Travel

We rented a Cruise America® motorhome for our recent winter vacation. This was the first time we have traveled this way, as booking hotel accommodations is our usual travel mode. Since we wanted to bring our dog with us this time, we decided to try out the RV.

Shortly after we got on the road, Damsel started referring to our cruiser and others we saw on the road as the “clown-mobile.” Damsel figured the billboards painted on all sides of the vehicles made them look like part of a circus parade.

Image: Our clown-mobile in 1½ feet of snow at Trailer Village Campground – click for big

Most of the trip went well, with a couple of instances where all was not as well as it could have been. At the Grand Canyon Trailer Village Campground, we had an incident where we got stuck in the snow making the turn into the row where our campsite was located. After a bunch of digging and throwing a bunch of cinders under the duals, we were still stuck. We finally got the local AAA to pull us out, but we still needed to assist with more cinders and by engaging the motorhome drive. Once free, we got into our campsite and left the next morning without further incident.

The only other ‘incident’ was my choice of routes leaving Death Valley after our visit there – California State Route 190 from Stovepipe Wells to Olancha. It was a winding mountain road, which wouldn’t have been that much of a problem except that the setting sun was directly ahead in the general direction of travel which compromised visibility looking into the curves.

She didn’t mind getting stuck in the snow that much, but Damsel promised to file for divorce if I ever pick a road like SR190 again.

Bright Angel Creek, part of the greater Grand Canyon complex, empties into the Colorado River just below Grand Canyon Village. The creek formed Bright Angel Canyon in much the same way the Colorado eroded its way through Grand Canyon. When you look down from the Village, you look straight into Bright Angel Canyon.

During the summer months, the sun is high in the sky at mid-day and the vivid colors of the sculptures in the canyon are truly inspirational. The sky can be gray with frequent thunderstorms in the area, or it can be blue, with flat-bottomed cumulus clouds floating above the canyon rim. The summers are warm at the South Rim with temperatures ranging between the high 70s and low 90s. When I took this shot of the canyon last summer, the temperature was in the low 80s.

Winter brings a variety of conditions, ranging from fog and low clouds that obscure the canyon, to high winds which chill to the bone. Occasionally, a cold front will bring snowfall that can last for several days and will ice things up pretty good. The latter condition prevailed during our recent visit to the canyon. We stayed in the trailer village overnight and went to the rim to capture this winter view with low sun angle and long shadows. The snow was pretty deep in most places and the roads were pretty icy.

You can click on either image to enlarge.