M-D Griffs RV Life

We planned to stay in Flagstaff for two days so we could spend one full day in Sedona. We brought the kids here after the down and back up the Grand Canyon  trip years ago. We were so tired then, we didn’t feel like poking around all the red rock formations.  Well, we were rested today so we made a day of it! First, the drive to Sedona from Flagstaff IS memorable! There wasn’t a place where could get a good picture of Oak Creek Canyon so here’s the next best thing-two pics of the GPS in the truck showing what the road looked like: The second pic here was zoomed out to make the road look like a drunk snake! When I was driving there and saw the second pic on the dashboard, I at first thought the GPS had gone haywire but it was just the road. Downtown Sedona is a mini-tourist heaven full of art galleries, coffee shops, restaurants, and just plain ol’ Junque Joint souvenir shops. We walked a couple of blocks and then went to see the real beauty of Sedona: These two pics were taken on a but

We’ve spent the last two days on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Here are several quotes found about the Grand Canyon: “There will never be a photograph of the Grand Canyon that can adequately describe its depth, breadth, and true beauty.”                                                         -Stefanie Payne “In the supreme flaming glory of a sunset the whole canyon is transfigured as if the light and life of centuries of sunshine stored up in the rocks was now bringing forth as one glorious fountain, flooding both the earth and sky.”                                                                 -John Muir On May 6, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt saw the Grand Canyon for the first time and he was speechless. After gathering himself, he said “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it; not a bit. The ages have been at work in it, and man can only mar it.” About 4.5 years later, on Jan 11, 1908, he said “The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison! Beyond desc

The nursery rhyme that us Baby Boomers remember from the 50’s is NOT what is happening to the London Bridge I’m talking about! This London Bridge was sold by London to Robert McCulloch in 1968.  This London Bridge served London Crossing the River Thames from 1832 to 1968. When it could no longer handle the weight of the vehicular traffic, the city of London put it up for auction and the highest bidder was McCulloch. Who is, or was, McCulloch, you say? Well, he was the wealthy Texas oilman who was developing The Woodlands, TX and a new city in the AZ desert.  The new city was Lake Havasu City on the AZ-CA border. The London Bridge was disassembled stone by stone, shipped to Long Beach Harbor, trucked to LHC, and reassembled in his new development town.  With the world’s largest antique as the centerpiece of his development, LHC took off over the next few years. Is it a little odd to see the London Bridge crossing a side channel of Lake Havasu in AZ? Yes, it IS odd but it has worked to c

We could only get one night camping at Pinnacles NP because all the campsites with hook-ups were reserved. It was okay, though, because we came up with one word to describe Pinnacles: UNDERWHELMING! It seems that the PNP Campground, Visitor Center, and bookstore are all in the East side of the park. That’s fine except the main attraction of the park, its pinnacles, are on the WEST side of the park. Okay, that’s simple to fix, isn’t it? Just drive from the East side to the West side! There is just one small problem with this solution . . . . There are NO ROADS between the East and West sides of the park! It’s a two hour jaunt out of the park and back in on the other side.  Not knowing that the pinnacles (very tall rock spires) are only visible from the West side, we hiked 3-4 miles one-way into the park. These are the only two pics we could get of the park’s namesakes: You can barely see the pinnacles in the second pic. See what I mean about underwhelming? It was a nice campground in th

 Today we drove from Monterey about 60 miles South on the PCH-Pacific Coast Highway. If you Google “Scenic drives in the USA,” this drive will be pretty close to the top.  Again, the main attraction is the coast. The coast of TX is dominated by 3-4 barrier islands like Galveston, Mustang, and Padre Island but the Central CA Coast is nothing like that! The Coast and the Santa Lucia Ranges of mountains drop down to the blue Pacific with the PCH going up and down following the mountains. Here are a couple of pics just to get your imagination started: There are turnouts about every quarter mile of the PCH, always on the coast side of the road. We stopped at one just to see the views up and down the coast. But WAIT! What’s that sound? We could hear faint barks and grunts in the distance. Out come the binocs and we search the rocks 2-300 ft below us. Diana spotted a rock with 10-12 seals on it with a pod of 15-20 sea otters about 50 feet from the rock. Here the pic but you have to enlarge it

Will Rogers called Point Lobos “The most beautiful meeting of land and sea.” Until four years ago, I agreed with him 100%. What happed four years ago, you say? Well, my Bride and I celebrated our 45th anniversary with 10 days in Kauai. Okay, what does Kauai have to do with the Will Rogers quote? Here’s my answer to that question: We saw the Napali Coast!  Here is just one of my pics of Napali and then I’ll explain it better: Maybe now you can understand why I’m not in total agreement with Will Rogers on this point. IMHO, Napali is “The most beautiful meeting of land and sea” and I’ll give you ONE BIG REASON for making that argument. Here goes . . . .  There are NO ROADS along the Napali Coast! The lush green mountains come down almost vertically to the turquoise Pacific and you can’t drive along that section of the coast! You can see it from the air, the water, or on foot and we saw it all three ways! We saw it from an open-door helicopter (Thanks to Sara and Caleb for THAT!), a snorke

Today has been an extraordinary day for several reasons. First, we spent this morning selecting and making a deposit on a new member of our family! The new member is currently a one-week old red poodle pup. Here’s a pic of him and his twin brother: Don’t they look like a couple of sausages? They will be weaned and ready to be picked up around the middle of January or so. Speaking of his twin brother, our daughter Sara has selected him! Diana and Sara have even tentatively picked names for the twins: Fred and George named after the Weasley twins from Harry Potter. So our little parti poodle Dottie will have a little brother! The second great thing that we did today was take a 5.5 to six mile walk around Monterrey. This included around part of the bay . . . . to Steinbeck’s Cannery Row . . . . . (If you look carefully you can see the Monterey Bay Aquarium at the far end of the street) to Pacific Grove Pacific Grove is known as “Butterfly Town, U.S.A.” because millions of Monarch Butterfl

We have always loved Monterey! It’s a fun town to explore, especially since it has Pacific Grove and Carmel-by-the-Sea next to it. Today we drove The 17 Mile Drive through Carmel and Pebble Beach. But first . . . . where we are camping. You can imagine the prices of private campgrounds around here. I checked 4-5 campgrounds around Monterey and Carmel-THEN I picked myself up off the floor! Most of them are priced from $80-120 per night. That is WAY above our campground budget! I kept digging until I found the Monterey County Fair & Event Center RV Park. Their rate is $60 per night but old people like me get a 10% discount. Sooooo $54 it is! This is our third or fourth time to stay in a city or county RV park. Once in TX, once in Omak, WA, and the last time in Port Townsend, WA. Not bad at all. If you’re not familiar with the 17 Mile Drive, it’s a private drive through mainly Pebble Beach Resorts. It is so beautiful and popular, the resorts charge people $10.50 to drive the road. Her

Here’s my favorite pic from the Mariposa Grove: (I didn’t care too much for the sign there but the rest of the picture is BEAUTIFUL!) This is our third NP in a row to see Sequoia trees but they are worth it! This grove is in Yosemite but it’s 20-30 miles from the Yosemite Valley that I wrote about yesterday.  The shuttle buses aren’t running so the only way to reach the Mariposa Grove is on foot! It’s a two-mile hike up this trail: The elevation change wasn’t too bad since it’s only about 600 feet up from the trailhead parking lot. Most of it was snow covered but there were a few places like this where the sun had melted the snow: We hiked about 1.6 miles through the grove and saw sights like these: I hate it when these magnificent trees have been defaced by us humans but there IS one of those in the Mariposa Grove. Here’s a pic with my arms spread out to show how wide the hole was cut through the tree: We were able to hike the two-miles down on the road for the disabled so it wasn’t n