Adventures at the Grand Canyon

We have been told the Grand Canyon is one of the seven wonders of the world. We can only say that we were in awe how massive and beautiful this canyon is. We only saw several miles of this wonder. The Grand Canyon is actually 277 miles long, one mile deep and covers a total of 1,900 square miles. It was discover in 1540 by Spanish explorer Don Lopez de Cardenas, a captain in Coronado's expedition. The colorado River flows west through the canyon and average depth is 100 feet and 300 feet wide. It empties into the Gulf of California in Mexico.

Five different Indian Tribes currently occupy the region and many species of mammal, birds, reptiles and amphibians currently live in the canyon.

We took the free transportation to different points to be able to view some of the more spectacular sights.

The Grand Canyon attracts at least 4.5 million tourists each year.....some from many different countries. It made us proud that the U.S.A. had something so beautiful that it attracted people from afar to view this natural wonder.

Our pictures just do not do the canyon justice. Most of what I took captured a misty appearance and therefore not sharp and distinct colors and shapes. That was disappointing, but hopefully you will get the 'feel' for the grandeur of the Grand Canyon that is gave us. Enjoy!!!

Adventures in Sedona, AZ

Often called the Red Rock Country, Sedona is full of fun, history and archaeology. All this, with a back ground of some of the most breath taking scenery in the world! This is an artist's paradise.

We did not walk the town, but every turn we took we had to stop and take in the awesome view (and, of course, take some pictures).

Enjoy the pictures......they speak for themselves.!!!!!

Adventures at London Bridge

In 1962, London Bridge was falling down. (Actually, it was sinking). Built in 1831, the bride couldn't handle the ever increasing flow of traffic across the Thames River. The British government decided to put the bridge up for sale. Robert McCulloch, founder of Lake Havasu City, AZ, submitted a winning bid of $2,460,000.

The bridge was dismantled, each stone numbered and shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, CA, then trucked to Lake Havasu, AZ. Reconstuction began on September 23 1968.

London Bridge crosses a narrow boating channel that connects with Thompson Bay on the Arizona side of Lake Havasu.

This is a short blog, but such an important piece of history we wanted to share with you. Hope you enjoy!!!!

Adventures in Oatman, Az.

Jim and I visited Oatman, AZ on our way back to Texas. We stopped at our usual KOA in Needles, Ca. and called our friends, Chuck and Judy Pease. (They were staying at a park in a nearby town.) They talked us into staying an extra day and they would take us sight seeing. Thus Oatman, Az and London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Az. (London Bridge will be a future blog).

Oatman was a gold mining town 100 years ago. The town was named after Olive Oatman, who was kidnapped as a young girl by Mojave Indians and later rescued in 1857 near the current site of the town.

The mining boom was short lived. In 1921, a fire burned down many of the smaller shacks in town, and three years later, the main mining company shut down operations for good. After that, Oatman survived by catering to the travelers on old Route 66. In the 1960's, when the road by passed the town it became Route 40 and Oatman almost died.

Today they survive as a "fun place to visit". It is now an authentic old western town with burros roaming the streets and gun fights staged on weekends. The burros are tame and can be hand fed. They are direct descendants of the burros that were originally brought in when mining was active. When the miners left, they turned the burros loose to fend for themselves.

It was so 'neat' to see these animals and be able to feed and pet them. Thanks Chuck and Judy!!!

Hope you enjoy!!!!

Adventures to Lassen Volcanic National Park

This week Jim and I took a driving tour of Lassen Volcanic Park. If we were 20 years younger we could have done one or more of the hiking tours, but if we would have walked one now, they would have found us dead along the trail. :-)

There was so much to see, such as the cinder cone and the lava beds and many lakes one could only get to by hiking in.....so we had to forgo these. The driving tour was a beautiful, 29 mile drive and reached an elevation of 8,512 feet. The diverse road tour took us to the sulfur active hydrothermal area along with the fantastic panoramic views of the lakes and the mountain, itself. We could not see the last part of the tour because they were doing road construction, so we missed seeing the chaos crags and the devastated area. These areas show the combined mud flow and the avalanche destruction, typical of volcanic eruptions.

In one of the pictures you will see a huge rock (boulder) that appears to be balancing on edge. This boulder is not indigenous to this area and was placed here by glaciers that have carved canyons and dotted the area with lakes and clear water streams.

The last eruption began in 1914 and launched a three year outburst, the largest was in May of 1915 when the peak blew a huge mushroom shaped cloud of ash over 30,000 feet into the air.

We hope you have enjoyed another view of this wonderful earth, through our eyes and photos.

Adventures through Avenue of the Giants

Jim and I took a trip to see the magnificent Avenue of the Giants. These trees are some of the worlds oldest and my pictures just do not measure up to how awesome they really are. In this part of California they can live more than 2,000 years old. The largest surviving stands of ancient coast redwoods and sequoia are located on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada's. The coast redwood is one of the fastest growing conifer, the tallest measuring 360 feet and at chest height, 10-15 feet wide. Fossils have been discovered that verify the trees have been around for about 20 million years. The cones are tiny compared to the tree size....only an inch long. (I was hoping to bring back some giant cones.) Each cone contains 14-24 seeds and in good conditions seedlings grow rapidly...more than a foot a year. The high tannin content of the wood gives the tree remarkable resistance to disease and insect infestation. The thick fibrous bark has even higher tannin content and insulates them from periodic fires that occur naturally over the centuries.

The sequoias are another of the worlds giants, the oldest being 3,200 years old. They can grow to 250 feet tall (about 25 stories) with trunks measuring as wide as 30 feet. The bark of the sequoia can be up to two feet thick, keeping the tree cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Again, the tannins in this tree protects it from rot and fires.

To give you some idea how tall these trees are in comparison to something you are familiar with, (the redwood being the tallest), they are taller than the Statue of Liberty. Amazing, huh?!!!

Some of the pictures are from the base, looking up....some are of Jim standing next to it so you can see just how massive these trees are. We were fortunate to find a cute little cabin, among the giants, to stay in. At night I could hear the hoot owls conversing back and forth to each other and the locals say the bears in the area are more troublesome than a threat, spilling and spreading garbage that needs to be cleaned up each day.

Hope you enjoyed another of our adventures.

Adventures at Stanford University

While visiting with Sean and Chun Hua we visited the campus where Chun Hua does her studies. It is located on 8,180 acres.....

Leland Stanford was a California railroad tycoon and politician. He founded the university in 1891 in honor of his son, Leland Stanford, Jr. who died of typhoid fever at the age of 16. The university is organized into seven schools including academic schools of Humanities and Sciences, Earth Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering, Law and Medicine.

While we toured parts of the campus we enjoyed a trip to the top of Hoover Tower. It is 285 feet tall and we were fortunate to go up to the top. (I too several pictures while at the top, which, I am sure you will figure out which one it is). It is named after President Herbert Hoover and is used for library stacks and offices.

We. then, walked over to the museum. On our way we saw sculptures by Rodin, a beautiful church and buildings that are works works of art with sculptured arches, each one different from the other. When we arrived at the museum there were more of Rodin's sculptures. This collection is the third largest in the world. How impressive is that?!!! Inside the museum we saw a sculpture of a horse that appeared to be done with driftwood, but, in fact, it was constructed out of bronze. I had to touch it to believe it!!!

I was in total awe how massive this campus is and I could go on and on....there is so much more.

Our walking tour took several hours and we only covered a fraction of it's enormity !

Thanks Chun Hua and Sean for the wonderful tour!

Adventures at the Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester House is considered one of the top most haunted places in America. Over two million people pass through the 160 room mansion each year. The mansion was built by Heiress Sarah Winchester. She was convinced that the mansion was haunted by the many that were killed by the Winchester rifle, which bears her name. A spiritual advisor told her that she "should never stop building". Sarah had an enormous amount of money and she thought the appease the spirits she should build the best and most extravagant home to make them "feel comfortable". So, build she did, 24 hours a day for 32 years. Even to this day, after Sarah died in 1922, the house is still being worked on with the up keep on the mansion and the gardens, to keep them in line with what Sarah wanted.

The house covers 24,000 square feet and includes 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces and doors that open to an 8 foot drop to the outside. Also, stairs exist that go no where (except the ceiling). To confuse the spirits, the mansion is an extravagant Victorian maze of rooms put together in no particular order. All the thirteen bathrooms had glass doors.....hmmmmm not much privacy, to you think? Each step on the stairways had a 2" rise to the next step. This was done to make it easier for Mrs. Winchester to move about her home.....she had disabling arthritis and guess what....each stairway had thirteen steps! As you may have noticed, Sarah had a fixation with the number thirteen. Various places throughout the house reflected this.......in one of the closets there were thirteen hooks. In other rooms there were thirteen designs in the wooden flooring or thirteen windows. In her kitchen she had drains that had thirteen holes in the drain covers. These just name a few of the repeated number thirteen.

Some of the extravagance is portrayed in the front doors. The doors are exquisite, European made and very expensive......$3,000.00 At the time her advisers told her that the spirits are saying she is spending too much money on the front of the house. So, once the doors were installed, they were locked and have never been used since. A story was said that President Roosevelt came to visit. He knocked at the front doors and had no answer......a Gardener seeing him there (and not recognizing him) told him he needed to go to the back of the house "like everyone else does". President Roosevelt left...........

Some of the windows in the house are Tiffany of New York and each costing about $1,500.00. They are splendid !!

So much more could be written about this mysterious mansion and woman. I have shared highlights of this pleasurable tour, while enjoying some quality time with my son. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Adventures to California

This entry will most likely be boring to most, but we want you to know we are in California visiting kids and grandchildren.

Our trip started late because Jim had surgery (all is well) and it delayed our trip, that was scheduled for the 1st of June. We left Rockport on the 11th of June and arrived in Yuba City on June 18.

The first day of the trip was mostly on back roads and we thought we would never find an RV park. Just as desparation set in and over the next hill......we found one. The next few days were just about the same. It took us two days to exit Texas. The next few days were uneventful, as well, until we entered Arizona. We entered the desert and had a tire blowout on the 5th wheel. There we were, in 104 degrees, stuck. After the rescue, with the help of Good Sam Club, we entered California. We stayed two nights in Needles. While there, we stayed at a KOA that had adopted a road runner, which was almost tame. The picture shows him accepting a hamburg ball. After two more days on the road we finally got to our destination.......Yuba City. We hav a really nice site, as the picture will show. We are now settled in for the next three months.

Hope we have more blogs coming your way soon. Until then, much love from the Heverin's.