BRYCE CANYON - SOUTHWEST UTAH

Here's our crew ready to visit Bryce Canyon.

It's hard to take a bad picture in Bryce unless you wiggle your camera.

I thought this looked somewhat like a sandcastle with drizzled sand on top.

All the different colors are just amazing.

Natural Bridge formation.

Justin standing between a couple of Aspen trees.

Here's my bride in front of the Natural Bridge.

The formation toward the left center looks like a large castle.

Again, the colors are amazing.

These trees are quite common in the Richfield community.  They are shaped like a head of broccoli.  I asked the manager at the KOA what they were called and he said they are a globe willow.

Grandma, Justin and Hannah in the pool at the KOA in Richfield, a very clean and neat RV park.

Justin and Hannah diving into the pool to find the penny that grandma threw in when they weren't looking.

ZION NATIONAL PARK - EASTERN SIDE

Hannah and Justin taking in the scenery.

Scot, Justin and I climbing on some of the more gradual sloping sandstone formations common to the east side of the park.

A large formation of checkerboard mesa.

Photo op's all around.

We are happy that this isn't the motorhome we are traveling in.

Some scenery from Red Canyon, a few miles outside of Bryce Canyon.

ZION NATIONAL PARK - WESTERN SIDE

Here is our crew after a restful night, ready to see Zion National Park.

Scot and Gina on base of a large cottonwood tree.

These are the trolley buses that take you from site to site in the western side of the park.  Zion National Park is divided into two parts connected by a mile long tunnel.  We visited the western side today, we will visit the eastern side tomorrow.

It was cloudy a good share of the day which helped to keep the temperatures down to the mid to upper eighties but there were many sunny periods of the day which helped us get some nice pictures.

Water filters down through the rock and at some point hits a spot where it cannot continue filtering down, so works it's way out to the surface.  It carries with it minerals which cause coloration on the surface as it continues toward the river.

Justin and Hannah enjoyed climbing on some of the boulders along the trail.

Everywhere you look, it is beautiful.

The area typically only receives about 12 inches of rainfall so cacti are right at home here.

My lovely wife and travel planner, how lucky am I?

GOT TO GET THERE BEFORE THE FUN CAN BEGIN

Jane and I got up at 4AM eastern time and drove to Scot and Gina's place and picked them up about 5AM central time and got to the Nashville Airport about 7AM to catch our flight to Las Vegas via this multicolored 'bird'. 

We arrived in Las Vegas about 10:15 Mountain time and were picked up at the airport by our motorhome's owner Michael Kibler.

This is our happy but somewhat tired crew getting ready to depart Las Vegas via this nice motorhome.

Here is another shot down the side of the motorhome.

We arrived at Zion River Resort, RV Park and Campground about 6PM.  We will be here the next two nights.  It is a very nice park about 10 miles west of Zion National Park.  

More on that later.

ALMOST TIME FOR THE NEXT TRIP TO BEGIN

This trip is going to be a motorhome trip with our son Scot and his wife Gina and their two children, Hannah and Justin.  We will fly out of Nashville to Las Vegas on Thursday July 11.  This vacation will be a bit warmer and the parks will be a bit more crowded since we are going at the height of summer vacation time, Hannah and Justin have to be back for school in August.

We will pick up our rental RV there and drive to Zion River Resort just outside of Zion National Park in southwestern Utah.  From there we will be going to Bryce Canyon National Park, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park, Tetons and Jackson Hole, Grand Canyon National Park, Page Arizona, Kingman Arizona and Route 66, Hoover Dam and back to Las Vegas.

We will post pictures along the way so you can enjoy some of what we are seeing.  We are hoping that the wildfires in Colorado and Arizona don't cause the skies to be too hazy.

MISCELLANEOUS SIGHTINGS - NEW YORK STATE

While we have seen some pretty countryside as we have travelled through the Adirondack's and the Catskill's we haven't seen a lot that makes for interesting photos, but I came up with a few to share.

A few miles west of Lake Champlain we took a few pictures at the Ausable Chasm.  The Ausable River flows east toward Lake Champlain and just above the chasm or gorge there is a small dam with 'pen stocks' or pipes that direct some of the flow to a power house where the water is used to turn turbines to generate electricity, the excess flow goes over the dam and supplies the falls shown below. 

The dam is out of sight in this picture but you can see the pen stocks on the ground to the right, behind the power house which is at the bottom center of the picture.

Several miles to the west is Lake Placid, the site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.  Just outside of the town is Whiteface Mountain which has an 8 mile road up the side of it designated as the Memorial Highway, in honor of World War I veterans.  The highway is quite steep, quite rough and averaging an 8% grade, but offering nice views of the surrounding mountains.  At the summit the mountain is 4,867 feet above sea level.  Lake Placid is visible from the summit but the sky was overcast so the picture isn't real great.

Traveling several miles more to the southwest we came upon Long Lake and a small community by the same name.  The lake is really pretty with the hills all around.

A few minutes later I looked back up the lake and saw a seaplane taxiing up to the beach.

As we got down into the Catskill's southwest of Woodstock we saw some unusual metal sculptures along side the road.  We turned around and went back to take some pictures.  The business is called Fabulous Furniture and the artist, Steve Heller does make furniture, but he also does unusual metal creations.

The first item I noticed was the 'Cro Magnum', a Dodge Magnum station wagon which has had 1960 Desoto fins and taillights added as well as a 1960 Cadillac rear bumper.

On the front is a 1957 Cadillac Bumper and 1958 Lincoln headlights. 

Steve has created several 'vehicles' to compete in an artist's soap box derby and won numerous awards for them, here are a couple.

The Wrechosaurus, made up of various automotive parts, farm implement parts, riding lawnmower parts and of course lots and lots of wrenches.

This one he calls the Bubble Car, made from the front part of two Plymouth front fenders and the rear part of two Plymouth rear fenders.

Steve has also made several 'rocket' or 'space ship' type pieces utilizing mostly the rear fenders and fins off 1950's and 1960's cars.  The two shown here are a 1956 Desoto in the foreground and a 1959 Oldsmobile in the background.

This item is made from a pair of 1956 Dodge rear fenders, a mag wheel and a 1960 Buick taillight.

Steve also built a car he calls the Marquis De Soto, based on a low mileage 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis. Steve removed all the body panels except the roof and the 4 doors.  The rear fenders have been poached from a 1957 Desoto, the front fenders and lights from a 1958 Lincoln, 1955 Cadillac bumpers, a 1965 Buick Skylark hood, chrome from a 1957 Buick, and a grille built from two 1957 Corvette pieces.  We didn't see this car but I found pictures of it on the internet.

THOUSAND ISLANDS - THE ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY

On Thursday we took a 2-1/2 hour boat trip out of Alexandria Bay New York on the St. Lawrence Seaway, an area referred to as the Thousand Islands.  According to the narrator there are actually about 1,800 islands.  Their definition of an island is that it has to be above water 365 days a year, has to be at least 1 foot in diameter and must have at least one live tree growing on it.

The St. Lawrence Seaway begins at the Atlantic Ocean and proceeds to the Great Lakes, permitting ocean going ships to navigate all the way to Duluth Minnesota, on the western end of Lake Superior, which is some 600+ feet above sea level and about 2,900 miles inland, made possible by a series of locks, see the chart in the lower left of the photo below.  

Many people enjoy living near the water and so the cost of property on the water can be quite pricey.  Consequently some of the homes which get built on the water are very pricey.  The Thousand Islands area became popular in the years after the civil war because Ulysses S. Grant started spending time there and many others followed.  During the depression of the 30's many of the large homes were  burned in the hopes of being able to collect on fire insurance policies, but in many cases the insurance companies were in the same financial condition as the home owners and the home owners were without their homes and the money they had hoped to collect from the insurance companies.

There are several notable homes which still remain, one of which, the Boldt Castle, we took several pictures of.  George C. Boldt started his working life as a kitchen worker.  He was hired by his future father-in-law to manage the dining room of the Philadelphia Club.  He later got into hotel management and came to the attention of William Waldorf Astor who hired him to run the Waldorf Hotel.  Later John Jacob Astor IV built the Astoria Hotel next door to the Waldorf causing strife between the two cousins.  Boldt ended up leasing the Astoria and merging the two hotels to become the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Boldt's family spent summers on their farm in the Thousand Islands area and in 1900 he employed 300 construction workers to begin building a castle on Heart Island for the love of his life, his wife Louise.  In 1904 Louise died suddenly and Boldt ordered all work to cease on the castle.  If Louise wasn't there to enjoy it, he had no interest in it.  The property was completely abandoned until 1977 when the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority purchased the property for $1 with the understanding that it could never be used for commercial purposes or inhabited permanently.  Since then millions of dollars have been spent renovating the structure and finishing some of the rooms.  Each year more rooms are finished and eventually the construction will be completed.  

This stone tower was intended for entertaining.  It contained bedrooms, a library, two bowling alleys, a billiard room, a dance hall, a kitchen and a dining room.



This building was the power house for the island and the clock tower contains Westminster chimes.

Across the channel about a quarter of a mile is the boat house which is designed to house motor boats and sailing yachts note the tall doors to allow the mast to pass through.

There are homes of all shapes, styles and sizes along the Seaway and most of them with a more happy story to tell.  Here is a sampling...

The home pictured below is owned by an auto dealer and he is said to have an identical one in Colorado and another in Texas.  This home was reported to be on the market for $37M with country music singer Alan Jackson making a serious offer recently but no deal was made.

This quaint little home is owned by the family of the young lady who was the captain of the U.S. Olympic women's soccer team this summer.