Gee Whiz. How time flies! I decided to do a little work on by photos. I then realized that I had not blogged about my other (second and third) Sun Tours contracts. These trips also happened in May. The second tour was titled “Canyonlands”. It included Canyonlands National Park, as well as 5 other National Parks and a few other gems. The third trip was a short tour to Silver City, NM, for a Blues Festival.
CANYONLANDS TOUR
The Canyonlands tour was 7 days. If you recall, on the Canyon de Chelly/Monument valley tour (if not, review it HERE), I was merely an observer to learn Sun Tours Culture. On this next tour I was still an “Assistant Tour Director” to Ed. This time I had 3 days as Lead Tour Director, while he managed the other 4. He gave me the choice. So obviously I chose the middle days; after the business of the first day of the tour; and before the business of the return and disembarking in Albuquerque. All Sun Tours depart from and return to Albuquerque. Not all of them are motorcoach tours but the simpler assignments are, so that is where I’m paying my dues.
MOAB – Arches, Canyonland, Dead Horse Point
Day 1 was mostly a travel day with lunch in Durango while heading to Moab Utah, for the night.
Day 2 morning was at Arches National Park. We then returned to Moab for lunch, followed by the afternoon at Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point. The morning was made even more exciting by the guest that slipped and rolled down the hill, resulting in a hospital visit and stitches. Yeah day 2! Other than that Arches was wonderful.
The afternoon proved to be just as exciting. Turns out unbeknownst to me, I had never been to Canyonlands nor to neighboring Dead Horse Point State park. It was a long weary day climbing on and off the bus but as each and every stop. I encouraged others to get off, and was NEVER disappointed. What amazing landscape that is.
ESCALANTE/GRAND STAIRCASE and CAPITAL REEF
My first official day on the job. Turns out these two National Parks/Monuments are really just a travel day disguised as something interesting along the road. The drive is beautiful. The landscapes amazing, and the visitor centers interesting. But unless you have an off road vehicle, and willingness to hike miles… it is a little difficult to feel you have really experienced the parks. In our 50 passenger Motorcoach, there was little we could do but drive through.
BRYCE
That evening took us to Ruby’s Inn at the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. We had dinner to their cowboy buffet. Ruby’s Inn has a fascinating story in itself, including the fact that Ruby and his family homesteaded a ranch and lived there for 5 years before they ventured over the 5 miles to discover Bryce Canyon! Today the Inn (and Cowboy restaurant) is a mega facility that hosts hundreds of tourists and enables Bryce Canyon access by all. There were 6 motorcoaches there when we were. Amazing!!.
One of our guests wanted to go to “Sunrise Point” in the park for sunrise. Turns out the Bus driver was game to join us so as a bonus half of us went out to watch the sun rise over the canyon. What a beautiful experience.
We followed that with a morning of multiple stops within Bryce National Park followed by lunch at an old historic lodge.
ZION
After lunch the bus headed on to Zion National Park, through the East Tunnel entrance. If you haven’t done that, I HIGHLY recommend it. The view popping out of that tunnel into the heart of the park is truly breathtaking. And it seems 2025 will be the last chance to drive through the tunnel in an RV or on a motorcoach. This saddens me but I certainly understand. Currently they charge a fee and stop traffic for the big vehicles to go through the tunnel.
Our destination that night was Springdale, the town at the West entrance to the park. So we didn’t stop on our way through Zion that afternoon, but the next morning we started early at the visitor center. After the visitor center we were joined by a step-on tour guide to expose us to the park. The afternoon was on your own, hiking, relaxing or taking the free shuttle anywhere in the park, including back to the hotel if so desired.
Farmer’s Market and Robyn and Jeremy
Our good friends Robyn and Jeremy Chancey have recently given up the full-time RV lifestyle and settled down in Springdale. So when I suggested we try to get together (someplace that I could still be accessible to the guests), Robyn suggested a local “farmer’s market”. The market (especially in May) was mostly Arts. But they had live music and a taco food truck. Perfect. I invited a bunch of guests along. The market was right across the street from the hotel in back of a popular restaurant. Ed got nervous that I was creating a disaster by inviting guests to an un-vetted location.. so the evening before he wandered over and into the restaurant to check up on it.
When we got there that evening, we had about 20 in our group. It turns out Ed had made a reservation for 12… so 11 joined Ed at the restaurant. The others went with me to the food truck as I intended. We met up with Robyn and Jeremy and a dozen or so other locals. Super fun. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperative and at one point we all had to jump onto the music stage to escape the rain. Huddling near the back wall to keep dry, the musician announced that he had never before played a set… with his audience behind him. I did sneak away to go see Robyn and Jeremy’s new house. Beautiful. I have to get Mike back there.
Back to ED
My 3 days were up and so I handed the baton back to Ed for the following 2 days. The first of which was a travel morning to Page, Arizona for lunch, followed by a visit to Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend. More incredible visits!
Antelope Canyon
I have looked at amazing pictures of Antelope Canyon for years and longed to come. I wondered why my family had not come when I was a child. Seems like something my parents would have done. I thought it must be remote and difficult to get to.
Well was I wrong! We went to Upper Antelope Canyon, waited for our turn, and snagged a jeep ride right to the entrance of the cave. Turns out back when I was a kid this canyon had not been noticed. Then, around 2000, some photographers discovered it, and thanks to social media it is now a prime tourist destination.
The Navajos were quick to want to :
- A) control the number of visitors, and
- B) Make a little money on it so they were quick to commercialize it.
That may sound like a bad thing but they have done an amazing job of making the short 600 foot long canyon accessible to many people and yet remove the sense that you are there with thousands! It was as impressive as I hoped.
And I have to say our guide (Wyatt) from the tour company, Tse Bighanilini Tours, was the BEST!
Horseshoe Bend
Mike and I had been to horseshoe bend in AZ fairly recently, well in 2012. We brought Mahnoor, our exchange student from Pakistan. I was less excited about this, only because I had been there before. When we went, the routine was that you parked along the highway at a side spot, and trudged 1/2 mile or so across the desert. At the destination, you looked over the rock cliff to the river below. The river makes a beautiful horseshoe turn at this point. Not so anymore!
Now they have a large parking lot with pay station to enter. Complete with bathrooms and a mile long 6 foot wide paved walkway to the overlook. The overlook now has concrete pavement and guardrails and benches to sit on. Wow, I had to call Mike to confirm this is the same place we had visited. So yet another surprising day on our adventure!
And then the final day on this trip was a driving day from Page back to Albuquerque. Always bittersweet to come home.
AND FINALLY – a tour on my own.
Two days later I was the tour director responsible for a short tour to Silver City for a Blues Festival. Silver City is an historic mining town in Southwestern New Mexico. Ed traveled along with me again but this time purely as an evaluator.
The trip left in the morning and stopped at the Very Large Array (VLA) in Western New Mexico. At the VLA they have a film, and a very interesting self-guided tour.
We surprised everyone with sandwiches from Sprouts for lunch which I had picked up that morning. Unfortunately, Sprouts had failed to give us condiments. They also had not labeled the sandwiches, so the lunch was a true “surprise” for the guests. The dry sandwiches were a bit disappointing to some. But we merrily headed on down to Silver City.
Silver City
We stayed in an old historic hotel in the middle of town. Silver City is a quaint historic old Mining town. The history was fun. The free museum was next door was great! We were informed that the elevators at the hotel were out, and might not be fixed before we arrived. We were on the second, third, and fourth floor! What was this! A TEST? Luckily I delayed people on the bus for about 10 minutes (giving out room assignments). As we walked into the hotel, the elevator was ready for passengers! Whew. It did mean juggling some guest rooms around in case the elevators were not working. That did cause a little heartache for some. But we survived, and a good time was had by all.
Music Festival
The next day we just ran the bus back and forth as a shuttle to the Music Festival. Everyone was on their own and everyone attended their favorite artists…. I however was working the shuttle most of the day. The bus driver and I did catch an couple hours of music in the evening. Luckily one band was as good as another for me!
Coming home
The bus driver informed me that he could not go on the route we had laid out for him. Ugh… indeed it says right on the map that vehicles longer than 40 are not permitted. So we detoured south through Hatch, NM.
It’s a boring drive. For consolation I arranged to stop at the world famous Sparky’s restaurant featuring Hatch green chili cheeseburgers. Everyone was content. I talked them into waiting for our Socorro McDonald’s stop later that afternoon for an ice cream. But no one mentioned to me that McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines are pretty unreliable! (It’s been a long time since I’ve been to McDonalds). At McDonald’s there was however a guy charging his Tesla at a charging station. Little did I know that he could have been a paid attraction on the tour. He captivated our entire busload of passengers with Q&A about electric cars! I had to pry people away.
And for a final mistake. I had compiled a playlist from all the artists we had seen the day before. My plan was to play them for entertainment on the way home on the us. I thought people would enjoy that as the miles went by in the window. But as I ended the 2-hour section that I played the music on, only then did someone in the back tell me, “You know we couldn’t hear anything back here”. Apparently, I only had the cockpit speakers on. I had neglected to wander back to the back of the bus and make sure the technology was set up right….
Lot’s of lessons for Phyllis on this trip! But at least we got home without having visited the hospital on this trip!
SIDE TRIP to SISTERS on the FLY
I had been gone from home to do these trips the entire month of May. So why not tag an additional weekend on and participate in an event my sister, Monica, was organizing. In truth she had asked me to help with a year ago.
Sisters on the Fly is a National Organization of women who like to get out, camp and be active, but don’t want to do it alone. They like the companionship of women, and are either single or their husbands do not want to go with them. No men allowed! She has belonged to this group for a few years. This year she was hosting a weekend retreat, near her in Berthoud, Colorado. She asked me to come teach/call a square dance for the group.
My friend, Donna Brett, who joined us for the eclipse (read that blog post here), had wanted to join Sisters on the fly for a while. She saw this as the perfect opportunity for an introduction. So she ventured up with her little Casita trailer from Tucson. She picked me up in Albuquerque on her way, and we drove up to the event the first weekend in June.
There was a night of improv training. Also an evening of square dancing (which I taught). We took in a local parade and music festival, wine tasting, kayaking on a nearby lake, campfires, potluck meals. The weekend was complete with a trailer tour to see everyone’s different creative trailers…. Super fun. Glad it fit the schedule.. Then I flew home from Denver.
AND NOW
My tour guests gave me glowing reviews. Many guests asked to be informed when I’d be leading another tour so they could travel with me. Some thought I would “mature into the job with more experience”. But what else could they say when they knew these were my first trips as a tour director. I couldn’t be sure what Ed would report back to the home office.. So I anxiously, and patiently, awaited feedback from the Sun Tours Owner, Eric, about my future at Sun Tours.
Finally, the second week of July, I met with Eric for follow-up. He has assigned me 5 (and maybe more) tours for 2025. I also have a tour assigned over Thanksgiving in 2024. He asked for a profile blurb and photo for their website. So I’m delighted to say that I am now an official Sun Tours Contractor! I feel good about that. I’m not sure that will be enough, but it’s a start. I am plenty appreciative to Sun Tours for their support this far.