Saturday, 4/9/16 – arrived Phoenix hotel – Doubletree Suites was located near the airport, but not convenient to anything. Beautiful suite hotel and the shuttle driver was happy to take us to some of the Phoenix sites. Visited the Desert Botanical Garden which was exquisite. We were delighted to see 3 Chihuly sculptures as we entered the garden.
This beautiful garden sits on 140 acres and has more than 50,000 plants in it’s collection. There are 5 themed trails that exhibit cactus and succulent species from around the world. Since 1939, the Desert Botanical Garden has been home to one of the finest and most diverse collections of succulent plants, including rare, threatened and endangered species from around the Southwest and the world. It is the only botanical garden in the world whose mission, from its early inception, was to focus solely on desert plants.
We were fortunate to have beautiful weather on this day. Mid 80’s, which is “cool” for Phoenix. Our guide told us it could easily be 115 degrees in Phoenix………but no humidity. Very dry heat. We took a guided tour and enjoyed lunch in the outside café.
This evening we had our Caravan Tour briefing and prepared to begin our tour in the morning.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 - Boarded our coach early and began our journey to the Grand Canyon. Drove through Scottsdale and along Camelback Mountain before making our first stop at Montezuma Castle, the site of 12th and 13th century Native American cliff dwellings.
The dwellings were constructed by the Sinagua Indians under a cliff 100 feet above the ground. They were over 5 stories high and housed over 50 Sinagua Indians.
The photo above is a model of what it is believed to have looked like at that time. We were told that the “rooms” were only 5 to 6 feet deep.
After our stop here, we continued on to the artist colony of Sedona, surrounded by towering red rock formations where we had some free time to enjoy lunch and some browsing. Located in Arizona’s high desert under the southwestern rim of the vast Colorado Plateau, the city of Sedona began as a small ranching and agricultural community in the mid 19th Century. Named for the postmaster’s wife in the early 1900’s, Sedona was the site of several Hollywood films, including Billy the Kid. Belief in a spiritual energy, today known as vortexes, pre-dates Western settlers, Early Native Americans considered the area’s Red Rocks sacred and traveled from afar to perform ceremonies among the formations. Only the bravest men were allowed in what was considered to be home to the gods.
Later that day, we arrived at the Thunderbird Hotel, located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We would spend 2 nights here. Our guide, Bruce Gilbert was very knowledgeable and has been a tour guide for over 30 years, so we were in very good hands. Our room was situated right on the South Rim so we were able to look out our window and experience the magnificence of the canyon. There are no words or photo’s to adequately describe this.
The Grand Canyon varies from one to eighteen miles in width and a mile deep. One of the seven natural wonders of the world, it is almost 280 miles long and follows the course of the Colorado River. Originally established as a Game Preserve in 1906, the Grand Canyon National Park was established in 1919. Geologically, the Grand Canyon’s significance is the thick sequence of ancient rocks beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent. On our first full day at the canyon, we had breakfast at the historic El Tovar Lodge, located on the rim with magnificent views. Afterwards, Caravan brought us on a morning orientation drive with a visit to the Desert View Lookout. After the drive, we enjoyed some free time before we hopped on a shuttle bus to visit the visitors center. We thought we might do a little hiking on Bright Angel Trail, but once we noticed the narrow trail with no barriers and a 5 thousand foot drop……we changed our mind!
Thursday, April 14, 2016 - After breakfast at the famous El Tovar Lodge, we boarded our coach for a drive along the scenic East Rim.
Stopped at a Navajo and Hopi Trading Post before arriving at Monument Valley for lunch and our jeep tour. The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian nation in the United States. About half of the tribe lives on the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation which also covers land in Utah and New Mexico. The Navajo have many religious ceremonies for healing the mind, body and spirit. In addition to being treated by the western physicians, many Navajo are treated by medicine men and singers. The Navajo, led by Chief Hoskinini, fled from Kit Carson’s troops to safety in Monument Valley in 1864. In 1868, the Navajo signed a treaty which granted their tribe the and they now occupy as the Navajo Indian Nation. Monument Valley is preserved by the Navajo tribe as the Navajo Tribal Park.
Monument Valley’s rock formations are noteworthy mainly because they resemble animals or other familiar images. John Ford’s Point is named for the first Hollywood film director to use the Monument Valley location for a film set. That first film was “Stagecoach”, starring John Wayne. Since then, many major films and TV episodes have been shot using Monument Valley sites. This particular site is also often used in automobile commercials. Following are some of the better-known films shot in the valley:
Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers, How the West Was Won, The Trial of Billy Jack, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Back to the Future III, Thelma and Louise. Hollywood legends, such as Maureen O’Hara, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart filmed westerns here. After our Jeep Tour, with our Navajo guide, we met back at our Coach to make our way to Lake Powell Resort in Lake Powell for a 2 night stay.
Friday, April 15, 2016 – Lake Powell Resort is located within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area directly on Lake Powell in Utah. Lake Powell has the most shoreline (1,960 miles) of any man-made lake in the United States. This morning, we enjoyed a scenic boat cruise through Lake Powell’s Antelope Canyon, lined with rich red sandstone walls. We began our cruise in somewhat dreary weather, which cleared up in time for us to enjoy the outside decks of the boat and some wonderful photo opportunities.
Lake Powell is the second largest man-made lake in the US and without a doubt the most scenic, stretching 186 miles across the red rock desert from Page, Arizona to Hite, Utah. It began filling in 1963 following the completion of a dam across the Colorado River near the south end of Glen Canyon, and wasn’t completely full until 1980. In 1972 Lake Powell and the surrounding countryside was incorporated into Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. What makes the lake so memorable is the contrast between the deep clear blue waters and the surrounding landscape- - stark red sandstone rocks with little or no vegetation, the innumerable steep side canyons, and the spires, ridges and buttes that once stood high above the Colorado, but now form cliffs at the lakeside or are semi-submerged as small islands. Fish are abundant in Lake Powell. There is no limit on how many stripers you catch. There is an overpopulation of stripers and in order to keep the population in balance, they also encourage fishermen to use striped bass as bait and chum. They suggest the bass is cut into pieces and broadcasted around boat. Striped bass in the area will strike cut bait within 15 minutes of chumming. If no bites come within 15 minutes there are no active stripers in the area. Move to another location and try again. Kos would be in heaven!
After our boat tour, Bruce surprised us with an “unscheduled” tour to the Walmart, and the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam. Our group was delighted to pick up some snacks (aka – wine and cheese) for our rooms. Since we had no choice of restaurants in this resort, Bruce mentioned that often his groups would simply picnic on their balconies. (which is what we did)
The visitor center was completed in 1963 and now accommodates over a million visitors a year who visit from all over the world. The Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, near the town of Page. The dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation from the upper Colorado River Basin to the lower. It’s 710 feet high’'.
Saturday , April 16, 2016 – After breakfast in the famous Rainbow Room, we began our journey to Zion National Park, with a stop at Kanab (known as Little Hollywood) where over 100 western movies and TV shows were filmed. Those included Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, and How the West was Won.
Next we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. Unbelievable.
There is no place like Bryce Canyon. Hoodoos (odd shaped pillars of rock left standing from the forces of erosion) can be found on every continent, but here is the largest collection of hoodoos in the world. Descriptions fail. Photographs do not do it justice. We enjoyed lunch in the beautiful Bryce Canyon Lodge, before completing our tour in Bryce.
Bryce was set aside as a national monument in 1923, and was permanently established a Bryce National Park in 1928. It would have been nice to spend more time here, but we were off to our last park, Zion National Park.
Arrived late in the day, in time to unpack and have a nice dinner in the Lodge.
Zion Park Lodge is the only lodge in Zion National Park. Caravan certainly is good at picking hotels for our tours. This lodge is located at the bottom of the canyon, has beautiful, historic, Western-style rooms, all with porches with rocking chairs. Everything well thought out. Beautiful furnishings, clean and well appointed rooms (and cabins with fireplaces!). Conveniently located to the main lodge, trams, and trails. All well within walking distance. We would spend 2 nights here and it was by far our favorite accommodation. It was an amazing experience to sit on our porch at the bottom of the canyon and watch the mule deer walk past our porch. Interesting that we began our tour looking down into the Grand Canyon, and in this park, we have a totally different perspective.
Zion National Park is 147,000 acres and was established as a national park in 1919. Early settlers in Zion National Park were so inspired by Zion’s beauty that they bestowed exalted names on the Park’s natural features. These names….such as Great White Throne and Angels Landing still remain. The rock layers and monoliths at Zion were formed by sediments of sand dunes and oceans deposited between 50 and 200 million years ago. On a rainy day, you can see hundreds o waterfalls descent from the crevices in the cliffs above.
Sunday, April 17, 2016 – After breakfast in the Zion Lodge, we enjoyed a private tram tour of Zion Park. It was quite a cold morning so blankets were passed out to all of us on the tour. Wonderful!
It’s difficult to see and blurred because of the zoom, but in the photo above, you can see climbers who have set up camp on the side of the mountain. You can see the 2 cots suspended and secured (somehow????). Our guide told us that hikers that plan to spend overnight on the mountain must register at the park office. There have been many accidents and fatalities due to falls. After our tram tour, we decided to take a short, easy hike. Our guide told us that we could hike to the Lower Emerald Pools which is a one hour 1.2 mile hike with minor drop offs. Sounded good to us. Until we veered to the right and unknowing to us entered the Kayenta Trail, a 1 1/2 hour 2 mile hike with unpaved trail with moderate to long drop offs which ended at The Grotto. Yikes is all I can say. I am not a big fan of heights when there are no barriers and the drops are thousands of feet. Eyes straight ahead! Don’t look down! I can’t tell you how happy I was to finish.
Monday, April 18, 2016 – After breakfast at Zion Lodge, we departed this beautiful park bound for Las Vegas airport. It is only about a 3 hour drive from Zion to Vegas. We will spend 2 nights at Harrah’s on the strip. We haven’t been to Las Vegas in about 20 years so we were excited to see the changes. But going from Zion to Vegas was certainly like culture shock. From beautiful, serene country to loud, bright and mobs of people was quite an adjustment for us. We went from this:
To This:
Initially, we were sorry we didn’t just go straight home, rather than stay in Vegas. But---we adjusted quickly. Our first night we saw Terry Fator, the ventriloquist that won America’s Got Talent some years ago. Fantastic is all I can say. The next day, we walked the strip and went to all the new casino’s. Amazing properties. Yes….those are pink flamingo’s! And - a Chihuly glass ceiling in Bellagio! Beautiful.
This was an amazing trip. Once again, Caravan Tours did a fantastic job. Our guide, Bruce….our driver, Joe……the beautiful hotels….and awesome tours. We could not have done this on our own for the cost of the tour, not to mention the knowledge we gained. Not all meals were included, but all breakfasts and 2 dinners, which were all excellent. One night we had a barbecued steak dinner in a private room, and the last night at Zion we could order anything on the menu! Lunches were on our own, which was fine with us. There’s enough independent time so we could focus on our individual interests. We have already booked the Caravan Yosemite and California Coast tour for later this summer. WONDERFUL!
