Part Three: Roadtrip in Snowflake

We planned our eighth day of travel to be in Moument Valley, to wake up early and beat the crowds to take the self-guided car tour of Monument Valley. We were up well before dawn, grabbed coffee, and were third in the short line to enter the loop rode by 6:30 a.m. just before the sun came up. (To minimize impacts, and due to Covid, only 15 cars are allowed at one time to be on the two-hour loop. You could drive it faster, but why would you?)

Even with a lot of pretty good pictures, it is impossible to catch the beauty of the place. We kept trying, with Cell Phones and my daughter's loaned Canon camera. Every few hundred yards one of us would go "Oh!. Look at that!"

And then we would go around a bend in the dirt road, and the view would change. Like this.

And then a new vista would appear, with the sun climbing slowly everything changed every minute.

I suspect this photo is out of sequence, as it looks a lot like the moonrise the evening before.

And then we would have to take pictures of each other just to prove we were there.

The scale of the monuments is such that you hardly have time to consider the geological changes that took place over millions of years.

Whether far away.....

Or nearby.

When we finished the drive through the Monuments, we went back up to the Visitor Center atop the ridge looking east. The information center was closed, but the gift shop was open. It proved to be a good stop. Everything they offer is carefully labled, and one entire section is devoted to native-made items, from large expensive pottery to small souvenirs. They had a lot of Navajo silver and jade jewelry, not something we collect, but we could admire the workmanship.

One more view from the ridge looking east.

The Navajo people, who call themselves "Dine'", have done an excellent job protecting and sharing this national treasure. They not only manage the resort and visitor experiences, they also live in the valley among all this beauty. Side roads, marked "private" lead off to small ranches and homes and hogans tucked in among the towers. A few horses and sheep are always visible, and you can get a feel for what it is like for people who have lived here for hundreds or thousands of years. The people we encountered were friendly and helpful. The best example was when we had trouble with a tire, and were considering calling AAA from a town 100 miles away. At the trading post gas station, the air pump was broken and they said there was no help anywhere nearby. But a shop keeper in the native market told us about a local man who had a tire shop, and gave us directions. In this area, the directions were to go along the road past the commercial RV park, expect the road to be narrow and maybe dirt, but look for a home off to the right with tires stacked outside a small wooden garage. We pulled into the yard, and the man stopped what he was doing, helped us immediately, and fixed the problem.

And so, as the old travelogue movies used to say, we bid farewell to the incredible Monument Valley.

Go visit this place. It should be on every bucket list. Next and finally: On to Colorado. Briefly.

Part Two -- Travels with Snowflake

 Day Five began on the road from Great Basin National Park in Nevada, driving  east across Utah and then south through Moab and on to Blanding, a small town in the middle of some of the prettiest country you will ever see. And it ended in the stupendous collosal Monument Valley

To get there we started east along Highway 50, joined Interstate 70, and then turned south on 191.

The western side of Utah starts out in dry brushy rolling hills, then comes into large dry valleys and finally through farming towns like Hinkley, where we finally saw some green, and through the little farm town Delta. Breakfast in the cafe there included a conversation overheard that ranged from the Mormon church leadership's recent  pro-mask announcement for Covid prevention, to one farmer telling another to never quit his job working for someone. Let them fire you, and you can either collect benefits or sue, he said.

Very few people in rural Utah towns wear masks.

(Note: I read that every town and county in Utah except Salt Lake City has a large majority of Mormons in residence, including places like Hinkley and Delta. Probably true, but for they seem to have the same concerns, manners and politics as almost any other rural areas.)

A word about the Interstate 70 route across Utah. It has to be one of the  most beautiful stretches of Interstate Highway in the nation . 

 Hidden back in the canyons are  miles of off-road trails, and you can see evidence in hundreds of off-road vehicles with roll-bar cages and open sides at a scattering of towns and trailer parks.   The roads follow the old Pony Express route, and some places brag about that brief moment in Western history. Mostly it is seen through a series of "historical markers," several pointing out that just over the hills the intruding pony riders encountered hostility from the natives.

Also off the road a few miles are major fossil sites, where dinosaur bones can be seen if your vehicle can handle the back roads.

Once we left the Interstate highway, where the speed limit was 80 mph, traffic slowed slightly as we drove south  by Arches National Park where cars were backed up waiting to get in, through Moab which is always jammed with tourists and four-wheeled contraptions of every kind.

We landed for a couple of nights at an older motel in Blanding, Utah, just north of the Navajo Reservation and near Bear's Ears National Monument,

Blanding is a comfortable town, with a large Native American population and a couple of good places to eat, and a laundromat where we refreshed our limited clean clothes.

We discovered a wonderful museum at the Edge of the Cedars State park, right on the edge of town. The park has an excavated pueblo dwelling site, complete with kiva, but it was the collection inside that was so fascinating. They had Anasazi pottery and basketry, some items a thousand years old, and all found nearby,  all of them very rare. The displays contained a lot of information, interestingly presented. It is a must-see museum if you travel that way.

Pat taking in some of the upper floor exhibits.

A native flute, a woven water jug and what have been children's arrows.

And Kiva to explore.

We ended the day at our cabin at Monument Valley. The Navajo Nation's Monument Valley. It looks and feels like a national park, but is located on and run very well by the Navajo Nation. The series of photos below are all from our first afternoon. We arrived too early to check into our cabin or take the long car tour through the valley so we rode around, checking out Goulding's Trading Post a few miles away, the only open place to eat, a gas station and the gift shop. The pictures are mixed due to editing problems but you can tell that once we got into our cabin we were more than happy with the view right out the front window. The cabins are located on two rows, ours in the back but at a higher elevation, so every cabin has the spectacular view of the Valley spread out below. The giant monuments, buttes and mesas, dominate everything. At the time it was sunset so the colors were even more fantastic. The "resort" is called "The View" and is operated by the Navajo. Normally it has everything you would need: hotel, cabins, RV park, Visitor Center, a choice of tours (guided or not)cafe and gift shop. Due to Covid the only things open were the tours, gift shop, hotel and cabins. The cabins where we stayed are modern and clean, have a refrigerator and microwave, good beds, and a tiny extra room with two extra (bunk) beds. It is not cheap (about $200 a day) but you get a thousand dollar view plus comfort.

John Wayne's cabin was on the Goulding Trading Post property, a reminder of when western movies were made in the area. Next: More Monument Valley.

Part 1 -- Road Trip with Snowflake-- 2021

(A preview of Monument Valley at Dawn)

 
Our September journey of 2,272 miles began about one hour later than planned, our normal pace, and we arrived back home pretty much on schedule. 

We found the pleasures of travel are still there when you go out looking. There is beauty just waiting for us to seek it.

We traveled five Western states in two weeks starting at our California home and going across back roads in  Nevada and Utah, and looping through Arizona and Colorado.

We did not have a precise plan, just a vague destination, and that worked out very well.  This was a road trip: part camping, lots of driving, and part resting in places along the way.

There is beauty to be found everywhere. But the highlights were the Navajo's Monument Valley, Arches National Park,  Great Basin National Park, the southern end of the Rockies at Durango, plus miles and miles of beautiful open country across Utah and Nevada. Lots of geology everywhere.

A few basics: 

--We traveled in "Snowflake," our 2002 Volkswagen Eurovan. and the odometer passed 100,000 miles during the trip. A few times the speedometer went over 80 mph. We averaged about 20 miles per gallon.

--We were on the road 14 days.

--We camped  in our van seven days, stayed in a cabin for two, and spent four nights in motels.

Our route took us from home in Murphys, Ca.,  across Ebbetts Pass into Nevada, and then south through Moab, Utah to Monument Valley on the Arizona line. From there we drove into Colorado, and then homeward along essentially the same path.

The Covid pandemic effect was everywhere, but we were cautious, wore our masks, and honored the businesses and sites that took it seriously. 

What follows is a day-by-day log and where we were and what we saw.

Days 1 and 2 

We pulled out of our driveway in Murphys on a Monday morning  fortified with coffee, drove east across Highway 4 (Ebbetts Pass Scenic Highway-- elevation over 9,000 feet), through the town of Markleeville and on into the high plains of Nevada.

Across Nevada we avoided Interstates and traveled the "loneliest highway" -- US 50 --  which runs due east from Carson City.  It isn't really all that lonely, but traffic and towns are sparse and even in a Volkswagen van you can cruise along at 75 and make good time.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder in Nevada

Once you leave the high plains of western Nevada, where wild horses really do roam alongside the highways, you come into a widely spaced series of old mining towns in the mountains. Before you get there you pass through Fallon, a town that proclaims itself an "oasis," and is fueled by military installations scattered throughout the desert. There is a Naval Air Station (think "Top Gun" stuff), a bombing range, and even the site of underground nuclear test sites.  One suspects a lot of UFO sitings happen nearby.

At the mining towns you can sometimes find breakfast, but sometimes everything seems closed down. Even the Owl Casino and Cafe was closed, along with everything else,  when we passed through Eureka. 

We stop when it is interesting:  Frequently.

We stopped for the night, as planned, at a beautiful campsite at the Hickison Petroglyphs near Austin, a site managed by the Bureau of Land Management. There are only 16 sites, but the campground is rarely full unless it is time for local native Americans to collect pine nuts -- a local tradition.

The only noise was coyotes howling at night in the distance.

The view of the high desert was better than my photo.

Reading.

We stayed there two nights, just because we could, taking short walks, overlooking high desert and listening for coyotes at night. 

The petroglyphs  are along a short trail adjacent to the campground, with symbols and carvings chipped into the canyon walls.

Pat checking the Petroglyphs.

It is a nice quiet spot to stay, but it is "dry" camping: clean pit toilets, but no water or electricity. But we had a quiet well-designed campsite with a shelter, picnic table and a fire pit. (Because of the fire season we did not have a campfire anywhere during the trip.) 

As a place to camp, without urban amenities, I give it five stars.

Day  3 and 4: We had an early breakfast at Ely, Nevada, landed later at Big Basin National Park, almost into Utah, one of the few western national parks we had never seen.

It is a beautiful park, reaching from the desert basins to the peak of the mountains. A major feature of the park is a large cave, where tours are booked well ahead, so we missed that. (The Visitor Center  gave us an introduction.)

Lunch at the only open place in the town of Baker: Sandra's

I was allowed to serve the meal

The campite inside the park came with deer and turkey, and was full every evening. It was very quiet, the sites were wide-spread. Because of the  demand we shared our campsite with a couple camping out of the back of their truck. She paid us with a jar of home-made jam.

Pat had time to practice music

I had time to read.  I think I finished about six novels during the tip, several by Bernard Cornwell, and one by park ranger Nevada Barr and one mystery from James Patterson. Reading at night was helped by our new LED lights inside the camper, augmented by solar lamps we carry everywhere.

The Aspen were turning along the hiking trails. In mid-September the leaves were just beginning to turn, but only above 9,000 feet. But it still felt like Fall.

This was the easy hike, where we met an artist... Notice the hiking trail is handicap accessible by using rubber mats over small stones, a clever idea.

Next: On to Utah and Monument Valley

Visiting Yosemite History

 Yosemite National Park -- To avoid the TV and the worries of 2020 we spent election day in Yosemite National Park. Looking for history.

The visit marked 40 years since my first visit after we moved west in 1980. That visit was with two then-small children (Pat was traveling back east) in our bright orange VW Westfalia camper. I got slightly lost driving to the park, but eventually found our way. It cost $5 to get into the park. Much to my surprise it was crowded and the only camping spot we could find was on the Tioga Pass Road at a place called Smokey Jack Campground. We woke up to snow on the ground, both a delight and a concern. (The campground no longer exists, a victim of NPS policy to concentrate visitors and eliminate low-cost lodging.)

Forty years later Pat and I drove  into Yosemite early, arriving around 9 a.m. in time to see the sun coating the north said granite walls with light. It was a cool but beautiful morning.

We visited a few of the scenic sites, admired the surroundings, but spent the best part of our day in the Pioneer Cemetery, reading tombstones and remembering the people who were here 150 years ago.

James Lamon (no relation) was the first white settler in Yosemite. He homesteaded before Abraham Lincoln declared the valley a national treasure, then Lamon built a log cabin and established a farm with crops and orchards. The local Indians had been run off or killed  less than 10 years earlier, and he got along with the few who had returned. 

Like many men of that era he had come west for gold, didn't find much, and located a place to call home. His cabin was located in the upper or Eastern end of the valley, near what is now used for a horse stable and tourist parking. Some of his trees survive to this day, and volunteers come in and pick the fruit so they will not attract bears.

We drove into the area where his cabin was located, and then went to the cemetery to pay our respects.

Lamon's grave

Here is a link to Lamon and the park: https://www.nps.gov/yose/blogs/the-first-pioneer-settler-of-yosemite-valley.htm

The Pioneer Cemetery in Yosemite includes the graves of many pioneers and early settlers, and victims of the then-harsh lives they lived. 

 John Muir is not buried here but near his home in Martinez, Ca.  But if you want a  glimpse of Muir in Yosemite you can hike the paved trail below Yosemite Falls and see the site of the lumber mill where he lived and worked when he first arrived. It is marked by a hard-to-spot stone bench alongside the creek.

Muir was hired to produce lumber by a pioneer entrepreneur and resident named James Mason Hutchings, who has not one but two tombstones marking his grave in Yosemite.  The larger stone, a chunk of granite, was apparently put in place when his teenage daughter Florence, the first white child born in the Valley,  died in an accident on the trail while leading a group of tourists up a steep trail. Mount Florence is named for her. The inscription for her is located on the top side of the granite.

Hutchings is not what you could call a popular hero of the early days. He was apparently a rather stuffy Englishman, with  opinions about everything. By trade he was a publisher, and that led him to come to Yosemite very early leading a tourist group that included artists, and then deciding to promote Yosemite as a destination. He bought a partially-completed hotel/cottage near the Merced River with a view of the tall waterfall, promoted the Valley through magazine articles and books, and saw himself as the "father of Yosemite."  In stereographic pictures from 1860 he shows up in almost every photo, posing in a boat on the river or on horseback in a meadow. He would hire the photographer, and then be the model.

Here is his history from the park service site: https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/hutchings.htm

He picked the site for his grave, and I suspect dictated the carving which says:

Father of Yosemite

Builder of the first trails, roads, 

bridges and dwellings of this

valley

In the same plot are his daughters and his second wife. It has been rumored for years that Hutchings and Muir did not like each other, perhaps because Muir was well liked by the ladies in his family. Whatever the truth, neither man ever really mentioned the other in their extensive writings about Yosemite.

Hutchings fought the federal and state governments for years, disputing the claim he was on public land. He eventually lost the argument, but won some money for his trouble.

Hutchings "hotel" was a rustic place on the south side of the river looking at the waterfall. He improved it and it grew through the years, notably with an enclosed back porch that featured a giant cedar tree in the middle of the room. He added glass to the windows, which had been holes, and partitions inside instead of sheets hanging from the rafters.

Today, the site of the hotel can be located by crossing the south side road at the Sentinel Bridge, directly across from the stop sign is a broken tree in a small clearing.

That's what remains of Hutchings' once-famous hotel, along with a flat stone that may have been a fireplace hearth. Look  up about ten feet and you can see wire which apparently supported part of the porch roof, and marks in the back left from where the roof was attached to the tree.

Hutchings essentially was kicked out of Yosemite when the settlement was done, but he came back after a political change in the commissioners who "ran" the valley fired the first guardian, Galen Clark, and replaced him with Hutchings. That didn't last, and Hutchings eventually gto the job of managing a tourist attraction in Calaveras County, at Calaveras Big Trees. He died at 84 while driving a buggy on the Big Oak Flat Road heading for a visit to Yosemite.

Hutchings legacy has always been clouded by his less-than-popular style. He was identified by one pioneer as grumpy. But he was the person more than any other who promoted the beauty of the valley, brought artists and authors and photographers into the valley to spread its fame, and played a significant role in making Yosemite known to the world.

Galen Clark, on the other hand, was a competent quiet man who had come to the Wawona area to escape to the woods for his failing health. Clark's Station was a popular stage stop on the route into the park in the 1800s, and he had a reputation as a warm host. His experience in the area led to his being named the first guardian of Yosemite once the state took control, a role he fulfilled for decades.  He was, as the state likes to point out, the very first park ranger.

Unlike Hutchings, Clark made friends, did what he was asked, and when he got older voluntarily stepped down from his guardian role, suggesting that  a younger man would be better for the demanding job. Here is a site with a lot more detail: https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/galen-clark.htm

Clark's Grave

Clark selected his gravesite and planted four Giant Sequoia seedlings at the corners. Today they mark his gravesite, along with one new tree that has sprung up.

He originally came to the area because his health was failing, and he decided the mountains would either kill him or cure him. Like Hutchings, he lived a very long life.

Every graveyard has stories to tell, and Yosemite's are compelling even when incomplete. How did John Anderson get killed by a horse? He was best known as one of the earliest people to climb Half Dome. 

Who exactly were the dozen or more native Americans buried in the graveyard and what sort of lives did they lead?

The cemetery is a place that speaks through the decades of triumphs and tragedies. It is a good place to spend a little time. Read more at: https://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_indians_and_other_sketches/cemetery.htm

Chapter Two -- Waiting on the Virus

Murphys, Ca. , March 27, 2020 --  We are not isolated, but we are living a totally different life than just two weeks ago.
We live in a small subdivision (Teeny Town) occupied primarily by retired or near-retired folks. A few still work every day, either from home or a strictly isolated office environment, but we also have a good number of retired people between 75 and 90, all within a block of us.

Our weeks used to be defined by meetings and gatherings with friends, all gone now.
Doctor appointments have been cancelled or postponed. 
Pat's routine gathering with a group of women friends  postponed.
My trips to the state park to volunteer are postponed.
Our church "small group" meeting postponed.
Music jams on Mondays and choir practice on Wednesdays postponed.
My occasional trips with friends to the local casino postponed, as are my weekly poker games with neighbors.
Frequent visits and shared meals with our neighbors are postponed. We have figured out we can share food without direct contact, and a lot of that goes on.  Last night our neighbor provided steak, which I grilled, and a salad. Pat made wild rice and other sides, and we carried them across the street and left them on the porch.
Church is postponed, though an online version is available which we watch.
It is a very different way to be.

We set up a daily schedule for ourselves, which is rarely precise, but it is something like this:
8-10 a.m.  Get up, stagger around, make coffee, drink coffee, and then decide if breakfast is a real production or a Granola bar. Pat almost always gets up early, and me late, because I usually stay up later.
10 a.m. Exercise. This may be a walk around the block, further if the weather is good, or Tai Chi in the living room (nor far from the coffee pot), or both. Pat is recovering from back surgery, doing well after about eight weeks, and my tender back is improving to the point our daily mileage is increasing slowly from a  short block, to more distant spots.
We eat, exercise and walk  just the two of us. We may chat with a neighbor who is out doing the same thing or on the porch, but always from a distance and not for very long. We do not go into anyone else's house.
11a.m. to 1 p.m. This is chore time. We try to have one household chore lined up every day, but we get sloppy. The idea is good though. We have reorganized kitchen cabinets, sewed some drapes, written to friends, gone through a few old photo albums (we threw nothing out). Pat spends some of her time on the phone and computer dealing with the church's Parish Care system, checking on people by phone, arranging food deliveries etc.,  and I spend some of my time dealing with the state park's non-profit organization, which has five employees, and is the major source of money for educational programs during normal times.
1 p.m. to 2 p.m. We have lunch, either leftovers or something light, at the kitchen counter.
2 p.m. till 5 p.m. We may keep working on chores, or move on to reading a book or playing games on the computer. I spend more time than necessary on Facebook, chatting with friends and trying not to be nasty to politicians I despise.
We may sneak in a nap, usually an hour, and take another walk if the weather is good.
5 p.m. 7 p.m. is taken up with dinner. We are well stocked, which was sort of an accident because I made  big run before the virus hit. Normally we would eat out a lot but that is on hold.

7 p.m. to bedtime. We choose up sides and go to our computers for a while, reading or playing card games. Or read in a chair. We rarely watch TV but have signed up for Netflix at the urging of our children.

Sailing ... Part 1 ... Getting started

At the dock of the Oakland Yacht Club around 2010

As a teenager I lived on or near the Gulf of Mexico and spent most summers hanging out with friends on the waters of Mobile Bay and beaches of the coast. One hot afternoon in 1966, lounging on the end of a pier at Point Clear on the bay, two of us decided to take my friend's parent's Sunfish -- a tiny "sailboat" built for single-handing --  off the dock and learn how to sail.

Point Clear, on Mobile Bay

We knew nothing but we were 16, confident, tanned and competent swimmers.
So we took the boat, let the wind fill the single sail, and went off into the middle of the bay with the wind hard at our backs. Maybe a mile or two offshore the water became a bit rougher, the wind harder, and the ship channel busier.
Time to turn back: we pointed the boat to land, and the boat stopped. The wind was on our nose and we  began to figure out that the wind and tide was slowly pushing us toward the Gulf of Mexico, not our preferred destination. Freighters were passing us, heading toward South America.
 We had never heard of "tacking."
I would not say we panicked, but we began to express some concern to each other. We gave up on the sail, got on our knees and began paddling by hand toward the shore. Eventually we were within hailing distance of the end of the pier where my friend's younger brother was watching from a canvas chair.
We yelled. He ignored us. The wind blew us further offshore. We yelled more, He laughed and ignored us more.
Finally an adult heard the noise, ordered the brother to crank up a ski boat and  tow us back to the dock. The brother was amused, but we were not. We received specific instructions from parents that night on the folly of our ways, and gave up sailing a Sunfish.

A sunfish, competently controlled

By the time the next sailing opportunity happened, I was a mature married man with a wife and baby, in my late 20s, and better adept at avoiding trouble.  An older co-worker named Burke Edwards had purchased an older sailboat, a 32 foot Islander designed for bays and coasts near Cocoa Beach. We rode along with Burke and his wife Beth in the lagoons of  the Indian River, maybe twice when he offered us an invitation. Would we like to go the Bahamas with them on vacation? The Bahamas were about 90 miles away from the Florida coast, across the Gulf Stream, in an area affectionately known as the Bermuda Triangle.
Burke was older, and had some sailing and navigation experience, and we learned later could not see well. Plus, in his 60s, he wanted a younger helper along.
Pat's parents lived nearby and volunteered to babysit our less than one-year-old daughter for us to accept the chance of a lifetime.
I figured we would learn as we went. And we did.
We motorsailed down the Intercoastal Waterway for  a couple of days, getting used to the boat and the tight quarters. The night before we were to leave at dawn to cross the Gulf Stream, I tried to go to bed early on the dining table bed, but the others were so excited they stayed up, standing near ny bunk, talking loudly. Finally, around midnight I gave us and suggested we leave. And we did.
Leaving the Port of Palm Beach was easy, even at night, but the moment we were on the ocean things changed. There were lights everywhere from fishing boats and freighters going up and down the coast. For three or so hours we were dodging traffic.
Then when things calmed down Burke announced he was going to bed and I was in charge at the helm. His instructions were to point the boat at a certain fuzzy star off to east, don't hit anything, and call him if I needed help.
Before dawn he got up and checked his primary navigation tool, a radio direction finder that could just barely notice the signal from a radio tower at Grand Bahama Island's east end.

The marina at Jack Tar Resort Bahamas

Amazingly, around 9 a.m. we spotted the island and the the entrance to the harbor. We felt we had conquered the vast ocean, or at least  apart of it. and discovered paradise. We cleared customs, tied up at a dock, cleaned up the boat and broke out the beer. Over the next few days we found beautiful beaches, clear waters, caught lobster off the back end of the boat for lunch and lived the good life.
We sailed down to Freeport, a queasy and rough trip, to get our little stove repaired and then sailed across the shallow banks toward West End, the northernmost Bahama Island known mostly for deep sea fishing in the Atlantic. We ran aground en route, which it turns out is a routine exercise while sailing there, and finally got unstruck when some friendly Bahamians dragged us off the sandbar. A Tropical Depression moved into the area with rain and wind, so we stayed tied up at the dock within easy reach of the beer bar and pool table.

Walker Key as it looked before developers

We sailed  by West End, and in fairly rough seas started back to Florida. The currents are so strong that to get to Palm Beach we had to aim for Miami, and let the tide push us north. We were doing well despite heavy swells, when the dinghy broke loose and we performed a "man overboard" rescue to retrieve it, and then lost our engine just as the wind picked up while approaching the inlet. We checked in with the Coast Guard and they assured us they would watch us, and then Burke  put me at the helm and stood on the bow and directed us through the rolling breakers, surfing our way neatly into port as if we knew what we were doing.
Three weeks aboard a 32 foot boat with friends, we had salt in our veins. It took a while, but we came back to it.

(More to come)