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Old Walls

Old Walls

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Our accommodation in Taos, New Mexico, is a shoebox-sized room with thick adobe walls and a dutch door. The ceiling beams are hewn from thick logs and the bathroom is decorated with colorful tiles. 

In the lobby are potted plants, a small library, and more of those thick adobe walls. 

I think about the lives lived in these snug places, the coziness they promise, the insulation and warmth. In the garden, hollyhocks climb and a small stream ripples. Hammocks promise rest on warm days. 

It’s a slower, older way of life here. I think I could get used to it. 

Canyonlands

Canyonlands

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Utah has five national parks. There is Bryce with its hoodoos, Zion with its waterfalls, Arches with its, well, arches, and Capitol Reef with its domes. And then there is Canyonlands, the park we visited yesterday. 

I expected fewer people and a longer drive from Moab. What I wasn’t expecting was grandeur to rival the Grand Canyon. There were mesas and buttes and the Colorado River. There were rim walks and steep drops. There were vistas beyond vistas, and a view called Grand. Maybe not the Grand Canyon, but pretty darn close.

Rainstorm at Arches

Rainstorm at Arches

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I told myself I wouldn’t take many photos yesterday when we toured Arches National Park. I’d visited five years ago, on a blue-sky May Monday, and snapped plenty of pictures then. Surely I didn’t need anymore.

But the index finger gets peckish in the presence of great natural beauty,. It wants to preserve the vistas. It hovers and snaps, almost without my permission.

I’m telling myself that every photo was justified. Yesterday’s weather was more dramatic. Dark thunderheads, lightning, and a driving rain (conveniently timed for our drive out of the park). But I took sunny shots, too. 

Utahhh!

Utahhh!

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We arrived yesterday in red rock country, Utah, USA,  Moab to be exact. 

The drive from Pagosa Springs took us through passes and canyons, mountains on the horizon.When we arrived I could almost hear the collective sighs escaping from visitors to this magical place. 

It’s grandeur on a galactic scale. It reminds me of what our youngest daughter used to ask us on her first trip out west. “What country are we in?”

Can it possibly be the same one that includes Virginia? Doesn’t seem possible. 

Chimney Rock

Chimney Rock

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A thousand years ago, Ancestral Puebloans made their home in the desert southwest. Yesterday we trudged the trails they navigated a millennia ago as we explored Chimney Rock, a national monument celebrating Chaco culture.

These were sky-watching people, who learned that every 18 and a half years, the moon would rise between Chimney Rock (right) and Companion Rock, the two sandstone spires above. This alignment is made possible by a phenomenon known as Major Lunar Standstill, a time when the moon appears to pause for three years in its wobbly north-to-south cycle. 

It’s believed that the Great House Pueblo we visited today was constructed in 1093 A.D., during one of these times. Another one is happening later this year. I wish I could be here to see it.

Elevation 11,700

Elevation 11,700

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We reached the Lobo Pass overlook on our way home from Creede, a quick detour. We piled out of the truck and into the pure air, dark clouds building and rain visible miles away. 

Once again, I tried taking a panoramic photo of the view in front of me, and once again I failed. Instead I tried to memorize what I saw from the pass: the never-endingness of it, dark forested hills in the foreground and sunlit peaks behind. A parfait of mountains, sky and clouds. 

We took turns guessing the elevation. I low-balled it at 8,800 feet, a rookie move since we’re staying above 7,000 and this was much higher. Others estimated 9,000 or 10,000. Then we looked it up: 11,700. Almost 12,000 feet above sea level. No wonder it felt like we were on top of the world. 

Last Chance Mine

Last Chance Mine

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When we pulled into the cramped parking lot we had gone as far as we could go. Last Chance Mine, the sign read, and that’s just what it seemed. Our last chance to visit a mine on this trip, since the Creede Mine was closed. Our last chance to turn around and find the loop road that was taking us around the mountain. 

Turns out, the name had another, more colorful meaning. A long-ago prospector, Ralph Granger, having struck out on other claims, was about to give it all up, move to Denver and become a city boy. This was his last chance to hit it big, he told his cronies down at the bar. But when Granger went to collect his burro (the sale of which would be his ticket out), he couldn’t find the critter. He looked around town to no avail, finally locating him 2,000 feet up the mountain. 

Granger was so angry at the wild goose chase that when he reached the burro he beat his hammer on a rock to vent his frustration. And that strike revealed the apex of a rich silver vein that ultimately yielded over $2 billion of the precious medal. 

We toured the mine yesterday, getting a taste of mining life circa 1891. It was fascinating and creepy. The best part: after an hour and a half they let us out. We made our way down to the old Wild West town of Creede, its main street dead-ending in a box canyon, and celebrated with ice cream. 

Ice Cave Ridge

Ice Cave Ridge

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When I was a kid, I liked to explore the farm behind our house. It was mostly a cow pasture, but my romantic 14-year-old self once mapped it, naming one sheltered section the Land of Eternal Snows. 

I probably made this discovery in early March,  and I imagine that the small amount of white stuff that remained was gone the next day, but the Land of Eternal Snows it was.

Today I walked past fissures so protected from the sun that snow can last in them well into June. Since we were hiking in August, these were simply caves, not ice caves, but to peer into them was to see the earth revealing itself, layer by layer. 

What was most impressive about this trail, though, were the views off the ridge: mountains beyond mountains and a brow across from our trail, higher and more impressive than the one where we stood. I stayed well back from the edge. I always do. 

A Golden Day

A Golden Day

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We arrived during the”golden hour,” that magical period of shadows and slanted light, and the arrival time seems to be casting its glow on the whole trip: The view from our place in Pagosa Springs, which goes on forever. 

The funky downtown, with its hot springs, river and old general store.

The late-day walk we took with two doggie friends — short legs, big hearts.

And moonrise over the San Juan National Forest. A golden day from start to finish.

Great Circle Route

Great Circle Route

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It was a clear flight most of the way into Denver yesterday, and I had a window seat. I snapped a few photos and today discovered where they were: Wellington, Ohio; Bellevue, Ohio — places a little south of Lake Erie, whose shores we flew over for a while. 

Less than an hour later we were sailing above the clear blue of a large inland sea: Lake Michigan. From there we angled down through southern Wisconsin and Minnesota, crossing the Mississippi not far from Prairie du Chien. 

Clouds moved in as we traversed Iowa and Nebraska but they cleared as we approached Denver, long enough to see the irrigation circles in eastern Colorado. It was a geography lesson in a nutshell, a lovely morning in the heavens on the great circle route.