Elderbloggers Stake Their Claim - New York Times

Elderbloggers Stake Their Claim - New York Times

Only 160,000 of us over 50s folks blogging? That number seems low, but I sure enjoy doing it because it keeps me connected to thinking, writing and opinionating. And when traveling, it provides an easy and fun journaling experience.

I often wonder whether blogs will exist in their present form 20 years from now or will they evolve into something different?

I have linked my web calendar to this blog (way down on the lower right of the page; scroll down to see it) as a way for folks to see where we are headed. Dates are approximate because we want the freedom to vary our itinerary as a place beckons or attracts our attention.

Phoenix, Phoenix

Day 11 April 11, 2006 We arrived in Phoenix yesterday afternoon after a short trip from Flagstaff via Sedona. I really like the Ponderosa forest country in the high country at 7,000 feet and above. The forests have little or no underbrush and you get the feeling that a horse back ride though these groves would be as much fun as watching 'Ponderosa' when we were a lot younger. By the way, We have not yet seen a person on horseback during our 4,200 miles. Is this the West? We see plenty of horses in pasture and in trailers, but more people riding ATVs than horses!

Sedona is a beautiful place with obvious tight architectural constraints in building nearly any structure so that it blends well with the Red Rocks surroundings. This is a very upscale destination, a bit like Vail in the desert. A very eye-pleasing place. After Sedona we descended to Phoenix, a metropolis boom town with vibrancy and new construction everywhere, The large housing developments are quite beautiful with lots of common areas for jogging, dog walking and even fishing ponds, at least in the Fletcher's neighborhood. We walked the 'dales this morning and Scuffer fell in the lake trying to get at some ducks! We did laundry and showered yesterday and generally will relax today.

Other friends of ours and the Fletchers, the Colemans from Colchester are flying in today to spend two weeks, traveling in the area and spending some time with the Fletchers. I scheduled a service appointment for the RV at Tempe Dodge for Wednesday. I want to be sure the buggy continues to perform as well on the remainder of the trip as it has so far. Verizon has cellular broadband service here in Phoenix, so as I lounge on the patio near the pool, I can write this post and browse the internet at high speeds and entertained by the cooing of the mourning doves. Cool, both this service and the weather this morning!

The Canyon Above All Canyons

Day 9, April 9, 2006



Today was a visit to one of the wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon! After a brief stop at the Trading Post in Cameron (What a stupendous place for Indian stuff and just about everything else you can imagine, including a gallery of very expensive native American art, sculpture, pottery and Indian clothing, including a $9,000 pair of beaded Navaho moccasins and a $55,000 piece of Navaho woman's clothing !!).


The weather was gorgeous, bright blue sky and clear, crisp air. Not very crowded with people, but parking is a real problem near the South Rim. We could not have asked for a more stupendous day to see Nature's handiwork. We stopped for the iMax show on the trip south and it is well worth seeing how it captures the mystique of the Canyon.(as soon as I upload my pictures to my laptop, I'll add some to the blog. Remember, Carol and I are sharing the laptop and both writing journals and blogs, so when we get to Phoenix and stay put for a couple of days, I'll do that.)

We're at an RV park (getting our kicks) on 'Route 66' in Flagstaff for the night nestled in among the pines. A quiet place and not very many rigs here so early in the season.

Supper is finished and Carol's turn on the laptop coming up in a few minutes.

Navaho Nation Visitors

One Artist Buying From Another

Day 8 April 8, 2006

We're now in Tuba City, Arizon, a part of the Navaho Nation, and what looks to be a fairly prosperous town after passing so much native American poverty in along the way. We had a wonderful meal (best steak of the trip, so far) at a restaurant next door to our RV park which is part of the Quality Inn. The park is a very nice facility and we even have cable TV, but alas, no internet access via Verizon for the first stop on the journey. We'll catch up on email and blog posting later when we have access.

The trip here from Richfield, Utah was a very pleasant journey in the Sevier River valley for the early going with beautiful sunny weather in the 60s. We were high up most of the time and traces of snow were evident here and there in the forest and on high ridges.

We visited Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah on the Arizona border. This is an incredible facility. They own outright 4,000 acres in Angel Canyon and lease an adjacent 30,000 from the Burea of Land Management for 'protection' as a natural area. Best friends is the largest sanctuary in the U.S. with 1,500-2,000 animals of all kinds, mostly dogs and cats. This organization has 270 employees in Angel Canyon and hundreds of volunteers, some who come for days or weeks at a time form all over the country. The facilities are incredible in design, funtionality and cleanliness. The place is so big and so thorough in caring for animals who they sponsor for adoption, if possible, that it's hard to fathom. With a $24,000,000 annual operating budget, they have seen substantial growth as a result of hurricane Katrina. The side trip was well worth the 2.5 hours. Their website is www.bestfriends.org.

Then on to Arizona for more desert, gullies, gulches, mounds, escarpments and canyons and a wonderful lodgepole pine forest in the high country near the 8,000 foot entrance road (road closed in winter until May 15) to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
So very little traffic on U.S. 89 and 89a from Fredonia, Arizona to Tuba City. Travel was easy, if boring, with so much painted desert scenery and good roads. Sunday we're headed to Grand Canyon.

Arches and Canyons

Landscape Arch, Arches National Park, Utah

Day 7 April 7, 2006

After a hearty breakfast at the Moab Diner amongst the locals and several early arriving 4-wheelers for a weekend desert rally, we set off for Arches National Park. Since we are now senior citizens we can have a pass for all the parks for $10.00 forever. God Bless the U.S. National Park Service!

The weather was wonderfully sunny in the 50s and 60s throughout the day. I can understand why this climate is so appealing, except in July an August. Arches can be reasonable well seen form driving the 18 mile route, which we did. At Devil's Garden I took a 2 mile hike while Carol napped and studied some Italian. The hike led to Landscape Arch, the longest at 360' (some controversy exists about how to measure these arches) and fragile after a big chunk fell off in 1991.

(Lots of photos but not yet time enough to edit and upload. Patience, please.)

We stopped at the brand new visitors center, a very nice building with several full-size sculptures of the animals of the desert, including a very nice bronze of a big horn sheep, and several displays of the histroy and geology of the park. A 15 minute movie describes the arches, their history and geology, also very well done by the Discovery Channel.

Then back on I-70 through more dry, Utah desert with some spectacular views, but also plenty of mundane, uninteresting landscape that seemed like driving through a huge endless gravel pit.

Up over the mountains we went at 8-9,000 feet, I'd estimate, and then downhill for 15-20 miles to our destination tonight, a small RV park in Richfield, a growing town in the Sevier Valley with what seems to be rich farmland for beef cattle. Along the way we saw a herd of 15-20 deer in the mountains.

Tomorrow we lose I-70 because it ends here. We will head for the Grand Canyon on US-89 and probably stay a day or two at Tuba City, AZ. while visiting the 'big daddy' canyon. We left the Colorado River in Moab, but will soon find it again in Arizona.

Musings from Moab

April 7, 2006

Denver to Moab, UT today via the Loveland Pass (of course it was snowing, but not sticking to the road, so traveling was OK!) I-70 after Vail, is a good road through a territory I wouldn't pay a dime an acre for. Such desolation and desert, for the most part. Traveling was good the whole way with light traffic and few trucks. Vail and the valley contain plenty of megahomes and little parking in the village.
Lot's of oil shale drilling around Rifle, CO. At least a dozen drill rigs at work, a real boom town now that petoleum is >$60/bbl.

We're at a the Arch View RV Park in sight of the national park and will visit tomorrow.

Time for a shower and a few odds and ends now that the sun has set.

Denver Nuggets

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Yesterday was a 'rest' day in Topeka with new found friends (owner of Lacie, an Airedale) which included good fellowship, meals, a guided tour of Topeka, including the elaborate state capitol and an Episcopal church with a fantastic organ which someone there was kind enough to play for the three of us, by Mark Saylor then a steak dinner, and a good night's rest.

We are on the road again currently in Colby, KS, just east of the CO border. We hope to spend the night in Denver and if luck holds, will meet up with Jessica Sarkisian, daughter of our lifelong friends, Vahan & Anne from MA & NH.

It's very warm today with clear weather and light traffic on I-70.

Update 8:30 pm Wednesday
We are now in Denver at a Sam's Club ready to settle in for the night. We heard from Jessica enroute. She's in Aspen so we won't be able to connect while we're here. The drive through the High Plains of eastern Colorado is a desolate one. We stopped at Flagler, a farm town (they're all wheat towns here.) for gas, then made a straight shot for Denver.
What a change from desolate high plains with little sign of life, except the cattle, to the bustling metropolis of Denver with 8 lanes of I-70 traffic.

Carol's 'nuking' some leftover chicken Parmesan with a nice fresh salad for supper.
Tomorrow we're off to Utah with a stop at Arches National Park near Moab.

It's been one long drive through America's heartland, but we haven't seen any place yet to beat Vermont or New England.

God's Country

A New York law firm had a matter involving real estate in Louisiana. They asked a New Orleans firm to search the title and received a detailed report. The New York firm wrote back, that the report was fine as far as it went, but what happened before 1803? The New Orleans firm answered as follows:

“In 1803 the title was acquired from the Republic of France by purchase. The Republic of France acquired it from the Kingdom of Spain by conquest. The Kingdom of Spain acquired its rights by virtue of the discoveries of Christopher Columbus. Columbus,
before embarking on his voyage of discovery, received the blessing of the Pope
of Rome who is the Vicar on Earth of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of
God. God made Louisiana.”

Day 3 Now in Kansas City

Another 500 mile day finds us in the Wal-Mart parking lot just east of Kansas City on I-70. The driving improved from light rain in Indianapolis to a sunny day just as we passed through St. Louis.

In Illinois 5 tractor trailers were strewn about in the median in Illinois. They apparently were hit by a tornado or very strong winds that threw them off the road and their cargoes were everywhere. Don't know if any drivers were hurt, but what a mess. We were very fortunate to have been just rattled around some in a windy thunderstorm.

Farms, farms, and more farms. The landscape is very bland to look at but thank God for those who work this wonderful soil to bring us all manner of inexpensive food.

The weather promises to be good for the next couple of days. Tomorrow we'll visit some folks and stay overnight (yeh, a shower!) in Topeka that Carol met on the Internet through her Wooliedales business.

We had a wonderful dinner buffet at a place called Golden Corral, apparently a franchise in this part of the country, but this is the first one we'd seen. An amazing deal for @20 bucks for two people. Wonderful steak, beef ribs, chicken roasted or fried and oodles of veggies and salads and you name it! Such a deal!!

Dogs are doing so very well. We and they are on the same bathroom break schedule, so it works out fine for all of us.

Indianapolis & Tornados

We spent the second nite in a Wal-Mart parking lot after two days and a thousand miles into our cross country journey. Excitement reigned here last night as a line of severe thunderstorms and heavy rain squalls came through. The tornado sirens wailed as we watched the TV weather and listened to the National Weather Service emergency alerts as the winds rocked our RV a bit. We're fine, no damage.

The heaviest winds were northeast and southeast of us. We were in Lawrence to the northeast of the city. It's now cooled considerably and Carol is making breakfast. The dogs are traveling well and are really no bother.

We are headed for another Wal-Mart just east of Topeka, Kansas to spend tonight.

Traffic is light on the weekend, but I suspect it will be heavier today on I-70.

This Verizon BroadBandAccess and National Access service is great!! I'm online via FAST!! broadband now. Carol was on for two hours yesterday while driving at 65 mph and we never dropped a connection. So we may be online more often than expected, as long as we're in Verizon cell territory.

More later.