Dinosaurs

Headed north on Sunday to Dinosaur National Monument in the northeast corner of Utah. Actually it straddles both Utah and Colorado. The famous 'wall' of dinosaur fossils is not open right now as they are re-doing the roof and visitor center but the campground was not crowded and we got a quiet little place right on the Green River. The rivers are running really high all over the southwest. Extra precipitation from their cold and wet spring is finally making its way into the waterways. We hiked up a short trail to see fossils and a femur bone still embedded in stone but mostly we enjoyed some quiet time to rest and read and enjoy the sun without the wind. Other than all the towns having towering "cute" pink or green plastic dinosaurs at their entrance and roads such as Stegosaurus Boulevard it was a nice place to hole up for a day or two.

Hot Rocks

Steve's hike into Arches on Friday was very interesting. He was going up to Sand Arch and there were cables and people and Park Service folks all over the canyon. Turns out it was a crew from Disney getting ready to set up for a night shoot for a new movie called "John Carter on Mars" based on a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs. They had equipment and props everywhere and some guy was laser scanning the area to computerize it for the backgrounds. Fortunately they just missed Steve when he walked into the canyon but the tech guy went to his computer and made sure Steve was not in the shots and explained what they were doing. (This guy says that this will be "better than Avatar"). They had a 30' balloon that they were going to inflate and put the lights on for the night shot. On our way out we must have seen a dozen or more big equipment trucks coming in to get it shot that night.


Moab is crazy. We must be in the center of the vacation universe. EVERY vehicle (except us) has a bike, atv, or rubber raft attached to it. Folks are driving through our small campground all day and half the night looking for a spot and asking us if we are leaving ... all the places are full. People are camped along the edges of the roads and in turnouts. Arches is a zoo with a lineup of 75 cars waiting to get in so we head to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands. It has been hot here and we are loving it. Shorts and sandals and sunglasses. Sorry to all you folks in the soggy northwest. But we have reluctantly decided to leave on Sunday before the Monday traffic and get away from the camping mayhem. What ever happened to the idea that you should camp peacefully and respectfully in harmony with nature? This next generation are bringing mega tents and gear with them, camping in groups of 12-15 and yelling and shouting at their kids until late, and partying and playing their stereos half the night. (Bah Humbug ... guess we are showing our age). Heading north for a little peace and quiet.

Curse of Hovenweep

We went to Moab early on Thursday and got a nice camping site in the Colorado Riverway just outside of town. We were lucky to get that with the big weekend coming. We wanted to be someplace where we didn't have to drive far to see lots of sites over the weekend. We spent most of the day hiking in Arches (where ALL the campsites are now reservation only). But that evening I realized that the gnat bites were really a problem. What looked like measles on my legs has now turned to looking like chicken pox. It seems that when a mosquito bites you it is a nice clean entry to withdraw blood. But the gnats have mandibles and saw a hole in your skin to extract the blood. Then they leave behind a nasty saliva and a raw hole. I am a mess. I have counted over 130 bites on each leg and about 50 on my arms and even some on my scalp. These things itch like crazy. I dosed myself with cortisone and took a benadryl before going to sleep. It was hot today and tonight (in the 90's today and cooling into the 70's tonight.) The van is hot and stuffy. At midnight I wake up and the Benadryl has acted like having coffee. I am itching like never before. My legs are on fire and I feel like things are crawling on me. I try more cortisone. It calms things for an hour. Now I am into the Aloe. Every 20 minutes. My bites have swollen up and are getting small blisters. Especially the ring of bites around my ankle where the socks were. I am a wreck. Steve is snoring peacefully. I want to throw stuff at him and make him join me in my misery. I try to read but can't concentrate. I am trying not to rip my fingernails up and down my legs. More cortisone. (Now over the daily limit). More aloe .... will this night never end? Finally at 5am I fall into sleep for an hour. Went the pharmacy first thing and got a consult. Pharmacist says Dr. probably can't do much but gives me a benadryl cream. Can't dab it on my bites as there are too many so I slather myself with it in a nice thick cool coating. Ahhh .... We do Arches again but I am not in the mood to hike much. My legs look like I have a bad case of leprosy and I am tired and cranky. Steve does some trails. I stay in the van and read and doze and apply aloe and wait for the cream to start to help. So the curse of Hovenweep really does make you weep. Not only are the bites weeping (and ugly) but I was too. After 24 hours of cream and aloe I am a little better. I am now down to looking like the chicken pox again and the bites are starting to dry and get crusty .... still itchy and ugly, but heading back to measles look. I will definitely have scars from this, physical and psychological.

Hovenweep

We visited the Anasazi Museum in Dolores, CO on a whim and were delighted. What an excellent job they have done with this small place. Lots of artifacts and explanations about the evolution of their pottery and tools and a reconstructed pit house. We then moved on to Hovenweep to see the towers that were built there. We went to the campground and picked out a site and paid for our night. We made some quick sandwiches and then hiked the 3 mile loop trail into the canyon and around the rim to view the sites. Not many folks were here and now I know why. We noticed a lot of gnats. Not a real big deal usually as gnats are annoying but we can get around them. But they were flying into our ears and there were clouds of them that we hiked through. These gnats were annoying the hell out of me and Steve kept telling me that they weren't bothering him much. Turns out this place is famous for a hatch of them and we were in the middle of it. They are the biting Pinyon Gnats and the ranger said that bug repellent does not work but actually makes them worse.They loved me. I have so many bites on my legs and arms I look like I have the measles. Our van filled up with gnats while we had the door opened. No way could we camp here. We left there after a few hours and headed south about 60 miles to Bluffs and camped along the San Juan River in a beautiful spot. Petroglyphs covered many of the canyon walls. Fantastic! Except some of the gnats came with us in the van. We tried opening the windows and blowing them out as we drove but still had some with us. Steve got a few bites that night and was now more sympathetic to my plight.

Mesa Verde

Continuing on with our exploration into the Pueblo culture we visited Mesa Verde again. It had been over 15 years since we were there also and the biggest change was the lack of trees. Several fires over the last 10 years have made this mesa more gray than green because of the dead trees. Most of the ancients dwelling were not damaged by the fires so we got some great visits. We both did the Spruce House Trail and then Steve did Cliff Palace without me. The Cliff Palace can only be taken with a Park Service Guide and it requires several long log ladder climbs up the cliff face to get back up to the rim. It was a beautiful day and a cool evening that night as we camped above 7000 ft again.

Aztec Ruins Monument

While they are not really Aztec, we decided to visit one of the destinations of Chaco's original roads to the north, even though we could not drive it directly. We did leave early (90 minutes to drive the 18 miles of ugly) and we headed up about 60 miles to the town of Aztec where they have excavated and restored portions of a large settlement. These are well planned public buildings of many connected rooms surrounding a central plaza. The West Ruin resembled the great houses built at Chaco and elsewhere in the Southwest. The three story building had over 500 rooms and many kivas - circular ceremonial chambers - including a great kiva in the plaza that has been restored. We were allowed into these structures and could follow the warren of rooms on the bottom floor and enter the main kiva. Since we were fairly early in the morning there were only a few people and it was a very moving experience to sit in the kiva and feel the spiritual strength of the place. We are heading up to Navajo Lake for the night (showers to remove yesterday's dust and grime) and then make a decision about our next destination. We know we need to start heading north ... or at least in that direction.

Chaco Canyon

We heard that it was a long and ugly road into Chaco Canyon and it was indeed both. About 18 miles of dirt road. Normally not a big deal but more than 1/2 of it was serious washboard. I mean 5 mph washboard and watch for things falling off your vehicle. We passed a large assortment of hubcaps, generator fronts, cowling, mysterious black parts, ripped tires, etc strewn along the ditches. It is a county road so Park Service does not maintain or clean it up. But it was well worth the trip. It was a hot day (in the 80's) but the wind was blowing about 25mph so it didn't feel too bad. This valley was the center of a thriving culture a thousand years ago. There is a grand scale to the architecture using unique masonry techniques. They constructed massive stone buildings of multiple stories containing hundreds of rooms. The structures were often oriented to solar, lunar, and cardinal directions. Lines of sight between the great houses allowed communication. Sophisticated astronomical markers, communications features, water control devices were all used and it is believed that it was a ceremonial, administrative, and economic center of the San Juan Basin. Dozens of great houses in Chaco Canyon were connected by roads to more than 150 great houses throughout the region. They think that these were not traditional farming villages in Chaco Canyon but were impressive example of 'public architecture' that were used periodically during time of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events. We are not allowed off trails in this park and we can understand why. The area is full of unexcavated sites and artifacts. It is a dry and seemingly harsh environment and hard to imagine this much work going into a such a well planned and high level of social community organization in this area. The place is very mysterious but considered still a sacred and important part of current Native American culture.
We had heard that there would be high wind warnings that night and it picked up about 4 pm with blowing dust and gusts up into the 50's. We parked our van with its back to the wind and made tacos inside and watched the tent campers struggle with flattened and collapsing tents and no ability to have shelter for meals. We are spoiled in our tin can even though the dust came in the screens and settled on everything.

Rio Charma and Ghost Canyon

We were so taken with the Georgia O"Keefe collection in Santa Fe, especially her landscapes, that we decided we needed to see the area for ourselves. We also have fallen in love with it. We pulled into a camp spot on the Abiquiu Reservoir, picked out a site and and paid our $5.00 early in the day as it was a weekend and campgrounds were scarce on the map. We intended to visit Georgia O'Keefe's house in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch were she spent many summers. The scenery here is breathtaking. Before we did the O'Keefe places we decided to explore a Forest Service Road that the Taos couple had told us about up the Rio Chama River into Ghost Canyon just past Ghost Ranch were she had her house. It was 13 miles long, a one lane, red dirt track up the canyon of the river and one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. The canyon walls are painted in rusts and oranges and mauve and purples with green stripes. The canyon floor is wildflowers and meadow and cottonwood and aspen. Trees alternate on the ridges with the colored walls and other than a ranch going off up a split in the canyon the place is deserted. The contrast in colors and the light is incredible. We went nearly to the end and found a small free campground on the river and could not turn it down. We set up our camp and sat in awe at our surroundings. Steve tried a little fishing, but the river is still high and not yet clear. We camped under a big cottonwood with a scarlet tanager nest. The coyotes were audible but distant during the night and the moon shone half full. Such a magical place. No wind, it was warm, and we slept with all the screens open and got back into our shorts at dawn. This morning we went up the last mile where there is a monastery that has been there for over 40 years. It was still early so we did not snoop around but it is enough to make you want to join just so you could live there. We took a pile of photos and we are disappointed in all of them. They just cannot capture the color and the scale and the sheer grandeur of the place. We have been really taken with Northern New Mexico and find it hard to leave here. We came back out today and it took an hour to travel the 12 miles. We got more ice for our cooler and some more bread and we gave the campground hosts in Abiquiu some song and dance about why we were not here last night before they locked the gates and got another night, but the wind is blowing and I am missing our camp at Rio Chama already. We plan to head to Chaco Canyon tomorrow ... but we may just go back up that canyon and let the 'ghosts' capture us again for a little while longer.