Yesterday Miss Terry finished installing the last of the new Levolor window blinds in our motorhome, and this last one came out just as beautifully as the others did! I am so lucky to be married to such a talented woman.

A few readers have written to ask if the blinds rattle going down the road. Since we haven’t been anywhere since Terry installed them, I can’t tell you for sure. But since they have attachments that are screwed to the wall that the bottom of the blinds slide into, they can’t move, so I don’t anticipate any noise from them.

It has gotten very warm here in Show Low, with temperatures in the low 90s predicted for the next few days. It’s even hotter down in the desert, where Phoenix is supposed to hit 110 on Sunday. Now that’s hot! People who live in the desert always say, “Yes, but it’s a dry heat.” Hey, it’s dry inside of an oven too, but I don’t want to live there either! I am a wimp when it comes to weather. I don’t like it too hot or too cold. Somewhere about 72 to 75 degrees is perfect for me.

We can tell its getting hot down in the desert, because the Elks campground is starting to fill up. There are a few RV sites left, and I hope there  is at least one still available when our friends Greg and Jan White come through early next week. Greg called to tell me they want to stop and see us as they head south to Texas for their daughter’s wedding later in the month, and we’re really looking forward to seeing them again.

I have been studying my mapping programs, trying to decide which route we will take from the Thousand Trails preserve in Morgan Hill, California to Vail, Colorado in mid-July for Terry’s son’s wedding. Morgan Hill is just south of San Jose, and I don’t see any good direct route to Colorado. It looks like we will either have to go north to Interstate 80 and take it east to Utah, then drop down to Interstate 70, or else south to Interstate 15, by way of Bakersfield and Barstow, and then Interstate 15 northeast through Nevada and Utah to pick up Interstate 70. This won’t be a sightseeing trip, we just need to get from Point A to Point B, so if anybody is familiar with that part of the country, I’m open to suggestions.

I got a lot of positive responses to Thursday’s blog on Canyon de Chelly, and I wanted to share one more photo from our trip to the canyon. I showed you a close up view of Spider Rock in that blog, but here is a wide shot of that part of the canyon, with Spider Rock near the center. This place took my breath away.

Terry’s folks, Pete and Bess Weber, are going to be up here spending the weekend in their motorhome at the Hon-Dah RV Park, so between visiting with them and working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, I’ll be pretty busy. We only have a little over a week left here in Show Low before we hit the road, and a lot to get done before we leave.

Thought For The Day -  Stop living in the past, it was not perfect either.

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I have just two things to say about our visit to Canyon de Chelly National Monument – “Awesome!” and “If you have never been to this natural wonderland, put it at the very top of your travel plans NOW! You won’t regret it!”

I have been to the Grand Canyon and the Salt River Canyon, I’ve seen Canyon Diablo, and a lot of other natural wonders of the Southwest, and in my opinion, none of them are as impressive as Canyon de Chelly! I only wish I had discovered this magical place years ago.

Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d’Shay) is located at Chinle, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation, and has been inhabited by native peoples for nearly 5,000 years. At the canyon’s mouth, the colorful rock walls are only 30 feet high, but deeper in the canyon, the cliffs tower over 1,000 feet above the valley floor.

We had been advised not to take our 40 foot motorhome to Canyon de Chelly, and I’m glad we didn’t. There are two campgrounds, one the free Cottonwood Campground, which is best suited for small (under 30 feet) RVs, though we did see a couple of larger rigs that had somehow managed to squeeze in. But between the small spaces, tight turns, and trees close to the roadways, there is no way I’d take our motorhome in there.

Spider Rock Campground, about nine miles from the National Park Service Visitor Center, is privately owned, and it looked pretty run down to us. About the only amenities you’ll find there are lizards, porta-potties, and dry camping

We left the motorhome in Show Low and drove our van to Canyon de Chelly, and after a stop at the Visitor Center, we took the seventeen mile long South Rim Drive, which offered seven overlooks, each one more magnificent than the one before. Each overlook gave us a different perspective on the canyon. Our first stop was the Tunnel Canyon Overlook, which gave us nice views of the canyon, which is very green year around due to the river that flows through the bottom of the canyon.

At our next stop, Tesgi Overlook, we saw this farm, which is owned by a Navajo family who lives in this dramatic wonderland. Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up to these kinds of views every day?

Further along the South Rim Drive, at the White House Overlook, we took this photo of these ancient Indian ruins that date back to 1060 A.D. Archaeologists say that at one time the ruins had over 80 rooms, though only about 60 remain today.

It is very had to choose just one, but if I had to pick, my favorite view in Canyon de Chelly is of magnificent Spider Rock, which towers over 800 feet from the canyon floor. This rock formation is sacred to the Navajo people, who say that Spider Woman lives on top of the rock, and it was this deity who taught the first Navajo women to weave, creating a tradition that has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations.

Navajo mothers tell their children that if they misbehave, Spider Woman will carry them away and take them to the top of the rock spire to live until they learn their lesson.

I wish I had room to show you all of the wonderful photos we took at Canyon de Chelly, but there are just too many. And it doesn’t matter, because the photos just don’t do this natural wonder justice. You have to see it for yourself to believe it!

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll tell you about our visit to historic Hubbell Trading Post, another Navajo Reservation landmark.

Thought For The Day -A good traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.

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In yesterday’s blog I wrote that visiting the Four Corners area, Monument Valley, and Canyon de Chelly, all in Arizona, are on my personal Bucket List. You know what a Bucket List is, right? It’s all of those things you want to do before you kick the bucket, as in the great movie by the same name starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

All a bucket list is is a set of goals you want to accomplish in your life. Things you want to do and places you want to see. And hopefully, as you cross some things off your personal list, you’ll find some new things to add to it. That way you never get bored.

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve crossed a lot of stuff off my bucket list already, including jumping out of an airplane (and surviving), driving in a stock car race (I won my one and only race and retired a winner), overcoming my terrible fear of public speaking, traveling fulltime in an RV, making my living as a writer, visiting Washington, D.C., visiting Key West, starting my own business (done that several times), buying a classic Corvette and driving it on old Route 66, and finding my soul mate, to name a few.

There are still plenty of things I have left on my list, including visiting (in no particular order) Cape Cod, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Mystic Seaport, Santa Fe, Yellowstone National Park, Valley Forge, and Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

I also want to drive to Alaska, take a cruise ship vacation, follow the Great River Road from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, kayak in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, spend a few nights camping on the beach on the Texas Gulf Coast, learn to draw, learn to play the saxophone, and see a live Jimmy Buffet concert.

I’m sure if I gave it some thought, I could come up with a couple dozen more to tell you about, but instead, why don’t you tell me what’s on your bucket list? What places do you still want to see, and what things do you want to accomplish before you give that bucket its final kick?

Thought For The Day – If you can’t combine business with pleasure, you’re in the wrong business.

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Come on, be honest, that headline caught your eye, didn’t it? Now get your mind out of the gutter, because Terry and I have a mystery we just can’t figure out.

We have laminate wood flooring in our bus conversion, and we have an area rug in the front between my desk and the sofa on the other side of the bus. Yesterday morning when we got up, there was a large wet spot on the edge of the rug, probably about 24 inches long and up to 8 inches wide at its largest point, and we have no idea where it came from.

My first thought was that we had a leaking water pipe under the sunk, but all is dry there, and there was no track leading to the mystery area. We have not had any rain, and the damp area wasn’t near a window or vent anyway. Neither of us spilled anything, so where did it come from?

Did Miss Terry get me a puppy that’s she’s hiding someplace until my birthday in October? Did my two year old granddaughter Destiny steal her mom’s car keys and pay us a midnight visit, and have an accident in the process? I’ve reached that age where I make a lot of trips to the bathroom at night, but I never sleep that soundly! Or do I? We’re mystified.

I picked up a neat book yesterday, 1,000 Places To See In The USA And Canada Before You Die. I’ve seen it in several bookstores, but never got around to buying a copy. I’m glad I finally did.

I’m surprised at how many of the places listed in the book we’ve already been to, but the good news is that there are still plenty left yet to see. I guess that means I won’t be checking out anytime soon!

It always amazes me how many people travel across the country to see some famous landmark, but have never been to the ones right at home. We know many Arizonians who have never visited the Grand Canyon, for example, or folks in Florida who have never visited the Keys. I guess they figure those places are close to home, so they can get to them anytime, and they never do.

I’m just as guilty. I spent much of my life here in Arizona, and while I have been to the Grand Canyon, I have yet to see the Four Corners area, Monument Valley, or Canyon de Chelly. I need to add them to my personal Bucket List.

Thought For The Day – Life is action, not contemplation.

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