Today is Friday and we have been home since Wednesday night.
From Marshfield, MO we drove the entire 575 miles to finish up our 2008/2009 winter adventure. Left at 7:30 am and pulled in the driveway at 6:00 pm.
Spent the remaining daylight of Wednesday and all of yesterday just unpacking the motor home and getting settled back into the our home. Brother Tim did an outstanding job of looking after the property and the house looked and "felt" just as we left it. Thank you Brother!!

And thank you all for taking the time to follow us during our travels. Hope you enjoyed the blog!

Below are just a few more pictures from our fast-track 1900 mile drive home.

Jim, Ellen, Isabelle, and Gracie


Humphreys Peak (the highest point in Arizona at 12,633 ft) as seen from the road driving south from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff. The mountain is just north of Flagstaff and is obviously the focal point of the area. It can be seen from the Grand Canyon.


Foss Lake State Park in Oklahoma. It's a beautiful park and our second time there.


That's not snow on the tree, it's blossoms!

Morning view of fog over Foss Lake. The line in the distance it the man-made earthen dam that created the lake.

Left Foss Lake at 9:30 am.
Drove 435 miles to arrive in Marshville, MO for the night.
It's an RV park and right off Interstate 44. I mean right off I-44!
It's new, clean, friendly, and easy to get on and off the highway. Great stop for a quick night, but not one to spend any time - too noisy with all the highway traffic!

575 miles to home tomorrow. Long drive for one day, but too close to stop another night short of Elkhart. We plan to be home before dark.

Left Albuquerque at 9:00 am and arrived at Foss Lake State Park in Foss, OK 7 hours and 450 miles later. It is a sunny and 75 degree late afternoon. Beautiful little park on a huge reservoir in the middle of what would appear to be nowhere. I took a few pictures but the connection here is too slow to post them now.

According to the Weather Channel Elkhart has has some pretty good weather lately as well. Hope it stays around for our arrival back home in a few days.

Sun is coming up. Temp is 30. Time is 6:30. Sky is clear.
We are "out of here"!
Heading home -"yee-ha"!

Made it to Albuquerque, NM

Today we took the bus to the Western end of the Grand Canyon stopping at most points along the way. We hiked the first hour then jumped on the shuttles going from one view point to the next. We planned on hiking more of the way but it was a lot more than we were ready for. We need to come back!









The river is down there just left of center. It's hard to imagine that little ribbon of water is the principal cause of what we see now.

I zoomed in for this one, we could barely see the water from the rim. The "ripples" are a rapid. Looks like nothing from the picture, but having been down through there 3 times I can assure you those "ripples" are about 6 feet high.

A cold 27 this morning and the expected 2" of snow never materialized. Actually, today was forcasted to be cloudy with rain/snow showers. However, we woke up to blue sky and sunshine that lasted all day other than the occasional passing cloud.

We drove 25 miles to the East end of the park on the Canyon View Road that follows the Rim the whole way. Many view points and lookouts provided all the beautiful scenery we expected and more. The girls got to go for the ride so they saw a lot as well. The mid-day lighting did not prove to be the best for pictures - sunrise and sunset are best. But the sights were still stunning! Took 2.5 hours driving the road east, and only .5 for the return.

Lunch, a nap, and a little time with the dogs and we were off to the Imax Theater for a Grand Canyon film at 4:30pm. It was a short 30 minute film so we drove around the areas we visited yesterday in the wind, rain, and snow. Much prettier in the sunshine and a whole lot more enjoyable. Took some more pictures in the setting sun and got a few good ones with all the shadows and contrasts. Tried to find a bar in one of the lodges with a sunset view but were unsuccessful so we just came back to the RV for the night.

Another cold night tonight - went from 55 to 32 as soon as the sun set. Currently 28 at 9:00pm but going to the teens. Tomorrow should be even better than today and a trip to the West end of the Canyon is planned for the day. Private vehicles are not allowed in that direction so we will ride the free bus system. Three different bus routes actually provide the free service everywhere in the park. One could just leave the car parked and go anywhere. They even pickup and droppoff at the RV park.

Good night.


Some of the same views as yesterday only with a blue sky



One of the 100+ year old lodges here in the park. They seemed to be full. The RV park cleared out quite a bit today but was full again by dark.

Gracie got a new "baby" today on the rim drive - meet Lucia the Mountain Lion.

Issy was doing a little "surfing" on the internet and got distracted by something going on outside.

We enjoyed our three days at Camp Verde and did not want to leave so soon. But we had to go today in order to squeeze into The Grand Canyon RV park (Trailer Village). Next time around we will definitely stay longer in Camp Verde. Did not have a reason to believe that the Grand Canyon would be so busy this time of year - it's cold! We planned on just driving on up here and having no problem camping. Someone at Camp Verde told us we had better call ahead to reserve a space. Good thing we did! We wanted a five day stay and could only reserve a three day.

We arrived with snow and freezing rain spitting here and there, but no real significant amounts and no accumulation (as of 8:30pm). The forecast gets a lot better as the next couple of days pass. If we can book another night or two we might do so for the blue sky photo ops that are to come. There are a lot of people here! And it is spring break season! In addition, as we have seen in all visits to our National Parks, many groups of foreigners seem to always be touring at all times of the year. I simply can not understand how so many people would be here at this time. Being here in the "prime time" would have to be a "zoo".

The trails that go down below the rim are still icy and we are not equipped to venture into that territory so we will be limited to all the rim trails, bars, and restaurants. Oh Darn!

An assortment of pictures I downloaded off the camera today are below going back to San Carlos. As I said, the weather today was terrible here at the canyon, but some of the pictures turned out pretty good. Some sun tomorrow should provide great views! We had just a sliver of sunshine as we got to the park but could not pull over to park and take pictures. The view was amazing!


Jim and the girls taking a look at a view point in walking distance from our San Carlos RV park.

A new home almost completed being built on a hill top overlooking the Gulf in San Carlos. We could see it all lit up at night from the RV park and we walked up past it on our way to the view point above. Major bucks!!!!!!!

Heading to the border on our way home

The line-up. It took one hour in line before we got to the border.

One quick picture from our hike up Madera Canyon just north of our Amado RV park. It was a good exercise for the four of us.

All the following are pictures from our short visit to the rim today. It was cloudy, and rain/snow falling to the North, but the pictures are still worthy to share. We will not be able to put any pictures on the blog or verbalize what we see that will do the experience justice!