Days 21 - 31 continued

On July 28 Bonnie and I hike with another volunteer, Christine, to a ruin in White Canyon up river from Sipapu Bridge. This is a big hike for us, Bonnie especially. We pack lots of water, a lunch and energy food and take the plunge at 8:20 AM. The hike down is easy. The vertical drop is over 500'. We have to come back out this way. It is steep. Steps and ladders show how steep!




Turkey Vultures waiting for a thermal.

Sipapu Bridge from level with the top of it.


Sipapu from close to the bottom of the trail down.
See the ladder in the shade?


The canyon bottom land is lush and green. See Christine and Bonnie in the distance? If not check the next image.
At the ruins. We took gobs of pictures. Parts of the ruins were very well preserved.





Bonnie taking a well deserved rest.
All in all a neat trip. The hike up took a while but we all survived. Another great memory.

Days 21 - 31 continued

On July 27 we head to Blanding to stop at a few shops and The Edge of Cedars State Park. We did not buy much at any of the places we stopped (whew.) At the state park we got to go in a real ruin that has been excavated and restored, including going down into a real Kiva.


This park has one of the best collections of ancient Puebloan pottery around. Much of it fully intact. Beautiful specimens. (Sorry, no pics)

We drive back to Natural Bridges on forest service roads. It takes a while, but is a very pretty drive.
Female Western Tanager

A herd of cows were grazing in the open range.
The rain the day before had erased all tire tracks. These are fresh tracks. Not many people travel these roads.

Days 21 - 31 continued

On July 26th we decided to go to Grand Junction, Colorado, to some stores they have. Bonnie really misses the shopping she regularly and so easily does back in Sarasota. We get north of Monticello, UT and turn to go see Newspaper Rock, a huge panel of petroglyphs. We entered a rain storm on the way and have to sit 10-15 minutes in the parking lot waiting for the storm to pass. As we get out, we realize that the rain has made everything look more color saturated. It is really neat.






A small waterfall from the recent rain, falling into a pool, not a stream.


We see a head in this rock formation. Can you?


As we head north toward Moab, planning on just passing through, we realize that the rain has cooled things off. We had intended to bypass Arches NP, since, on an earlier visit, the temperature in the parking lot had been 104 F . As we pulled into the visitor center parking lot, our car showed 74 F. We decided we could stand that temperature and stay and see Arches. Glad we did. A busy place but definitely one of a kind.


These are called the 3 gossips. They remind us of the 3 wisemen.


Skyline Arch
Delicate Arch

A double arch.


A balancing rock.

Days 21 - 31

(I know, long time, no post.)

The 4 days that I work each week have been occupied with producing a 10 minute video suitable for showing at the park's visitor center. It is my project, my idea. So, that means I have to write the script, research the topics, narrate the script, find interesting music, pictures and video clips I can use in it and then assemble the whole thing on the laptop I have, which only has Windows Movie Maker. It took a while but it is complete and I have given the park a copy of the file. They can burn it onto a DVD. I'm done! I just have a couple of dark sky talks to give, Friday and Saturday, and it's over. Bonnie and I leave Sunday morning, heading east.

So we didn't get to do a lot of traveling or other exciting things, but we did a couple. On July 25th I went to another ruin and took some pictures. This is sunrise on the way.


These are the Butler Wash Ruins.



This is the road cut through Comb Ridge, San Juan Co. Utah. Search for that in Google Earth and you will be able to see it from 100 miles up. It is north/south ridge that is 1000 ft straight up. It was not easy for the pioneers to get over.

Day 22 (July 20) – Durango to Natural Bridges

We are up and out of the hotel by 8:25. Head for Walmart for food and an extension cord. We get on the road out of town by 9:30. We are headed to Silverton (by car not train :-) ) with plans to drive the San Juan Skyway: Silverton, Ouray, Ridgeway, Placerville, and Telluride. We are stopping and taking scenic mountain pictures at every turn. It takes us 2.5 hours to drive 57 miles.





We fall in love with Silverton at first glance. We fix our sandwich lunch and walk the town. Bonnie is in her glory snapping shots of the colorful homes and shops. This is really a neat little town.










As we are heading out of Silverton, Bonnie spots an observatory dome on a house. It may actually be an observatory, but we can't take the time to find out.
By the time we leave, it is 2:00 and we want to stop and see everything and take lots of pictures. What to do? When we get to Ouray, I calculate that we have been averaging 30 miles per hour. At this rate we won’t get back to Natural Bridges until 2 AM. Ack! I am almost convinced to find a room and spend the night, but we see only NO VACANCY signs in Ouray, so we move on. Ridgeway is less inviting to us that Silverton, so we move on to Placerville. Again not much there for us, so we go to Telluride.



Part of a huge prarie dog town outside Telluride.


Another cute little town. We get out and walk a bit, but cut it short, since we are pressed for time.



For the much of the rest of the way in Colorado, we follow the Dolores River. It roughly parallels the road. It is very pretty. The road is much straighter and we make better time. After Dolores we are back in the scrub/sagebrush country and the roads are mostly straight and we FLY. We stop for a hamburger in Blanding and get back to the ranch (NABR) at dark.

No doubt, we have seen some wonderful country today. Bonnie and I both decide that, when it comes to scenery, we are green, not brown and red people.

313 miles today.