Lucky on Turtle's dashboard

My name is Lucky. At least that is what my new human caretakers call me. Bob says I need to have my very own blog. I don’t know what a blog is, but I have one, and this is it. He says I should just live my new life as it unfolds, and tell all of you about it. He says my life with he and Claire will be adventurous. I’m not sure what that means. Bob will take pictures of me, and Claire seems to be pretty set on keeping me clean.

I think I know why they named me Lucky. I woke up in the middle of  a very busy, highway on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. There were big trucks and motorhomes and fast cars flying inches on either side of me. I knew I was going to be squished flat at any moment, but I couldn’t get away. You see I am a stuffed animal, and we can’t move very far without the help of a human, usually little ones. It must have been a little human that dropped me on the road, but I don’t remember.  

Anyway, Claire saw me there as she and Bob sped past in Turtle, that’s their motorhome’s name, and she announced that a bear rescue was required. Bob and Turtle reponded with a fast  U-Turn and the next thing I knew, I was looking out Turtle’s windshield and feeling safe.

Where they found me

Last night we parked among the big trucks in a truckstop. Since there wasn’t time for Bob to get a picture as he was scooping me up off the road, he wanted to do a sort of fake picture and he took me out to the highway while Claire watched from Turtle.

Just as he finished and was standing in the middle of the road with me in one hand and a camera in the other,  a rescue vehicle appeared with lots of flashing lights. “Are you alright, sir?” said the man with a serious look.

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Bob. “But, I was just taking a picture of my bear on the center line.”

“I see,” said the man, who now had a  funny little smile on his face. “You’d better be careful, there are a lot of crazy people out here.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” said Bob as he scurried off to Turtle.

Claire Being Supportive

This is what Claire looked like when we got back. It took her a long time to recover.

The Bath

This picture is me getting my bath.

After my bath, I learned from Claire, who could tell from the tag on my butt, that I was from China. Then Claire and Bob looked at each other and both said at the same time, “We’re going to China!” I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think it might mean that adventure thing Bob mentioned.

I’ll tell you more when I know more.

 Oh, Bob says to tell your friends about my blog. There might even be videos later, whatever that is. He says I will have such an interesting life that my blog should go viral. I don’t know if that sounds good or not…

zai jian, (that means good-bye in Chinese)

Lucky 

 

Bob and Claire Rogers' lunch spot high overlooking The Wave

We had to drive our motorhome, Turtle about nine miles on a rough road, an adventure to tell at a later time. We leveled up and had wonderful evening light a great dinner and all the comforts of home; another million dollar view, for free.

The morning of our permit we awoke in darkness, ate a quick breakfast, were on the trail at first light, and had hiked two of  the three miles to The Wave by sunrise, with lots of stops along the way for photos.

Chasm near The Wave

We spend most of  the day scrambling all over the drainage that contains The Wave, which is itself quite small, and added another couple of tough steep miles. There is a small arch high on a cliff above The Wave, and we determined to get to it for our lunch spot. After a few dicey moves and an hour or more of climbing, and pausing for photos, we made it. The view of The Wave from the arch was spectacular. It appeared to get little use because of the difficulty in getting there. We took a second, slightly easier route back that led us to the Second Wave, and a spectacular chasm, nither of which most permit holders find, but we were able to pinpoint them from our raven’s roost high in the arch.

Claire on Steep Slickrock Backwards!

Strange Mars Like Formations Near The Wave

On the hike out in mid afternoon, we took a difficult slickrock side canyon high to some amazing fragile sandstone formations. I don’t have a name for them now, but will before I do the full post of this adventure in or new Turtle Chronicles, in the works.

How old is this tree?

No Motorhome Road!

These posts are meant to keep our readers informed of our travels, but of necessity must be short; we have been a week without Internet or cell signal. For each adventure you see here there have been three we haven’t been able to share yet.

Stay tuned.

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is always busy, but we’ve discovered ways to make your visit more fun:

1. Park you vehicle and get around by bicycle or free shuttle bus. 2. Avoid the west end. Period. Yuck. 3. If stuck in the west end, just walk away from the crowds; the best views are elsewhere. 4. Camp at Desert View on the east rim. 5. Stay several days. 5. Get up for sunrise, the tourists sleep in, and when it’s still cool enough to hike below the rim.

Take the time to let it soak in. Write in your journal, take a nap in the forest, follow a beetle’s wanderings. Grand Canyon is truly one of the wonders of the world, and we’ve seen a bit of the world.

I love the monsoon, with warm dry mornings, exciting skies building slowly by late morning, lightning and thunder by late afternoon, and a good downpour by sunset, and a cool night for sleeping. I like the power and semi-predictability of it, and the break from solid blue skies. Here are some pictures from our summer jaunt last year. More coming in later posts before the real thing next month.

Wupatki

White Sands National Monument sure can look like snow. It even crunches under tires like very cold snow. Spooky.

Cold on the feet too, in the early morning after a cold night.

Lots more life than expected. The gypsum holds water and the plants are able to get water even when it hasn’t rained in months. All they have to worry about are rockets falling from the sky from the White Sands Missile Range.

We camped here two nights. We were up before dawn and out until dark making photographs and listening to coyotes and ravens sing the sun up and down. The second night we had so many coyote choir concerts that we finally gave up listening and slept anyway. This BLM site is one of the best we have visited. We are coming to the realization that we will have to work awfully hard to take in all the great BLM sites in the West. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it!