Awning... and a fire warning

Before we left Kaibab National Forest, we had wanted to try to do something to protect the newly installed awning, to ensure that we could drive in the wind and not worry about the awning pulling out and getting caught in the wind and ripping off again. Since Carl had already experienced this back in 2019, and since it took us 16 months to get a new awning installed, it seems prudent to try to avoid the need to do this again!

Ultimately, I think we're going to try to acquire awning straps like this: awning straps

But we didn't have those with us, and we were going to be driving in windy weather, so we decided to use something we had, "ball bungee cords", like this: ball bungee cords

We didn't get pictures while I was on the roof, but here's what they look like installed:

It is the green thing up near the top. We figured that putting something that tied it in as close to the top as possible would give the biggest impact. Besides which, we don't carry a ladder with us, and putting it anywhere on the awning arms from the ground -- albeit as far as we could reach --  would not make it very high.

I had to stretch the cord on the ball-and-cord bungee pretty hard, and I'm concerned that the cord will pull out of the ball, so I think it is important that we get the other awning straps for more security. I think we will still install them from the roof too...

Having to get onto the roof to install and release the awning straps isn't the most convenient, but, compared to having the awning pull out and rip off, it is worth it, and, we figure we won't really use the awning a lot while we're in the west because the wind can be so unpredictable, and, even having it deployed at the campground can be risky if the wind comes up while it is out.

It is funny, after waiting so long to get the awning installed, the responsibility to effectively "steward" this belonging is heavy! And, we've gotten so used to not having it that we may not use it a lot, but at least the rig has the equipment installed with which it was initially equipped.

On Sunday afternoon, we noticed quite a lot of smoke south and east of us:

Picture taken from behind Gracie

We looked up and a fire had started Sunday afternoon south/southeast of Kingman:

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7438/ 

We always know that, when traveling in the west in the summer, we have to be aware of fire danger and on the watch. This one is "behind" us, so won't impact our travels (we plan to travel to Las Vegas on Monday), but we will continue to be vigilant. 

Saturday to Kingman

We finally decided to leave our beautiful spot in the Kaibab National Forest on Saturday:

Gracie leaving Kaibab National Forest on Saturday morning

I was bringing the Jeep along behind -- we decided to hook up the vehicles after we'd gotten out of the campsite area so we'd have the freedom to back Gracie up if we needed to do so.

We drove to Kingman, AZ. Unfortunately, there were very high winds on Saturday -- if we had looked carefully at the forecast, we may have delayed our leaving of Kaibab National Forest until Monday. We made the drive to Kingman safely and got checked into Zuni Village RV Park, a Passport America park (we get a 50% discount since Carl is a lifetime member of Passport America). We wanted to meet up with our SKP Christian Fellowship friend, Gayle, in Kingman, and originally planned to just spend one night, but, with the winds continuing through Sunday, we elected to stay in Kingman for two nights.

We met up with Gayle on Saturday afternoon at Federico's for Mexican food -- we SO enjoyed visiting with her! We didn't even realize how much time had passed, but we had arrived at about 1pm and it was 6pm (!!!) when we left! Thankfully, the restaurant was not crowded so they didn't have a problem with us using the table all afternoon, and it is a "order at the counter and they bring the food to you" so the waiter/waitress wasn't wishing for us to leave. Plus, it was fascinating to watch the vehicles going by -- Historic Route 66 passes through Kingman, and the restaurant was just off the famous roadway. We probably saw a total of 150 motorcycles pass by -- in groups of 10-12, and maybe the same ones multiple times; we also saw a number of "interesting" cars. It was an entertaining place to vehicle-watch!

A couple of additional things about Grand Canyon and Kaibab National Forest:

On Friday evening, a car came into the National Forest area where we were camping and stopped in a site that has been occupied a few times during the days we were there. Eventually, a single lady got out and got a chair out. We contemplated going over to talk with her, but soon she got up to walk up to the information board, and when she returned, we called to her and she came over to chat with us. She is from Durango, CO, and had come to the Grand Canyon to do some hiking. She had stayed a couple of nights in the Bright Angel Lodge doing hikes from the South Rim. She mentioned that she had previously hiked from the North Rim down the North Kaibab Trail (13.7 miles, 5740' elevation change) and up Bright Angel (9.5 miles, 4340' elevation change) in one day, staying overnight at the Bright Angel Lodge, and then the return trip on the next day or maybe she said a day or two later (North Rim is closed at this time of year, it opens 5/15 this year). That's 23+ miles! We asked her what she had hiked on Friday (she had mentioned it was her birthday and she was celebrating by hiking). She shared that she had hiked 27 miles on Friday -- down the Hermit Trail, and across on another trail (maybe Tonto?) and up, I think South Kaibab. We were shocked - "you hiked 27 miles today?" "Well, yes, hiked and ran..." Hmmm..... definitely different fitness level from us! She did admit that she would probably be sore... we'd almost certainly be dead!

Secondly, I got to wondering about the people who work at Phantom Ranch, the lodging / restaurant / gift shop at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Do they live fulltime down there? Do they hike down and work a series of days and then hike back up? Do they ride a mule down, or come in via the river?

As we were driving from Williams, AZ (we stopped at one place to find a "Williams" teeshirt with no success!) to Kingman, AZ, I searched for jobs at Phantom Ranch and found a few interesting articles:

• The challenges of needing to do maintenance when the nearest "hardware" store is in Flagstaff, a 9+ mile hike and 80+ mile drive away: https://www.xanterra.com/stories/parks/working-and-living-on-the-edge-grand-canyons-unusual-occupations/
• An interpretive ranger who hikes down to Phantom Ranch on day 1, works days 2-7, hikes back up on day 8, and then has 6 days off -- she has a home on the South Rim and a room at the Ranger Station at Phantom Ranch each of which she shares with another interpretive ranger who handles the "other shift" (one is down while the other is up and they meet on the trail on their hiking days): https://www.williamsnews.com/news/2015/mar/24/life-below-the-rim-an-interpretive-rangers-life-a/
• This article tells about several folks that you might see at Phantom Ranch -- the 4th one profiled would be "Rim to Rim to Rim folks" -- who run from, say, South Rim to North Rim to South Rim -- in one day -- like the young lady who was car-camping near us on Friday night, except she indicated that she just did Rim to Rim: https://kjzz.org/content/641799/below-rim-life-inside-grand-canyon 
• A guy who has been volunteering at the bottom for 31 years (the article is from 2018) -- averaging 36 hours of volunteer time per week. https://psmag.com/magazine/letter-from-phantom-ranch-meet-the-man-who-lives-at-the-bottom-of-the-grand-canyon
  

Anybody ready to sign up????

Friday - Grandview Lookout Tower and biking

We had wanted to climb Grandview Lookout Tower, but we had talked to some folks back on Monday who had just come down and the lady mentioned that it was really windy at the top... so we waited for a less windy day. Friday was still a bit windy, but better than we've had...

We both started up the tower, but Carl decided it was a bit too steep and took pictures from the ground.

I was at the top (the trap door into the cabin at the top was locked closed) -- you may be able to see me waving just under the structure on top...

Beautiful view

That's the cell tower that was near where we were parked (within a mile) giving us great cellular service here... until Friday morning - we had been on the internet early and all was fine, but about 8am it went down for about 20 minutes -- we guessed that they were rebooting the tower or something.

There is a small house near the base of the Lookout Tower -- maybe someone was stationed here at times in the past, or maybe even at times now if there is a high fire danger.

Coming down

A couple of panorama pictures that I took from the top... picture 1,

... and picture 2.

We had ridden our bikes to the Lookout Tower, and Carl suggested we ride on the trail again. I recommended that we try the Arizona Trail going west, because we had seen where it intersected with the road that we drove on Wednesday and we knew that we could then take that road back around to our campsite. 

Our Fitbits tracked our journey:

The start/finish line (Gracie) is at the checkered flag. We left heading to the right of the flag, and for the first little bit, we were below target heartrate zones... but we quickly entered Fat Burn and Cardio and Peak. The spot on the far right was where the Lookout Tower was located, and then the route on the lower part and to the left of the flag were on our way back.

This view looks at our speed -- green is faster than blue. When we left the Lookout Tower (far right), the part on the Arizona Trail was almost all downhill... so we were going faster. But, we knew we'd be paying the price later when we would have to ride uphill -- that was mostly on the road, but, it was a rough rocky road, so it was tough...

The FitBit data also shows the elevation change that we experienced -- 181 feet is 12-20 stories! Carl's FitBit report indicates that he did 70 feet -- 5-8 stories -- so that's probably more like what we did biking, as my FitBit also considered my Lookout Tower climb.

We are leaving our beautiful spot here in the Kaibab National Forest on Saturday morning, on our way to visit a friend in Kingman, AZ before heading on to Las Vegas for a few days.

Thursday around the Kaibab National Forest "campground"

We took a walk on Thursday, entering the Grand Canyon National Park property and walking to Desert Rim Drive, a little over 1 mile round trip.

There is a sign right by the cattle guard and fence that separates the National Park from the National Forest alerting us that we should go to the South or East Entrance to pay the National Park Entrance fee (our entrance fee is covered by Carl's Golden Age Passport)

There is a tree with an odd looking growth on the lowest branch... it reminds me of the rose rosette disease (https://www.provenwinners.com/learn/pest-management/what-rose-rosette-disease) that we experienced at our home in Texas.

This was another tree on the other side of the road where it had a similar growth but there were needles on the growth (although dead needles).

When we got back to Gracie, we decided to have a fire. It is too cool in the evening to have a fire after dark, so we have had a fire here in late afternoon instead. Thursday was a cool day anyway, and quite cloudy, so we thought a fire would be nice, and it was... until it started snowing (or sleeting, or something white was falling from the sky):

Carl: "I built this fire and I'm going to enjoy it, even if it is snowing on me!"

See all the white on the ground?

I had put my chair under the slide out which provided some protection from the falling stuff, and eventually Carl did too... but we could still see the fire, and the snow...

It covered the ground pretty well for a few minutes (you can see a black class B van a little ways away from our site -- they only stayed a couple of hours and then left).

The blue marker is where we are located -- the red is in Grand Canyon Village -- and the canyon is just north of both locations -- so the storm was evidently spanning both rims of the canyon. I had wondered if weather patterns tended to stay on one side or the other of the canyon, but, at least this one didn't.

We also heard thunder, and WeatherBug warned us that lightning was in the area (within 2.1 miles).

The snow/sleet/rain served to settle the dust a little which was nice!

Wednesday's observations

On Wednesday morning,

... Miss Kitty was checking out the news on the Breeze News Network (BNN)...

She loves sitting in the sunshine, gathering some Vitamin D (since their skin is covered by fur, do cats collect Vitamin D in the sunshine?), and, if the window is open, she sniffs the breeze to see what is being reported!

When we had gone bike riding on Monday, we had gone a little ways down the Arizona Trail, according to a map that we had seen at the kiosk at Grandview Lookout Tower: 

We had seen the indication that there were views to the Painted Desert -- we had not ridden our bikes far enough to find that, but we noticed that FR310 appeared to parallel the Arizona Trail, so we decided to see if we could find those views.

It was quite windy on Wednesday (Miss Kitty's access to the BNN was limited as we soon had to close the windows against the chill and blowing dust) -- so we drove the Jeep.

Along the way, we saw some cattle grazing along the road.

We got to a place that looked like it might be a higher overlook and drove into the area.

On Google Maps here

Sure enough, we could see off into the distance (the Painted Desert is about 135 miles from here). I walked down the hill a little ways...

... and found a trail that I guess is the Arizona Trail.

View into the distance from down on the level of the Arizona Trail.

The view from the top of the hill

Another shot of the view from up at the top

There were a couple of fire rings there and obviously folks have camped at this location. We briefly considered bringing Gracie to this location for a few days, but... the roads to get to this location are pretty rough, the Motor Vehicle Use Map indicates this area as not for motor vehicle use, and there was no cell signal, so would be no internet service for us there.

Back along the road, I tried to get a picture of the fencing...

... this is zoomed in... you may be able to see that there is one metal "T" post and then just random "sticks" on either side (the one on the right is leaning). It appears that whoever does the fencing uses the metal posts to keep the fence located, but in between, connect the wire to branches that they picked up from the woods to keep the wires from sagging. Generally it appeared that there were two sticks/branches between each metal "T" post.

We kept on driving on the gravel/dirt roads -- we drove down to near where Hull Cabin is located

There was a sign on the gate indicating that we should not proceed so as not to disturb occupants, but when I looked up information on Recreation.gov for booking it, it appears that they are only doing bookings on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the bookings don't start until May 1 (https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/233242?tab=info).

We continued on our drive, coming back to our campsite from a road that came up behind -- along this route, we came to the fence that separates the National Forest land from the National Park land... I tried taking another picture of the fence...

Here they have metal separators between the two T posts -- it looks like a long piece of metal is bent over the top of the top strand, then twisted down to the next strand, twisted again to capture the 3rd and 4th strands.

Turns out... it isn't that complicated -- they are called "fence stays" and they are "screwed" in place. I found a YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDCom2UJg-s

We enjoyed our drive around the area. We found a LOT of roads that we would not want to take Gracie on. We also found that we are glad that it is dry while we're here, because it looks like some of the roads can get *very* muddy with deep mud holes that even the Jeep would be challenged to navigate.

Tuesday - installing a floor mat

Gracie has hard surface flooring throughout the majority of the coach. We have had a small mat at the top of the steps for wiping our feet when we come in from outside, but it wasn't good about staying in place and didn't look great.

On a Facebook group for Newmar Dutch Star owners, we had seen that other owners had purchased a floor mat from the manufacturer to install in the front of their coaches (it appears that they are rather proud of these floor mats given the price: https://www.amazon.com/Newmar-Cockpit-Grey-MoutainAire-LondonAire/dp/B07TJ1WQJ8?th=1). We had also seen that other owners had purchased a floor mat from Lowe's for $43 (https://www.lowes.com/pd/Mohawk-Home-Basketweave-4-ft-x-6-ft-Brown-Rectangular-Outdoor-Door-Mat/5001639009), created a template for the shape of the front of their coach, and cut it themselves. That seemed a more reasonable option to us...

We had acquired the materials a few weeks ago while we were still in Mesa. We had thought that it would be a good project to do when we had a campsite with a picnic table so we could do the cutting of the floor mat on the table. Here in the Kaibab National Forest, we have a picnic table, we have time, and Tuesday was the day to do it!

We had purchased craft paper and cut it to the size of the floor mat when we were in Mesa. But, with all the angles and weirdness of the front of our coach, we decided to start with printer/copy paper and make a starting template, and then use the craft paper to test it before cutting the mat.

We started with the curve by the front door... worked our way across the front....

... around the pedals, under the steering wheel, along the driver's seat. Sure would have been easier if that seat wasn't there!

First template -- copy paper -- completed -- with copious amounts of painters tape.

I didn't get pictures, but we laid that on the craft paper that had the same dimensions as the floor mat from Lowe's, and cut/created a craft-paper template with the copy-paper template. We could have probably cut the floor mat with the copy-paper template, but, we already had the craft paper, and this allowed us to test the template:

Craft-paper template in place -- we decided that the template was a little too close to the steps (with the previous small floor mat, sometimes one of us would catch a toe on the edge of the mat as we were coming up the steps -- with the lightweight mat, this was a little disconcerting, but with this heavier mat, it could cause a fall). We adjusted that edge and made another alteration under the steering wheel area. The craft paper template was completed and ready for us to cut the floor mat.

Carl starts the cutting -- you may notice that we are *not* using the picnic table as originally planned. The picnic table was not as big as the mat, the wind would come up at very inopportune times, so it was difficult to keep the template positioned correctly, and we have a large amount of floor space in the living room when both slides are out -- so the floor seemed a better option.

A utility knife and straight-edge made it easier.

There were a couple of places where the Newmar branded mat just had a "peninsula" design (big rectangles cut out of the mat), but we decided to cut a more custom fit (around the mount of the driver's seat and the steering column).

When we got to the curved edges, the utility knife didn't work as well, so we marked the curves on the back of the mat with liquid paint pens and cut the curves with heavy-duty shears.

Finished product -- with original edge of the mat at the living room and steps.

We are really pleased with how it turned out! Note that we did not finish the edges -- the mat has a rubbery backing and we don't think it will fray.

We celebrated with "happy hour" at the fire pit!

The guy who had written up about this on the Newmar Dutch Star group on Facebook estimated 1 hour to make the template, and 10 minutes to cut it. Our results:

• Checking in every Lowe's we visited for 6 months for the floor mat to be in stock: 10 minutes per store, approximately 1 hour total.
  
• Acquiring the floor mat at Lowe's in Mesa: 20-30 minutes (Patti had gone alone and didn't think to get a cart on the way into the store, let's just say that it is a *very* heavy floor mat!)
• Several weeks of moving the floor mat around in Gracie as we traveled and waited until we had the gumption to start the project.
• Unrolling the mat on the picnic table, and making sure that the craft paper was sized the same: 10 minutes
• Discussing and debating how in the world we were going to get the craft paper cut to the dimensions of the front of the coach: maybe an hour?
• After deciding to use copy paper, making the copy-paper template: 1 hour
• Cutting the craft-paper template from the copy-paper template: 15 minutes
• Checking the fit of the craft-paper template and having further discussions about moving the start of the mat at the top of the steps back 1/2": hard to estimate, but... there ended up being a nap within this part of the task.
• Using the craft-paper template to cut the mat: 45 minutes
• Installing the mat (it was actually easier than we anticipated -- installing the craft-paper template was challenging as we were trying to get it in place around all the obstacles -- and it had the potential of tearing -- the mat was heavy and awkward, but actually went into place pretty easily!): 5 minutes
  

So, 1 hour 10 minute job for the guy on the Newmar Dutch Star group.

Somewhere around 5-6 hours for us...

Sounds about on par: a job estimated to take time "x", will probably take us 4x to complete!

Monday - Grand Canyon and Kaibab National Forest

When we did our drive along Desert View Drive back on Friday, we had not stopped at *every* overlook... one of the ones that we skipped was Grandview Point, which happens to be the closest overlook of the canyon to where we are currently parked. So, Monday morning, we decided to drive over to Grandview Point to see the grand view!

There had been a hotel on Grandview Point in the past.

It was, indeed, a *grand* view!

Each day and time-of-day that we view the canyon, the colors and shadows are different, giving different perspective.

It is beautiful in each view!

We hiked a short distance down the Grandview trail -- I was going to take a picture of Carl at this point, but there was a nice young couple arriving on the trail and the lady offered to take a picture for us...

It is nice to have pictures of both of us with this beautiful creation in the background! Carl is using one of the photos that another couple took of us as the background display on his computer screen now!

So beautiful...

We got back to the rig at about 10am, and since Gracie was pretty much in full sun, we wanted to see how our solar panels were performing:

They were generating 600-700W of power...

 

And delivering 30A more to the batteries than we were currently using (charging the batteries).

After lunch, we decided to try taking a bike ride...

Since we had driven into this area on Friday, we knew that the road that passes in front of Gracie heads on further into the forest and that there are a number of other roads that we could take.

Grandview Lookout Tower

We really like where we are parked, but honestly, there are some very inconsiderate folks -- mainly folks with ATVs who go buzzing around both producing a lot of noise and dust, as well as passenger vehicles who think driving 35-40MPH is totally acceptable on these dusty gravel roads. As we were biking to Grandview, we came across some of them -- it isn't pleasant biking in someone's dust...

Some of the information on the board by Grandview Lookout Tower -- there were some trails that did not allow motorized vehicles -- sounds good to us!

A close up of the map

We had seen a marker for the Arizona Trail when we were in Tusayan -- 800 miles? Maybe not all of it, but we could ride on part of it today...

This part looked good...

Close up of the trail portion that we started on.

In the beginning, the trail was pretty wide and easy to ride on...

Carl can take pictures of me while we're moving, but I can only manage to take pictures of him when we stop -- this was when his son Steve called and we took a break for them to chat.

What is most surprising to me is how clear (uncluttered) the ground is within the forest. There is very little undergrowth. From what I have read, this is desirable for the forest to survive a forest fire...there was a signboard along the forest road (or is it "fire road"?) with information about some efforts that the Forest Service is making:

It makes the forest very open and almost like a city park.

You may be able to see that the trail at this point is significantly narrower... it also was very rocky as it went down and up through small ravines.

This was at a spot where it crossed one of the fire roads, and had information about how far we had to go to places along the trail... I don't think we'll make it to Mexico... not today anyway!

We did ride a ways further though -- probably about a mile and a half out and back on the Arizona Trail. I think the trail would be better suited to hiking or mountain bikes -- our bikes are better for hard surfaces than rocks that roll underneath the tires as we pedal.

The other side of the road as we were returning...

We could have taken the Arizona Trail back to Tusayan, or even to Utah, but decided to head back to the rig having done as much bike riding as we wanted to do on this day!

When we got back to where Gracie is parked, some of our neighbors were outside and had a fire in their firepit. We spoke to them and then got to talking -- they were from Providence, RI, and are out on a 6-9 month RV trip to the west. It was nice to hear what they have seen and where they are planning to go next, and to share with them some of the tools we use for trip planning and routing.