New Mexico

Due to poor internet service and computer failure I was not able to post the last part of our trip.  Now that I have restored my computer I will attempt to recreate the last few days of the trip. 
Nancy, Lee and Fergal visited the Meteor Crater but I stayed in the truck since I had seen it before and tickets were $16.  We headed toward New Mexico and ran into a bad hail storm that covered the highway.  

We got ahead of the storm long enough to stop in Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park

Glimpses of sunlight highlight the color

Old inn, now a museum

Indian petroglyph

Petroglyphs

More pretty rocks

We left the park just ahead of the rain

In and out of the rain

Dark, dark skies

Large radio telescope array

Rain in the desert

The Pie-0-Neer store in Pie Town, NM

We spent the night in Pie Town, NM.  There were no lights in the RV park so we had a hard time finding it, finally a passerby showed us where it was.
The next day we drove to Clovis, NM in and out of the rain all day.
From Clovis we drove to Sallisaw, OK, again in and out of the rain all day.
Made it home on Friday finally getting ahead of the rain in Memphis.  Total miles for the trip 4,330.

Bryce, rain, fog, and the Grand Canyon

Saturday we awoke to rain and fog as we headed into Bryce Canyon National Park.  Although we did not get the spectacular vistas we were able to see some of the formations through the fog at the first place we stopped.  Lee and Fergal decided to hike along the rim to the next overlook while Nancy and I drove the truck to pick them up. 

About the time Lee and Fergal got out of sight it started raining.  By the time we got to the next overlook it was raining pretty hard and the clouds were dropping to the point we could not see any of the cliff formations. By the time Lee and Fergal made it to the truck they were pretty wet.

We drove to the other end of the park hoping the weather would clear but it only got worse.

Since the forecast called for rain the next three days we left Bryce and headed for the Grand Canyon.

We called the Grand Canyon to see if we could get reservations in the campground for Sunday night but they said all they had left were 3 first come- first served sites big enough for our trailer so we hurried into the park with our fingers crossed  because there were not any campgrounds anywhere near the park. Fortunately, we did get a spot with no hook ups, and arrived in time to get a quick glimpse of the canyon.  Although it had rained on us most of the day, the clouds did not really obscure our view of the canyon, but the lack of sunshine muted the colors.  We had a thunderstorm just after dark and it rained off and on all night so I feared a repeat of what happened at  Bryce since the forecast was for heavy rain the next day. Luckily, we got some sun Monday morning and got some nice views of  the canyon but the forecast called for more rain Monday afternoon so we packed up the trailer and headed south about noon.

 

Campsite in Grand Canyon

It was kind of cool Monday.

Nice view 

Some sun on the canyon

Most of the buildings were already closed for winter

On the way south we passed the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument

We stopped for the night in Meteor Crater RV park east of Flagstaff.