Focht Family Blog

I was a nervous wreck the whole day. It was extremely terrifying to see my children anywhere near the edge. Our first stop was to walk to the information center. We could have taken a shuttle but it seemed like a nice day. Here is Nathan and the boys playing king of the hill.

At the information center, we got books for each of the kids so they could become Junior Rangers. Here is a picture of Samantha and Joshua doing an assignment in their books at a safe distance. Timmy was sitting on the rock ledge with Nathan giving me a small heart attack. :)

Here are two pictures I took while I was making sure Timmy was okay.

After finishing all of their assignments except attending a ranger class we stopped for lunch at a cafeteria. The food was not very good. While waiting for the shuttle Timmy started a snowball fight with Nathan and he thought he was well hidden behind something. Nathan threw one and it accidently hit Timmy on the cheek. Timmy wasn’t happy…

The shuttle took us to the Yavapai Observation Station where the kids took part in a class taught by a ranger about the geology in the Canyon.

While she was explaining the path the river takes she let Josh help with the demonstration…

After the lesson, the kids were sworn in to receive their badges…

Here is one last picture of the Canyon and a picture of the family in front of it.

Well, we arrived at the Grand Canyon and I called to find out where our mail was since it showed as being delivered. They gave me directions to an office a bit of a drive away from the campground. Since we had to drive to get the mail anyway, we put the kids in the car and drove on the scenic road and stopped to look at some of the overlooks. It is terrifying to realize how close you can get to the edge. Either there isn’t anything blocking you or there is a 2 foot rock ledge or a pipe railing with large openings. Here are some pictures from the first day.

While at the campground we looked out the windshield and saw two deer feeding. They started butting their horns together while we watched but the picture I took had too  much shade in it to see well. Here is one of the pictures of the deer.

I didn’t take a picture of our sites. They were basic sites with LOTS of snow!

Things I like: For a campground in a National Park this has lots of ammenities. There is 50amp electric, water, sewer, AND cable at all the sites.

Things I don’t like: I think the only negative is that if you need groceries you will be stuck with what is at the small store at the park because there aren’t any towns nearby.

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I updated. Sorry. So this one will be a bit long. After we left Seattle we drove down 101 (coast) through Oregon. It was raining and overcast but we pulled over to take some pictures of the ocean.

It is rather scary driving along the coast and going past many areas where the road has fallen in. We actually had to stop and wait for construction crews in a coupe of areas where there was no road in one lane. I’m glad none of the road decided to cave in while we were driving on it. We spent a couple of nights among the redwoods in northern California.

Driving down the coast in CA the weather was a little better so we stopped again and got some more pictures of the ocean and took the family out for a picture. It had just started raining so I think it is blurry because water may have been on the lens.

Next we headed down a little further for a few days in a town called Manteca. It was a relatively central location for Nathan to visit with some customers. Nathan stopped at Making It Big, a place that sells clothes for larger women and also at Artisan Sweets, a candy store that sells specialty candies. They gave us some caramels as well as some natural candies for the kids. Everything was delicious. These were both stops on the way into the campground.

The next day we went out and Nathan stopped in at Wild Horses 4×4. This took a bit longer because they sell off road equipment for broncos. Nathan is missing his Jeep. After he was done with customer visits, we went to lunch at an Old Spaghetti Factory and sat in the trolley car. It wasn’t as good as I remembered from when I was young but I still enjoyed the spumoni ice cream. :)

We spent the rest of the week riding bikes at the campground and fixing and cleaning. We also had a visit with one of mom’s friends who moved to California. On Saturday we checked out and put 10 hours of driving on the road. We made it to Kingman, AZ so we were officially out of CA. Unfortunately the Walmart there does not allow overnight but we got some groceries and called the Cracker Barrel down the street. They gave us permission.

We were up early this morning because we didn’t want to block all the spaces for Sunday morning diners so we were back on the road by 7:00 this morning and we will be stopping in Albuquerque where this whole adventure started to pick up an antennae that we lost somewhere at Aloha RV where we purchased our Newmar All-Star. We are making tracks for Indiana. We are taking the All-Star back to Newmar to get some things added. They do discounted work during this time of the year because this is their slow time. We are going to have gel batteries put in since they have more charge time plus you don’t have to check the water or worry about rust. We are also going to have the slide repaired where I caught Nathan’s jacket in it.

Originally we were planning on staying the night at a Walmart in Albuquerque but since we are making good time Nathan is thinking about trying to get to Amarillo, TX before we stop. It is going to be a long few days on the road putting at least 10 hours of driving in a day. I am looking forward to stopping in Indiana and relaxing for a bit. Since Newmar doesn’t have laundry facilities we need to go to a laundromat while there anyways so I plan on stripping all of the beds and washing comforters (cannot fit in most machines at campgrounds). I am also looking forward to going to lunch at the little cafe a few blocks away. They had great homemade soups. Samantha is looking forward to going back to reading time at the library and also going to the large playground they have in town. Hopefully there will be no tornadoes this time around. :)

Today we are leaving Tombstone. Yesterday was a day of spotting wildlife. Nathan went out to walk Misty in the morning and was about 30 feet from a coyote. Then later that day we saw roadrunners around our campsite. This thrilled Timmy because he has been wanting to see a roadrunner since we passed into Texas. Then as the sun was beginning to set I spotted a skunk in the dog walk area. I did manage to get a picture of the skunk but it wasn’t very good. However, the sun setting over the mountains was absolutely beautiful, so I took some pictures of our last sunset in Tombstone Territories RV Park.

Today we will be taking our time. We will check out of here by 12:00 and then we have a few places we want to stop and shop in Tuscon. We will spend the night at a Walmart somewhere in AZ. We wanted to go as far as Yuma but they do not allow overnight parking there. We have reservations in San Diego starting Thursday but check-in isn’t until 2:00 so we will be able to take our time getting there.