change.

Although I’m now just outside teeny-tiny Mormon Lake Village, AZ, I wanted to show you my last full day in Tusayan. This post represents the first part of it. Possibly due to controlled burning in the park, there was a haze in the air. And I’m told that sunrise and sunset are when the colors really jump out. These are mid-day snaps, with haze. But that’s okay, because there’s just nothing that can capture the sense of space and scale of even this one little part of the Grand Canyon anyway.

You're looking about a mile down here. This is one of the few places on earth where the time it takes to get to the bottom on foot can be just as quickly accomplished as by automobile, simply by using the principle of terminal velocity.

You’re looking about a mile down here. This is one of the few places on earth where the time it takes to get to the bottom on foot can be just as quickly accomplished as by automobile, simply by using the principle of terminal velocity.

These shots are from two roadside stops along the highway that goes along the South Rim. I found it to be an amazing thing to simply pull over, get out, walk a hundred feet, and be at a ledge. Here, there are no railings, no warning signs, and no cautionary tape on the ground. I’ve heard the assertion that Read more…

Posted in Tourista! and tagged ,
08 May 2015
2 Comments

An Unusual Day

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Yup, that’s sleet on the truck bed in the photo above. It looks like it’s going to top out at about 50 degrees today, which will make for a pleasant afternoon inside the Mighty Defiant because of the ceramic propane heater in here. I’ll likely have to keep it idling overnight, since the prediction is for a 23-degree low, and once it approaches 30, the “temperate weather only” limitation mentioned in the Gulf Stream manual starts kicking in. But don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of propane because when one of my two 20# heater tanks ran out last night, I filled it up today at the infamous Grand Canyon Village RV Park in town today for $24 and change, which is about twice the cost of anywhere else. Unfortunately, around here, there is no anywhere else for propane refills, and I do not adore the thought of running out of heat when it’s most needed. That’s just me. I asked at the visitor center in the Grand Canyon.

Notice those orange cones? A crew of fit-looking people came by in two pickups and an ATV to drop them off. Seems there’s going to be a 12-mile marathon tomorrow morning, and those mark the path the runners should take. And no, I’m not going to move them. They are taking the same way around that

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Posted in Campsites, Daily Life, E-Bike Pack Mule and tagged ,
06 May 2015
7 Comments

Correction, and a Few Tidbits

A really blue Bluejay with a tall black crest? The critters here are all pretty casual around humans.

A really blue Bluejay with a tall black crest? The critters here are all pretty casual around humans.

The correction is that the sole RV Park in Tusayan may restrict dump station water usage to 10 gallons of potable freshwater – and that’s to camp residents. My advice is, if you’re going to boondock in the Tusayan area, use your pass to enter the Grand Canyon National Park and head for Mather Campground for their free dump station. Their coin-op laundry has a money changer and what looked to be 20 machines at $1.75 a pop. There are coin-op showers at $2 for 8 minutes, and the boon here is that they are inside the heated laundry building – a significant benefit at the moment. Temps will be in the 50s for the next few days and nightly lows in the 20s. In fact, two nights from now, the low is forecast to be 23 degrees, which combined with a 20 MPH wind should make things interesting.

I’ve been fortunate in that actual temps outside the Defiant have been 4-8 degrees warmer than forecast each night so far. I suspect that the time spent below freezing won’t phase the trailer’s plumbing, especially since I’ll need to keep the propane heater percolating all night in order to keep my breathing air above my tolerance of 45. Outside though, the freshwater fill hose in the truck bed does tend to freeze up and clog quickly in near-freezing air. I don’t expect to need to fill the camper’s tank before this cold wave passes, but I don’t want the expanding water to damage anything, either. That would put the Tankmin out of service. The forecast for tonight is 30 (which is safe), so as a test, I’ve thrown the camper’s remote thermometer sender on top of the hose under the tonneau, so I’ll be able to compare true outside temp with that near the hose. If it looks like 23 may be a threat, I’ll have to disconnect the hose at the Tankmin and empty it. I’d like to avoid that if possible, since that involves unloading much of the truck bed to get the needed access. The exposed waste pipes and valves under the RV are a concern too, but I’m hoping the the large diameter piping will slow down freezing and discourage expansion.

This wide load coming into the Park required a couple of highway patrol cars to block intersections and keep the roadway clear.

This wide load coming into the Park required a couple of highway patrol cars to block intersections and keep the roadway clear.

On the good side of things, I found two very helpful apps for my iPhone, and I assume that they are also available for the Android platform. One is

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Posted in Uncategorized and tagged ,
28 Apr 2015
2 Comments

Tusayan!

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The scenics between Congress and Kirkland were amazing, but there’s no place to not pay attention to the road, let alone stop for a photo. So, you get I-40 heading toward Williams instead.

I arrived in the Prescott National Forest a few miles north of Paulden, Arizona today. It was supposed to be yesterday, but my departure was held up by the discovery that the 2-year-old connector hoses running from the dual 30# propane tanks to the pressure regulator on the front of the Defiant were leaking. I was going to take a date-expired tank in to a welding shop in Wickenburg that also does propane refills. They swap them for newer ones for $9.50. Opening up the remaining tank on the trailer showed it to be empty, which it definitely should not have been. Both rubber hoses showed deep cracks, so that was that. It took me long enough to find an accessible dump station, trade in the propane tank for a 5-year newer one and chase down two hoses, that it would have been a bugger to get to Paulden so late in the day.

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The Defiant Biosphere heads into the forest in Tusayan.

 

So I arrived in the camping area north of Prescott about 1 PM today. I found that the spot I was hoping for was Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Travelin' Man and tagged
24 May 2014
6 Comments

Lesson Learned. Again.

I would have put a picture of an elk right here, but for today’s trip to do laundry and visit the dump station and get a few more tomatoes at the market inside the Grand Canyon in preparation for leaving tomorrow, I figured, “Hey, what would I need the camera for? I’m not visiting anything.”

On the way into the park, a couple of cars are pulled over because there were two elk a couple hundred feet off in the thin woods. Naturally, the people were taking pictures. I do my business in the park and leave. Lo and behold, I’m tootling along on a small road leaving the market, and three cars are stopped in the opposite lane. They’re stopped because there’s a standard-sized elk with a full set of moss-covered horns grazing right beside the road. And I don’t mean fifty or 100 feet down, I mean two feet from the edge of the pavement. Paid no attention at all to the cars.

Outside the park, a van has pulled over and a woman is photographing a few elk grazing in the woods. Back at the north end of Tusayan in the four-lane, the right lane is stopped completely. At first, I thought it was one heck of a 35 MPH chain reaction accident, which

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Posted in Daily Life and tagged , , ,
22 May 2014
11 Comments

Just an Interlude

So, I'm sitting, enjoying an appetizer before dinner while watching a DVD, and discover that the sunset view out the window is more interesting.

So, I’m sitting, enjoying an appetizer before dinner while watching a DVD, and discover that the sunset view out the window is more interesting.

The three days of high winds are over, and without mishap. Might get some significant rains tomorrow, so I’m taking yesterday and today as an interlude between possible weather events. Sunny and 74 outside yesterday, with a manageable breeze. So I scraped myself off, refilled the trailer’s water tank, and headed for the Market Plaza inside the south entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park to access their Post Office and General Store (which includes a grocery store). I skirted the suicidal $25/vehicle to get in by brandishing my free-admittance America the Beautiful Geezer Senior Pass that cost me all of $10 and never expires. I almost got breathy as I went through that gate!

Wow. The paved drive in, the signage, the architecture, and the manicured mix of rustic and polished reminded me of Disney World’s Frontierland. Now I know where Disney got the look. I expected it to be unpleasantly packed, but it was lightly busy, and tons of campground space lies unused. Perhaps this is not yet the heavy season. There’s a whole lot of folks not speaking Engrish, and everyone had a relaxed and pleased look.

My trusty Garmin GPS had the Post Office as its target, and promptly steered me into a residence area for park workers, citing mobile Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Daily Life, Navel Gazing and tagged ,
20 May 2014
8 Comments

Tusayan, Arizona Campin’

A turn onto NF 302 yielded a view with quite a contrast to my earlier campsites. Look! Actual trees!

A turn onto NF 302 yielded a view with quite a contrast to my earlier campsites. Look! Actual trees!

The town of Tusayan, Arizona borders the southern entrance to the Grand Canyon. Oh boy, the Grand Canyon! Well, not this trip, odd as it sounds. My goal was simply to see what the area is like for travel trailer campers like myself. To get a feel for the place. I have, and if you restrict the discussion to dispersed camping, it’s a mix that is the natural result of heavy commercialization.

The initial drive in with trailer in tow netted a view of three elk about to cross the road at the bend ahead!

The initial drive in with trailer in tow netted a view of three elk about to cross the road at the bend ahead!

On the way up here on 64, I noticed plenty of inviting National Forest roads branching off this way and that. Looking at a Motor Vehicle Usage Map , the Tusayan area is loaded with roads open to dispersed camping. I’m very curious to explore some of them in order to see what camping situations they offer, but I quickly found three impediments to doing that.

I stopped, the Ford's diesel quietly rattling away, and they decided it was better to get across now, before the big red box with the even bigger white box got any closer.

I stopped, the Ford’s diesel quietly rattling away, and they decided it was better to get across now, before the big red box with the even bigger white box got any closer.

Those impediments are first, that the tangled nest of available roads cover miles and miles of range instead of being a tight pack with numerous branches.

Second, the easiest way to explore those roads is Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Daily Life and tagged , , , ,

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