Homeward Bound

This will probably be the last posting on this travel blog. After leaving Wisconsin, we spent a couple of days in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and are now now heading straight home ( via I80 through Ohio, Pennsylvania and NJ, right to the GW bridge and home

Places We Liked Best On Our Trip:

Grace: Everything, but maybe California the best

Lucy: Little Town On The Prairie, KOAs in Petaluma, CA & Hayward, WI, and Disneyland

Mike: Yellowstone/Grand Teton, Black Hills, SD & all of Calfornia Coast (esp Redwoods)

Irene: Same as Mike, but would narrow California down to Southern California coast

Places We're Glad We Saw, But Probably Wouldn't Visit Again:

Grand Canyon: Everyone absolutely must see it once, it is as beautiful as it's reputation. But now having seen it, we felt, personally, that once was enough for us.

Glacier National Park: same as above

Mount Rushmore: A little anti-climactic

The entire Southwest section of the US. (Way, way too hot)

Places We're Sorry We Missed And Hope To Catch On A Future Trip:

Rocky Mountain National Park

Crater Lake NP

Yosemite

All of the Pacific Northhest

Northern Minnsota & Wisconsin

Next year, we hope to do a more abbreviated road trip where we will revisit and spend more time in Yellowstone/Grand Teton and try to vist a few of the other places above which we weren't able to see this time. (As well as catch a few old favorites along the route).

Hayward, Wisconsin

We just spent two days in Wisconsin's North Woods. The topography's a little different for a New Yorker. We associate forests with mountains; here its forests & lakes and pretty flat land (at least where we are). Where we've been staying, Hayward, is a big vacation area (maybe year round). We're on the Namekagon River, which is part of the St Croix National Scenic Riverway, a big canoe area and even bigger fishing venue. In the Winter they hold what looks to be a major nordic ski marathon.

One thing that struck us about the Midwest, is how friendly and happy folks seemed at just about everywhere we stayed. (This might just be a lame tourist observation, but we wouldn't say the same thing about the West, for example, or for the part of the world we come from).

So we think there must be some good things going on in the Midwest, since people seem so agreeable even in places where the climate is just awful. Another tourist factoid: the Minneapolis area has extremely aggressive drivers, almost as bad as NYC. A little odd, since it's hard to figure where they're all rushing to.

A Little Bit About Road Trips With Children

Before we started this summer-long car trip, we loosely envisioned staying about five days a week in public campgrounds with the other days in budget hotels (to do laundry, etc). We realized pretty quickly, however, in some states (California comes to mind), it is hard to get a campsite in state and federal parks without reserving sometimes months in advance (not feasible on this type of trip). We also realized that, on some more off-the-beaten-path routes, campgrounds can sometimes be scarce.

Most importantly, though, our children, especially, our younger one, Lucy, (aged 5) are bored in campgrounds. Lucy is not yet a big fan of camping generally.

So, our travel planning has evolved on this trip. Camping will work in public campgrounds with a lot of activities/ amenities. (The national parks are good for this if you can get a site: there are usually ranger programs and often concessions where you can rent boats, etc).

We also learned that tent camping is tricky in some places: on the prairie, constant winds makes things a little bit of a hassle and the Southwest was too hot for us to camp.

Finally, there is a little bit of legwork in setting up camp, this is sometimes too much trouble if you're only there for one night.

So, what we learned: a good KOA can often be the best choice for our kids (emphasis on good,

they vary widely in quality). A tentsite runs about $25 to $30 for a night, camping cabins about $60 to $70. The camping cabins don't have bathrooms, you still use the shared toilets and showers, but they do give you some privacy (usually a problem at KOAs) and are easy if you don't feel like throwing up a tent. And, the big plus side of KOAs are the activities: pools, hayrides, gameroom (tv room), movies, structured activities, petting zoo, jumping pillow, mini golf, internet; the list goes on and on. They are our girls' favorite places to stay. Again, it's important to stay at a good one; you can check out amenities at the KOA website.

Towards the end of our trip, when we were just staying one night at a place, we would stay in a budget chain motel (with pool, tv and internet) or a KOA camping cabin if there was one around. At "destination" sites: Yellowstone, Redwoods, we would tent camp, though, here too it was often a KOA. We signed up for loyalty cards at all of the chains as well as with the KOA; this will give us a couple of free nights down the road.

If we do this trip again, we probably would try to plot out the itinerary a little more in advance and then try to reserve more campsites in more National Park and State Park campgrounds, because it is really nice to be right inside the parks. Many of them, in addition to providing campsites also have cabins and sometimes lodges, all pretty affordable; we would like to hook into those a little better next time around.

But it's been a nice learning experience this trip: trying to figure out an extended vacation that works for all four of us. We've definitely gotten much better at it along the way.

Above is picture of the inside and outside of a camping cabin in the KOA in Hayward, WI, as well as a photo of the girls on the jumping pillow.

New Ulm, Minnesota

New Ulm is very proud of its German-American heritage, and the town has a lot of attractions celebrating this. We stayed at a German-themed Holiday Inn (which is much better than it sounds; it was actually a great hotel). The town has various German festivals (Oktoberfest, Bockfest, etc) and next month is planning a huge celebration to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of Hermann's defeat of the Roman legions. For those who, like ourselves, never heard of Hermann, he is a teutonic Braveheart who united the clans to defeat the Romans, paving the way for an independent Germany. In addition to a huge party next month, they are issuing a commemorative coin and a special label beer from the town brewery.

One of the things most enjoyable about this trip is seeing how Americans all around the country celebrate their heritage, whether its honoring heroes from the old country, building a monument to Crazy Horse (or to Hermann the German), holding priairie days and pioneer days or building little Denmarks (or Norways, Swedens, Bavarias, etc). And let's not forget the county and state fairs where we celebrate who and where we are today.

Here's a picture of a monument to Hermann which is on top of a hill overlooking the City of New Ulm.

More Life On The Prairie

The Laura Ingalls Wilder tour was such a hit yesterday, we spent the morning at a living history attraction on the site of the Ingall's homestead. It sounds hokey, but the girls just loved it... wagon and pony rides, lots of animals and old equipment and prairie buildings. Grace was mortified she had to wear a prairie dress at the school session; Lucy just wanted to spend the day washing towels on a scrub board. Here's some photos of the girls, inlcuding one where they are driving the covered wagon.

Badlands & Little Town On the Prairie

After leaving Hot Springs, we did a quick (too quick) visit to Badlands National Park. We spent the night at Oacoma,SD, on the Missouri River then headed on to the small town of De Smet, South Dakota, childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little house On The Prairie series. Irene is a big fan of the books and insisted on taking the guided tour of points of interest related to the series. (It was actually quite a nice tour).

Here are a few photos of Badlands as well as a photo of the one of the Ingalls' homes.

Douglas, Wyoming

We spent the night in Douglas, Wyoming on the way to South Dakota. Douglas is the home of the world's largest jackalope and here is the picture to prove it.

Grand Teton National Park

After spending two days in Yellowstone, we went to Grand Teton for a couple of days. Grand Teton is just an hour or so south of Yellowstone.

Although Yellowstone is so much larger, Grand Teton can certainly hold it's own with it. We stayed in a "tent cabin " in Colter Bay Village on Jackson Lake inside the park. Those of you who don't tent camp would be appalled by the accomodations, but for those of you who do, these tent cabins are a terrific deal. About $60 a night, basically they are a concrete floor, with two walls of wood and two walls of canvas, with a canvas roof and canvas covered deck. There are two fold down bunk beds (bring your own sleeping bags), a couple of shelves, an indoor wood stove, outdoor fire ring and bear box. There are shared flush toilets, with pay showers a little bit away. It's basically a little step up from tent camping. There are also conventional cabins for those who like it a little more comfortable.

There is also a marina on Jackson Lake where you can rent various types of boats, an activity center to sign up (for a fee) for fishing, rafting, horseback riding and lake cruises. The resort also has a regular campground and RV campground, a restaurant, cafeteria, grocery store and gift shop. These are all run by a concessionaire.

At Colter Bay, there is also a great visitor center, run by the National Park Service, with all kinds of hikes and activities as well as a pretty nice Indian Museum.

But enough about the amenities: the star of the show is the park itself. The view of the mountains can't be beat, it's what draws many first time visitors to the park. The park didn't feel crowded to us the way some others did (Grand Canyon, Redwoods, even Glacier). To us, it felt a little more wild than Yellowstone, but a bit more accessible than Glacier.

Weather was sunny and cool during the day, in the 60s, maybe low seventies, and it was cold at night, in the low 30s, maybe a little colder (and this is mid-August mind you).

The park has several historical sites to capture the lives of the European settlers from a century ago, and, as we said, has a really nice Indian museum to give visitors an understanding of the native people who were there first.

Mike fished on the Snake River and caught some cutthroat trout (he let them go again). While fishing, he also saw some otter pups - (once the otters arrived, though,that was the end of the fish). We saw bald eagles, elk and, some moose during our stay.

The girls just loved the tent cabins and were especially excited to see the moose.

Above are pictures of the mountains, our tent cabins and a photo of a moose with her calf.

Yellowstone

We just spent two days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. This really is the mother of all parks; two days was nowhere near enough time to visit. This is definitely one of our favorite parks (though we say that about so many of the national parks). Yellowstone is very kid-friendly and there are so many things to do; it is a huge park, with incredible diversity in its landscape and wildlife. For folks who haven't been there, it has an area with canyons and waterfalls, some grassland, some terrific fishing rivers, a very large lake, and don't forget, hydrothermals (Old Faithful and company).

We saw herds of buffalo, herds of elk and a bald eagle (flying over Lake Yellowstone).

President Obama came to Yellowstone the same time we did to see Old Faithful. (we didn't see him, just his helicopters). Here is a photo of the geyser, the President's helicopter and a gi-normous buffalo that walked past our car when we were stuck in traffic. (The traffic jam, I think, was due to the President's visit, this was all going on at the same time).

We just love Yellowstone and really hope to get back there for a longer visit next Summer.

Glacier National Park

We just spent three days in Glacier National Park; all on the west side of the park, for those of you who know the area. We spent the first night at a somewhat run down, but nicely-funky motel/cabin cluster called the Sears Motel in West Glacier. We spent the next night at Glacier Park Lodge also in West Glacier, and the last night in Many Glacier Hotel, further into the park.

We have been trying to get to Glacier for many years, so are glad we finally made it. It is the most rugged park we've been to and we thought it had the most unique landscape. Above is one view of the mountains. Mike and Grace did a day long trip through the park on one of the red antique buses the park is known for. The whole family did a boat cruise on one of the lakes as well.

In a lot of ways, this park is less "kid-friendly" than the others we've been too. There aren't a huge number of easy hikes, the hotels (in the park) aren't really tailored to families, and it is a little hard to get from some sections of the park to the others. And, despite its reputation for remoteness, the areas we stayed in were very, very crowded (though it is peak season).

Having said all of the, the park is extrmely beautiful. Above is a a picture of the mountains, as well as the hotels we stayed in .

Shooting Through Washington

Because of limited time, we're motoring quickly through Washington (and a little bit of Idaho) on our way to Glacier Park, Montana. We really would have liked to spend time in the Pacific Northwest, but, as the case with a couple of other places, we figured rather than rush through the area, we would table it for now, and see it the right way some time in the future.

We should have paid more attention to our geography classes in school; Oregon and Washington were nothing like we imagined. (We had envisioned Oregon and Washington as being all big pine forests and lumberjacks. ) Coastal Oregon had some great forests, but was more like a northern New England coast (with better beaches and better weather). Oregon Dunes looked really amazing; we hope to get back there some day.

We followed the Columbia River a bit (through the scenic gorge over the mountains); that, too, was a really beautiful car trip. We then drove up through Central Washington via Ellensburg to Spokane. This area was primarily desert- it looked sort of like what we saw in Colorado before getting up in the mountains. The weather was more temperate, though: around 80, with really high winds. Folks we spoke to say it's really windy like this all of the time.

In Ellensburg, where we camped the first night, we were next to a very pretty river; the Yakima; it's supposed to be an excellent trout stream. Here's a picture of our campsite. We also stayed the night outside of Spokane, where we ended up in a campsite close to a railroad crossing. The owner had warned us that the campground movie might be a bit loud, but didn't bother to mention the freight trains with their piercing horns that passed through several times during the night. It was a little bit like something out of "My Cousin Vinny". But the owners seemed like nice folks and it was otherwise a nice campground. That stuff's all part of a roadtrip.

Oregon Coast

We drove up the Oregon Coast from northern California today. We had thought it would be more of the same, but the coast was really different from what we saw in California. It was especially striking around the Oregon Dunes- these huge coastal dunes in the Pacific Northwest which are designated a National Recreation Area. This part of the coast seems to have everything all in one place: deep woods, mountains, rivers and oceans.

On the route, we crossed over several really beautiful concrete bridges in an elaborate art-deco style that seemed more like something you would see in NYC rather than the Oregon Coast. We googled them, and it turns out these bridges are kind of famous: they were built by a man named Conde McCullough in the 20s and 30s. Here's a link to some info about the bridges: http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/BRIDGE/docs/SpanningOregonsCoast/newest_spanning_brochure.pdf

Two other things worth mentioning about today's leg of the trip:

1. Best Fish and Chips Ever: At a little place called the Crazy Norwegian, it's by the side of the road in Port Orford OR. The fish tacos, lemonade and pie were also terrific.

2. Worst Campsite Ever: At the KOA in Waldport, Oregon. We booked a tent site and what we got was- literally- a double-wide parking spot behind a utility shed. It was so genuinely awful, it was worth a photo (picture above). It's actually worse than it looks in the picture. We ended up staying in a hotel instead.

Redwood National and State Parks

After heading north from Mendocino, we visited the Drive Thru Tree; photo above. (Irene is addicted to roadside attractions, and this one is iconic). We then continued through Humboldt County, which, in additon to being America's marijuana capital, has a terrific redwood park: old growth redwoods and sunshine, something you don't see further North.

We spent the past couple of nights outside of Crescent City, near the Oregon border and the northern gateway to Redwood National and State Parks. The parks are great, someone told us parts of E.T. were filmed here. Don't know if it's true, but the old groves do look just like the place where E.T crashed.

It seems very prehistoric, all misty and overcast, with huge trees and huge ferns under them. The national/state parks have not only redwood forests, but prairie (where we saw elk, photo above) and rivers and ocean environments as well. We're very glad we were able to spend a few days here.

MacKerricher State Park (Mendocino)

After leaving Petaluma, we headed up the coast, breaking our journey at MacKerricher State Park north of Mendocino and Ft Bragg. So far, this has been the campground Mike liked the best. The water is too cold and rough for swimming, but there are lots of trails and tidal pools (photo of girls' in the tidal pools above. Also a picture of them in front of a whale skeleton at the campground's nature center). Mendocino is something out of a postcard; I believe they filmed Murder, She Wrote, around here. Ft Bragg is a little less picturesque, but maybe a bit more authentic.

There are a lot of young and not so young people around Ft Bragg and points north whose situation is a little hard for us to place. They are sort of grunge/mother earth and look a little weatherbeaten. They seem to hang out by the side of the highway and the supermarket parking lot. We were wondering if they are homeless, or one step up from that, or maybe it's just a look they cultivate (like our urban gangsters back East).

We mentioned in earlier posts how severe the recession seems to be in California. The northern section of the coast seems to be even harder hit.

It has been extremely difficult for us to reserve campsites in the state campgrounds. While there are a great many of them, they are all booked solid. Despite their popularity, because of the recession, a number of them are scheduled to be closed. At first the governor was talking about 250 closures. Last I heard it was 86, with the parks to be selected after Labor Day. It seems the public benefit of these parks greatly outweighs the very small cost of keeping them open, but I imagine when you're also laying off sheriffs and police, everything needs to be on the block.

Petaluma, CA

We've spent three days at a KOA in Petaluma about 40 miles or so north of San Francisco. We used to sneer at KOAs as being "fake" camping, but have now become a loyal customer. KOAs are great when traveling with young children: playgrounds, pools, hayrides, movies, all kinds of structured activities. And, let's not forget, hot showers and laundry rooms. The girls are really enjoying themselves here: Lucy won an Elvis impersonation contest during 50s weekend, and Grace had a ball at karaoke. While not exactly a wilderness experience, it does make for a relaxing (and affordable) family stay.

Petaluma, though just outside of San Francisco, seems pretty rural (at least to us New Yorkers). We're near farmlands and feedstores - as well as strip malls and shopping centers- and the town, in addition to being close to San Francisco, seems to also be a jumping off point for wine country.

Grace and Mike made a trip to Alcatraz, while Lucy and Irene hit all of the tourist traps on Fisherman's Wharf (including a very nice aquarium). We also had dinner in Chinatown, one of the major things Gracie wanted to do on this trip. Above are pictures of Grace at Alcatraz and in Chinatown.

California Coast: Malibu to San Luis Obispo

We just spent four days camping along the coast. After having spent a week at Laguna Beach, we camped two nights at Pt Mugu State Park just north of Malibu and then two nights at Morro Strand State Beach further up the coast.

The campground at Pt Mugu was just beautiful, nestled in a sycamore grove at the base of a canyon and just across the road from the beach. It was just a couple of miles from the beach where all of the Gidget movies were filmed. At Pt. Mugu, the girls became friendly with two very nice little boys in the next campsite (Wyatt and Kevin), photos above. One of the best parts of roadtrips are the friends you make along the way.

After Pt Mugu, we headed north to Morro Bay, where we camped two nights at a campground on the beach. That campground was a little like camping in a parking lot- but, on the plus side, it was on the beach.

While heading up the coast, we made a side trip to Solvang. Solvang strives to be a "little Denmark". We added it to our running list of towns that wished they were in Europe. See photo above of the girls with the ornamental windmill in the background. A prominent citizen in this area (Los Olivos) is Fess Parker: you know, Davieee, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. He owns a resort and vineyard here. I guess he is sort of like what Clint Eastwood is to Carmel.

After leaving Morro Bay, we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur, along the Monterey Peninsula up to San Francisco. We're a bit behind schedule, so sadly couldn't linger. We figured that area- Big Sur & Monterey- deserves to be done right, so we put off touring it until another trip, rather than just rush from place to place.

The weather here is really interesting. All the way up to San Francisco the temperature on the coast was between 60 and mid-70s during the day. Just a few miles inland- 5 or 10 miles, temperatures were 20 to 30 degrees higher.

We have really, really enjoyed the time we've spent on the California Coast. This is absolutely an area we would come back to.

Disneyland

Two thumbs up for Disneyland. Even though it was peak season and the park was very crowded, Disneyland was really enjoyable. (And the adults on the trip are not generally big Disney fans). We found it to be much less stressful than Disneyworld in Florida; maybe because it's smaller. Whatever the reason, it was just a very nice day.

San Juan Capistrano

The Mission of San Juan Capistrano, only a few miles from Laguna Beach, where we're staying, is one of the better known of the chain of Spanish missions along the California coast. It is popular thanks to the song and the legend about the swallows returning each year on St. Joseph's Day. Grace and Irene (who both like historical re-creations and living history exhibits) visited the mission today. It was a really enjoyable trip; it takes about two hours to tour the mission complex, the museum exhibits and gardens. It was interesting for us because as East Coasters, we know less than we should about the Spanish colonization of the West Coast.

Legoland

Legoland, in Carlsbad California (between Los Angeles and San Diego), was something of a disappointment. In its defense, though, it is peak visitor season and the park might be much more enjoyable if it were less crowded. As it was, it was very expensive ($240 for the four of us) and then there were a lot of "extras" on top: $3 for the climbing wall, $10 to park,$8 for a happy meal, and so on. One felt a little nickel and dimed and it didn't really seem worth the money. In addition to the mini-land, (Legoland re-creations of various cities and monuments) there were also a number of kiddie rides. The lines for the rides were very long, made longer by the fact that so many adults- without accompanying children- were riding them. In one sense, its hard to figure out why adults would want to go on rides clearly intended for little kids, but on the other hand, after paying $75 bucks for a ticket, maybe some of those folks are saying, at this price, I am going to ride the choo-choo train no matter what anyone says.

It's also hard to figure out why the adult ticket costs more than the children's ticket in a place like this. One would assume that most of the adults there (except the ones riding the kiddie cars by themselves) are only there to accompany their kids: shouldn't the adult ticket be less not more than the child ticket in a child's park?

Irene went to the Legoland outside of London when it first opened (sometime in the 90s?) and remembered it very fondly. The re-creations of the various cities are totally cool and worth seeing (just not at this price). We probably wouldn't go there again.

Above is picture of the girls with a Lego-man and also a photo of Lucy being rescued from the climbing wall. She made it halfway up then froze like a cat in a tree. One of the workers had to climb up and bring her down. Grace made it all the way up to the top.

Laguna Beach, California

We'll be spending a week in Laguna Beach, California with Mike's brother, Pat. Laguna Beach is just gorgeous: for a visitor, it seems like a perfect beach town. It has a huge summer-long arts festival, tons of public beaches and good shopping and restaurants. Most importantly: it's beautiful. The weather is just wonderful right now, and the house we're staying in, like many of the houses here, is on a hill overlooking the Pacific. We completely understand why people live in Southern California. Above is a picture of Laguna Beach from their tourism site (link in the sidebar) as well as a picture of Mike and Pat on Pat's deck.

Primm, Nevada

This was so far a low point in our trip. We're heading to Laguna Beach and needed a place to break our journey before crossing the California Desert. We chose Primm, right at the Nevada/California border. Primm is made up entirely of three casino resorts (all low budget). We stayed at the most low-budget of all, Buffalo Bill's. This might have just been a nice affordable weekend for some folks there; but for all too many it looked like they were spending their rent money. Casinos are really good at separating people from their cash: this place was really dark, so you couldn't tell whether it's night or day (No," oops, the sun's coming up, I should call it a night and head home"), no clock to be found anywhere in the place, the pool shuts down at 8:00 so nothing to do but hit the casino, and all amenities radiate around the gaming area, you have to cross the casino floor to get to the hotel, restaurant, kiddie game area, etc.

On some level, though, the low-end places are more honest about what their business is all about. The industry likes to glamorize itself by calling it "gaming" rather than "gambling" and their customers "players" instead of "gamblers". The fancier places may have nice restaurants, showgirls, albino tigers and Blue Man Group, but, in the words of our President, it's all lipstick on a pig. We were pretty glad to leave.

The Mojave Desert was blazing hot (of course), and where we came through, there were a number of very odd looking mines- salt or gypsum or something. It looked like a scene out of a science fiction movie. General Custer said about another desert "It's like Hell without the fires"; that kind of nails the Mojave in July.

One bright spot: about an hour southwest of Primm, in the middle of the Mojave, we stopped for breakfast in Baker,California, home of the world's largest thermometer and this terrific over-the-top Greek Diner, the Mad Greek Cafe. Photo above.

Grand Canyon

We're leaving the Grand Canyon today after a two night stay. A lot of people told us, "it sounds cliche, but you must go to the Grand Canyon. It's something you can't miss." They are right; everyone must see the Grand Canyon.

More than 90% of Grand Canyon visitors go to the South Rim, so we went to the North Rim, to avoid the crowds. We came up from the South, so went through the Painted Desert and by the Vermillion Cliffs before we started to go up into the Kaibab National Forest and then to the Grand Canyon. When we were down around 4,000 feet in the desert, it was about 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m. When we came up to the Canyon, at 8,000 feet, we were surrounded by a beautiful pine forest and the temperature dropped more than 30 degrees!

It was so beautiful and comfortable we decided to stay two days. We stayed at Jacob Lake Inn, in the National Forest about 45 miles from the rim. The Inn was built in 1923 and is a classic mountain lodge,with cabins and motel units and a restaurant/ gift shop. We would definitely stay here again.

The recession is impacting tourism. No matter where we go, we have no problem finding a place to stay or signing up for recreational activites- raft trips, etc- on the spot. Nothing seems to be booked anywhere. The Grand Canyon Lodge was booked, but even that place had vacancies later in the week; the Lodge is the sort of place you would expect to be booked for the Summer at this point. This is really too bad for the comunities that rely on tourist dollars; I hope things pick up soon.

Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland (Arizona)

Today we visited Canyon de Chelly. Grace had really wanted to go to the Four Corners and stand where the four states meet, so we detoured a few hours to go there. You hate to say something is in the middle of nowhere, because it is generally somewhere to somebody, but as much as something could be in nowhere this pretty much is. Above is a picture of the two girls at the Four Corners.

After the Four Corners, we went on to Canyon de Chelly where we stayed the night at the Thunderbird Lodge. We really liked the Thunderbird. You have a couple of classes of National Park Lodges: the fancy ones like Ahwanee in Yosemite and El Tovar in the Grand Canyon and then the more basic ones; Thunderbird fits into the more basic category. It's a moderately-priced Indian-themed motel located on the site of an old Navajo trading post. There is a really good cafeteria with American and Navajo specialities, a gift shop and guide service. The national park is administered by the National Park Service and the Thunderbird Lodge is run by the Navajo.

We had heard so much about Canyon de Chelly, and are really glad we were able to come here and see it. Unfortunately, because of the heat, we only stayed a day and didn't do a tour of the canyon itself, which is supposed to be the high point of a visit. Because this is an important site to the Navajo, and because people are living on the canyon floor, you can only go into the canyon with a licensed Navajo guide. The guide services also looked pretty affordable.

We had to satisfy ourselves with a one day visit and an auto-tour around the canyon rim though. We're heading up to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon today, which at 8,000 feet should be much cooler than where we are now.

Above is a picture of the Thunderbird Lodge