Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Our Migration North 2025

6 August 2025

 

Day 1 and 2 – 30 April to May 1 – 210.1 miles – Tucson to Camp Verde, AZ – We decided that we’d spend our first night at a lovely hotel and casino we found on our first trip to Tucson in 2018.  The Cliff Castle Hotel (and casino!) are named for the cliff dwellings build nearby by the indigenous people, maybe 700 or so years ago.  So, we enjoyed our hotel room, played in the casino (enough to pay for meals), and I visited the cliff dwellings again.  It’s quiet and peaceful, and I’m amazed each time that the indigenous people were living in multi-level condominiums way up on cliff, while our European ancestors were living in thatched cottages made either of stone or mud and wattle.  Well, the privileged few might have lived in grandiose palaces or palazzos, but most of us are descendants of tenant farmers and such.  Yeah, we weren’t such an advanced society way back then.

 

My other constant question is why humans built structures based on squares and rectangles – we don’t see those shapes very often in nature, there are rarely straight lines.  So why did we develop linear architecture?  My only possible answer is that if one is stacking stones or bricks, I guess they naturally create straight walls, and openings for windows and doors would also end up being rectangular.  Otherwise the buildings would likely fall over.  Basic physics? 

 

 

 

Day 3 – May 2 – 185 miles – Camp Verde to Page, AZ – very close to the Utah border.  Beautiful scenery in the Flagstaff region, with snow-capped mountains and evergreen trees all over.  Then back to desrt north of there.  And past the Vermilion Hills, which are really incredible, glowing red in the distance!

 

We found a wonderful place in Cameron - huge souvenir store with really fabulous Navajo weavings, gorgeous jewelry, and a really good restaurant (they call it a dining room). It was overlooking a narrow canyon of deep red rocks, and the river was called the Little Colorado River. I suspect we've been past this place previously, but never stopped here. I think this will be one of our new must-do stops along the route!

 

Day 4 – May 3 – 74.5 miles – Page, AZ to Kanab, UT – We didn't get very far today, but we deliberately gave ourselves 15 days to drive north so we could go slowly and stop at the various national parks.  As soon as we left Page, AZ, we arrived at the Glen Canyon National Park - it was mostly about the dam and hydroelectric plant at the canyon, and the creation of Lake Powell as a result of the dam.  Very interesting, and I especially liked the dinosaur footprints found in the rock!

 

After our visit there, we drove a bit and found the Lake Powell National Park (and marina).  We drove through, admired the views, and had a luxurious lunch at the resort there.  Yes, a very posh hotel complete with a swimming pool and fancy restaurants right in the park!  It was on a cliff overlooking the lake, and was very pretty.  But the rooms were outside our budget, so we headed onward.

 

So, we ended up in Kanab, Utah - a small town of some 5000+ people.  We looked at a hotel but they were pricey, but the the desk clerk sent us to a cute little motel (though they call themselves a lodge).  Put it this way, they have movie photos and posters in the office; one of the photos is the youngest pic of John Wayne that I have ever seen!  So of course, their wifi password is JohnWayne.  They own the Iron Horse Restaurant (or diner?) across the street.  Yep, we're in the west and it's homey!

 




Day 5 – May the Fourth – 237.5 miles – Kanab to Nephi, UT, via Bryce Canyon – What a day!  Sometimes even I don’t understand how Richard and I end up in the situations that occur when we travel!

 

We had an easy drive from Kanab to the smaller Red Canyon, and then Bryce Canyon.  Found a nice cafĂ© on the way for lunch, drove around the canyon a bit, stopped and I walked out to some of the scenic overlooks (at an elevation of 8000 feet!).  Bryce is full of hoodoos, which are basically tall thin spires of rock formed by erosion.  They end up looking like carved posts, because the rock is different layers of rocks, some easily eroded and some which erode more slowly.  Some are a couple of hundred feet tall – the whole thing looks like come kind of other-worldly architecture in sort of a rosy-to-coral earthy color!

 

Our atlas made it look like the road went through Bryce and came out the other side.  No, it’s a road in, visit the various lookouts, back out the same entrance.  Not through.  Okay, so we turned around and went back.  Programmed Greta the Garmin for Salt Lake City, a bit beyond the day’s plan.  We really aren’t sure where we drove, they were definitely the back road county highways of rural Utah.  Farms, open range with “watch for cattle” signs, forests and fields, signs to watch for deer and elk migrations.  Our most exciting was a pair of female pronghorn antelope, crossing the highway and then scampering off across a field.

 

Greta told us to periodically turn from one highway onto another.  We remember a few names of towns we passed through, all so small they didn’t have an open coffee shop or diner, never mind a possible place to spend the night!  Tiny communities of maybe 300 or so people.  Just, driving through a whole lot of nowhere!

 

We finally hit the big town of Gunnerson, and stopped at a gas station mini-mart place.  Met an absolutely wonderful woman clerk at the store, who suggested we head to the next town, maybe 45 minutes away, for more hotel/motel options.  She even looked up a few and wrote down phone numbers for us.  She was a total sweetheart – meeting helpful people like her are part of the reason we keep travelling!

 

And that is how we ended up in the town of Nephi (KNEE-fie).  We’re at a little motel with a comfy room, next door to a gas station/gastro pub.  Really, that’s their sign.  Made us laugh, it’s so funny!

 

Onward tomorrow!

 

Day 6 & 7 – May 5 & 6 – Nephi to Brigham City, UT – 143 miles – We’ve have iffy wifi for a few days, and I somehow forgot my apnea machine headgear in Page, AZ.  So I’m not sleeping as soundly as I do with my machine, and my restless sleeping is waking Richard.  Between being a bit tired and wanting to catch up with email, we opted to just drive two hours, and found a hotel/motel.  Actually, we’ve stayed here previously!  Not that we know our way around the town, but it does help to recognize the actual hotel!

 

Weather turned very chilly, the mountains all have snowy tops, and the wind became crazy.  We snugged down into our warm room, and decided yeah, maybe we’ll stay here two nights to just rest up. So that’s what we did.  I explored a bit by driving to the middle of town for a diner breakfast, but other food comes from the gas station mini mart, or the DQ attached.  What can I say, road trips for us usually include some fabulous diners, interspersed with garage station pre-made sandwiches, or yogurt-fruit-granola parfait cups.  It works.

 

 

Day 8 – May 7 – Brigham City, UT to Twin Falls, ID – 167 miles – We’ve never been to Twin Falls on all our trips through southern Idaho.  The town is nearly ten miles off the interstate, and it took forever to find a hotel, even with Greta Garmin.  On the other hand, it seems like a nice medium-sized town, with about 51,000 residents.  We drove around some residential areas, then a mixed business neighborhood, finally found the hotel we were trying to locate.  A word to Idaho politicians: It helps visitors to your cities when you put up signs on the highway with arrows indicating which way to turn for what hotel/motel.  Having nothing on the sign makes life quite confusing!

 

 

Day 9 & 10 – May 8 & 9 – Twin Falls, ID to Ontario, OR – 180 miles – This morning, we left our hotel and went to Shoshone Falls, the "twin" falls for which the town of Twin Falls is named.  They really are more like double-decker falls - and the lower fall has a drop of 212 feet! HUGE falls, just gorgeous!  The Snake River is in a fairly deep gorge or canyon at this point, with almost sheer rock sides, and the water just plummets over the drop with so much force!  I'm really glad we finally did this! 

 

A man we chatted with lives in town and takes his dog to the park – he said in another month, when the snow melts on the mountains, the falls will be twice the size and will be covering much of the bare rock area we saw.  If you look at the photos, all the white rock to the right of the falls will, at max level, be covered by the cascading river!!!

 

We’re ahead of schedule, so we thought we’d enjoy a day to relax in Ontario.  Nothing special going on, but we have a nice hotel for a good price, and it’s in walking distance of shopping, eating, etc.  We can sleep late, enjoy the hotel pool, whatever.

 




Day 11 – May 10 – Ontario to Hermiston, OR – 195 miles – We hoped to find a hotel somewhere between Pendleton and Umatilla, OR.  Umatilla is just about the last town on the Oregon side of the interstate before crossing into Washington.  There probably are a few hotels in Umatilla, but the signs were confusing, and sent us in the opposite direction.  So we ended up in Hermiston, a bit to the south.  Oh well, we’re only about 100 miles south of Yakima, so that means tomorrow we’ll have a very casual drive northward.

 

The route we were on for most of our drive through Oregon, I-84, follows the Oregon Trail.  Each rest area seemed to be some stopping point along that trail, and the information signs included excerpts from letters or journals written by people either exploring or travelling in wagon trains to “settle” the west.  Most of the excerpts focused on the long arduous travels, with comments like “hundreds of miles over pure rock until we reached a green valley.

However, one woman traveller seemed focused on the indigenous people encountered in the Oregon Territory: the Nez PercĂ©, Umatilla, Cayutes, Paiutes.  Her comments described the young girls with long black hair worn in braids, the women with similar braids topped by “a jaunty hat similar to a flower pot, used for gathering berries.”

 

She also talked about how each nation in this region had numerous horses, plentiful food, and seemed to have more physical riches than most of the other Native Americans the settlers met in the Great Plains region.

 

However, my favorite part was when she marveled at “the men who are excellent physical specimens” – uh huh, she apparently thought they were hot!  But apparently in 1859, ladies did not write that.  I burst out laughing when I read her words!

 

 

Day 12 & 13 – May 11 & 12 – to Yakima, WA – 106 miles – I have a few items to leave at our storage unit, and we like to visit my brother and sister-in-law when we’re passing through.  We’ve had a few hotels we like to stay at, though this year we were able to get our favorite.  Some rooms face the Yakima River as it runs through the town, and the ground floor rooms (which we have) enable us to walk up the slight hill to the paved trail, and either walk some more or just watch the river.  It’s green and shady, the perfect place to sit outside our room and relax after the long drive up from Tucson!

 

 

Day 14 & 15 – May 13 & 14 – Yakima to Bellingham, WA – 235 miles – It’s always difficult to estimate the time of arrival in Bellingham, so to make it easier to meet up with our landpeople, we’ve started staying at a hotel in the general vicinity and meeting up the next day.


Google maps says we travelled 1736 miles!  Each day's route is a different color, and the towns we stayed in are the white dots.  (Next time I'll use another color, the white dot doesn't show up well in Puget Sound.)

   


 

  

Tombstone Arizona, the Town Too Tough To Die

5 August 2025

I know, it seems it has been almost forever since there was a new blog post.  Not that we haven’t been busy – in fact, that is often the issue, we HAVE been busy.

 

So before I write about what we’ve been doing, I should finish up our fun times in Arizona.

 

Tombstone, Arizona, is an actual town.  It was an old mining town, founded in 1979, which burned down twice, and was the site of the shootout at the OK corral.  Really, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp and the whole crew.  There’s also a 1950s TV show with a fictional sheriff, ostensibly narrated by the editor of the town’s newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph.  That’s the real name, odd as that might seem.

 

We drove on down to Tombstone and spent half a day.  We visited the museum, and watched a multi-media presentation on the history of the town.  Then we walked by the Epitaph and picked up copies of the paper written after the big shootout, and finished our visit by watching a re-enactment of the shootout.  It was fun, as well as funny, but also rather sad because the shootout, while inevitable, seemed pointless, as so many feuds usually do.

 

The silver mines are still functional, and the town is a bit of a tourist destination.  Worth of a visit if you’re in the area.  And as the sun is heading toward the horizon, you can pose like an old gunslinger!

 

Richard and I also drove up Mount Lemmon, the tallest peak in the Santa Catalina Mountains, which ring Tucson’s north and northeastern perimeter.  Mount Lemmon is 9,159 feet high, so the peak was full of snow, even though Tucson was having temperatures in the 60s! 

 

People periodically report seeing cougars around Mount Lemmon, but unfortunately, we didn’t see any.  Lots of saguaro at the lower elevations, and various rock formations that looked like giant children had tried building sand castles!

 

We made it to the summit by sunset, and it was a gorgeous drive back down past all the rock formations glowing various colors as the sky turned from blue to flaming pink to a muted gold, and then dark.  Tucson was spread out below, twinkling lights on the flat valley between the mountain ranges.

 

I joined Tucson’s Urban Sketchers, and went on a couple of meet ups.  The first was to the San Xavier Mission, a church completed in 1797.  It’s a gorgeous old church built in the Spanish style, located on the Tohono O’odham Nation.  It was a chilly morning, but plenty of people attending the worship service, as well as tourists visiting this site, and a number of vendors selling everything from traditional fry bread to woven blankets and beaded jewelry.  I mostly drew the church, and chatted with various people as they wandered by and stopped to see what I was doing.

 

Our niece came down from Phoenix and spent a night, and the next morning she and I joined another sketching meet up at an old motel-turned-restaurant, the Monterey Motel CafĂ©, complete with musical entertainment.  Great way to spend a Sunday morning! 

 

Two other Urban Sketcher events I went to included the El Rio Reserve – not quite an urban park because it’s quite a bit north of Tucson, but still close enough to be in the general metropolitan area.  Some trees for shade, a few benches for sitting, a rocky hill studded with saguaros, and a lovely pond with random ducks paddling around – what a lovely place to sketch for an hour or two!  My watercolor sketch really does capture the oddly bell-shaped hill.  Though since I work on an open page, the photos always look a bit skewed or warped.

 

The last sketching event was in the Mercado district, a new area built to resemble an older traditional market.  There are a number of private homes built somewhat in the old hacienda style, so it’s very picturesque.  Another great place to draw or paint! 

 

And even though this was in downtown Tucson, I saw a road runner!  Really, complete with the crested head, long tail, and long-ish legs!  What a weird looking bird!

 

The only other excitement was the desert bloom.  Tucson is in the Sonoran Desert, and most of the time the environment is muted shades of dusty green and dusty brown.  Beautiful clear blue skies turning into dramatic and fiery sunsets.  Dark skies filled with twinkling stars, because Tucson has very few street lights, it’s a dark city so that the various observatories and astronomical research stations can study the night sky.

 

But it spring, the desert blooms.  The cacti flower in brilliant yellows, oranges, and pinks.  The saguaro sprout white flowers on each arm, so it looks like they’re all wearing floral crowns!  Butterflies visit, bees go crazy, and tourists come to see the sudden color.  It really is a joyous time!

 

We liked our little house in Tucson so much, we’ve booked it for next fall to spring.  We’ve never done that before, but it really was a comfortable cottage with a large back porch and yard.  We even had an orange tree, full of Arizona sweets!  Who knew that Arizona grew delicious oranges!