We arrived fairly late in Jacob Lake so we didn’t venture out of the park that evening. When we got up the next day it was still fairly cool out for a motorcycle ride, so we didn’t leave for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon until about 10:30-11am. It was a nice ride just over an hour in duration.
Upon arrival we went to the lodge to get some lunch; we both enjoyed the buffet and ate way too much to the point that we never really had any dinner. The Grand Canyon was pretty amazing though it is definitely not as developed as the South Rim, with not nearly as many lookout points. A major section of the park was still closed, presumably due to road conditions following winter. We spent about 4 hours there before heading back to Jacob Lake.
The following day we packed up and headed back part of the way we came but turned off to take the “long way” to Zion as we wanted to visit some place on the map called Pipe Spring National Monument. There turned out to not be too much there however, just a few buildings which were kind of cool to check out but not really worth the diversion. What we didn’t know at the time was that by going that way we avoided a $15 fee for RVs travelling through the Zion – Mt Carmel tunnel at the eastern entry to the park.
It was still fairly early when we got the campground at Zion but late enough that the sun had subsided enough we felt comfortable leaving Misty in the RV with the windows open while we went into the park for a bit. Unfortunately we hadn’t been able to book an electric site so we couldn’t run the air conditioner (without running the generator, which we don’t like to do for more than a short period). The campground was fairly well shaded which helped.
We hopped on the shuttle and headed into the canyon, first stopping at the “Weeping Rock”, then up to the trail heading to the Narrows. Last time we were in Zion in October Gareth had been able to wade up the Narrows almost to the point the canyon walls touche. This time it the water level was far too high and park staff had closed the trail. We still enjoyed the walk, but when we finished we were ready to head back to the RV and have dinner.
We planned to get up early the next morning to head to the Angels Landing hike to beat the crowds. Unfortunately we got a later start than hoped and had to wait about 30 minutes just to board the shuttle at the Visitors Centre heading into the canyon. When we eventually got there the trail was busy but still enjoyable. We opted not to do the section where the chains take you up the steep part with huge drop offs, but instead went along the West Rim trail which delivered excellent views as well.
We got back around 2pm and it was starting to get warm inside the RV, so we hung around the campsite for most of the afternoon. As the sun started to set over the canyon wall we went for a ride on the motorcycle through the tunnel out to the eastern entrance of the park. It was getting a bit dark to do the hike to the canyon lookout however so we skipped it with plans to return the next day.
We followed through with our plan the next morning and rode out to the canyon lookout trail head the next morning. Traffic going both ways through the tunnel was quite busy at this time. We made it through quite quickly and finished the hike. We probably had to wait about 20 minutes coming back however.
After we got back we moved the RV from the campsite as we had vacate it by 11am and got our bicycles out to ride up to the Emerald Pool trailhead at the Lodge, taking Misty with us in the backpack. It turned out to be a tough ride, mostly uphill with a few flat sections. After a beer at the lodge patio, Sandy headed off to check out the Emerald Pool while Gareth waited with Misty at the lodge. The ride back was much nicer due to being all downhill!
We finally left Zion at about 4pm, and headed west towards Las Vegas. It was only a couple hours drive so it went fairly quick. We had made plans to stay with our friend Dante who we had met in Hamilton but moved to Vegas a few years ago and is now living with his girlfriend Mel. Having been to Vegas a couple times before we had no interest in the ‘strip’ or casinos. We went to a cool little restaurant called Dirt Dog which served bacon wrapped hot dogs with all sorts of interesting and unique toppings, supposedly Mexican inspired. We both agreed it would do really well back home. We went back to Dante and Mel’s place and played a few board games and hung out for a couple hours before sleeping in their guest bedroom – our first sleep in a bed other than the one in the RV in almost 4 months!
We took off fairly early the following day as we had a long drive, almost 5 hours till our next stop in Lake Isabella, California. The drive was boring for large stretches with a few interesting parts here and there. We enjoyed a dip in the pool at the campground when we arrived very much as it had been close to 40 degrees celcius all day!
The following morning we loaded up the motorcycle and headed north thorugh the small town of Kernville, and following the Kern river North for about 70km to a place known for it’s Giant Sequoia trees. They were indeed very impressive.
On the way back we stopped for a bite to eat at a roadside burger stand. It was getting quite hot again however so we were anxious to get back to the campground and hop in the pool again. The next morning we took our time getting going and didn’t leave till around the 11am check out time. The drive from Lake Isabella to Bakersfield was quite pretty, and enjoyable despite the slow and winding road thanks to frequent turn outs that allowed us to get out of the way of faster traffic. It was unfortunate they didn’t have the same turn outs on the latter section from Bakersfield out to the coast (State Route 166). Despite a 55mph speed limit which we had no trouble keeping up to, drivers were very aggressive including transport trucks, one even honked at us as he passed. We were glad to finally get to the 101 for the short trek into Oceano our home for the next two nights. We pulled into the campground and immediately saw giant dunes coming right up to the edge of the property. We took Misty for a walk on the dunes almost all the way to the Pacific Ocean. But that would have to wait for another day.
