Santa Fe, New Mexico

Native Americans?  First Nations?  Indians?  No matter what you call them it is very obvious they were here before the white man.  When you travel across southern Utah, Arizona, SW Colorado, and New Mexico, you are aware of the reservations & pueblos and their lands encompass a very large area.  It took us a whole day’s drive just to get through the Navaho reservation, which is the largest.  Ute, Navaho, Zuni, Hopi, Apache, Jicarilla, Zia, Jemez, Santo Domingo, & Taos Pueblo are some of the reservations/pueblos we passed through.  

Santa Fe was our destination for 2 nights but we ended up here 5 nights as it was so interesting; what a lovely city.  We were fortunate we could leave the van at the campground and take the city bus in for the grand total of $1 a day, in and out.  The “Old Town” was only 20 minutes away so we were there every day.  Around the central Plaza the stores are all independent, with no chain stores allowed.  Many selling native designed jewellery, leather goods, locally made rugs, pottery representing each tribe, art work and south-west style clothing (looks good here but at home under a Gore-tex jacket would look foolish), as well as many excellent restaurants.  Temperature had dropped 10* so it was more comfortable in the mid 30’s C now.

One of the reasons we extended our stay was the fact that the Fiesta was coming up on the weekend.  While at the town Plaza we saw the ‘Spanish’ character actors in full dress practising for the ceremony so decided to stay for at least part of it.  This is a 300 year old, quasi religious ceremony to celebrate when the Spanish reconquered the “natives” in 1610; in a supposedly ‘bloodless takeover’  (aside from the 19 native leaders they hung).  “Whatever', the natives said, as long as there was no more killing, and then they carried on with their own ways.  They continued in peace, even after the Americans took over from the Spanish.  

On Friday the town plaza was encircled with carnival-style food booths, as well as many arts and craft venders.  We saw the official opening ceremony of the 1610 ‘entry’ of the Spanish delegation to the town; the promise that there would be no more killing; and a ceremonial baptizing of the native children.  It was interesting to see the natives, and their children, in their traditional dress.  On Saturday there will be many activities including a parade that takes 2 hours to pass by; a ball on Saturday night; culminating in a religious walk on Sunday from the plaza to the Basilica.  As much as we’d have liked to stay for it all, we knew we had to move on.

No Starbucks here

Oldest Public building in the US

Pueblo Style Building

Shops

Angel, A Santo Domingo Native

Local Ladies

Central Plaza

Spanish Friar Praying for the Natives 

Don Diego de Vargas laying down his armour to prove he comes in peace 

Don Diego promising to look after the Native children 

Representing the Queen of Spain

Fancy Footwear

More Native Footwear 

Arches National Park; Moab, Utah

Arches National Park contains the world’s largest concentration of natural stone arches.  This park is a red, arid desert, punctuated with oddly eroded sandstone forms such as fins, pinnacles, spires, balanced rocks and arches.  The 73,000 acre region has over 2000 of these ‘miracles of nature’.

Continuing on for more punishment, we went hiking again but this time started at 6 AM when it was a little cooler.  It was a good thing because when we were heading back to the campground around noon we could see that the parking lots near the closer arches were completely packed with people double parked and even parked on the shoulder for half a mile along the internal road, making it difficult for other cars to get by.  The distant cluster of arches had 15 mile hikes associated with them to get to the arches so I imagine that in this heat there were fewer people out there (mid 40* C again).  

At Double Arch

(If you want to see a larger version of the pictures just clik on the image.  Look carefully as five of the images have people in them.  Sorry if the photos aren't in a balanced order; a learning problem!)

How Arches are Formed

Pinnacles

Balanced Rock

An Arch Being Formed

Delicate Arch

Hoodoos

Turret Arch 

Double Arch

The Three Gossips

Canyonlands; Moab, Utah

Canyonlands National Park

The last time we were in Moab was 22 years ago with Robin and this was a funky little town; now it is 10 times the size with tourists from all over the world. Young people come for the outdoor adventures - Slik Rock cycling, river rafting, rock climbing, ATVing, hiking, zip lining, etc, etc; while older ones and families come to see the great natural sites among the rich, red rock at Canyonlands and Arches.  After spending 6 hours at the first park and 5 hours the next day at the latter, both with hiking in the blazing heat, we decided to move on in hopes for cooler temperatures.  46*C was just too much!  Although close, both parks are so different.  At Canyonlands you are on the top of a 6000 ft mesa and you look down 2000 ft into the canyons that the Colorado and Green Rivers have carved out over millions of years.  In Arches you are at the 5000 ft altitude with all the arches above you and they have been carved out by wind and rain.  

46 C

Mike overlooking the canyons

Colorado River, a 2000 ft drop

A 4x4 on the Shafer Trail, 1000 ft below

The road up the Shafer Trail

Mesa Arch

When I was here years ago a German tourist was unsuccessfully trying to get his girlfriend to stand on the top of the Mesa Arch so he could take a photo but she insisted on crawling on her hand and knees.  When I offered to take a photo of both of them up there, he climbed up and immediately got down on his knees as well.  It turned out the arch is less than 10 ft wide but there is a drop of 1000 ft on the far side!

The Great Salt Lake, Utah

25 miles north of Salt Lake City there is an 8 mile causeway that goes out to Antelope Island, a 25 mile long island with a 1500 ft mountain peak, situated in the Great Salt Lake.  Four rivers flow into the lake but since there is no outlet, as the water evaporates the lake becomes saltier.  

We went out to see the lake and found that we could get a camp spot overlooking the water. The temperature was in the high 30’s C during the day so we waited until 6 pm to walk to the shore, which took 20 minutes as the water level was so low.  Gorgeous sand on the way but billions of teeny brine shrimp along the edge, with a million sand flies eating them.  They didn’t bother us as the mass was only 4" high but flew forward in waves with each step you took.  Some people had gone swimming but the most we did was put our feet and hands in the water and immediately they were coated with salt.  The water here at the island is 25% salt while at the north end of the lake it’s 45%.  Since there are no showers (or fresh water) at this campground we chose not to submerse ourselves, even though it would have been fun to float on top of the water.  

Moved on to Moab, Utah, which will be my next entry.

Distant Campsite

Our spot from the shore

View from our spot

Tumbleweed

Our silhouettes

Sunset over the lake

Idaho

There is interesting country along the back roads of Idaho and one can see this is definitely mountain terrain.  From a once prosperous gold mining area to a little cattle ranching, now firms offering river rafting trips everywhere you look, you can see that younger people have taken over from the prospectors.  Like Whistler, the occasional ski town has a 4 season focus by adding mountain biking, golf and mansion building (as in Sun Valley).

Taking a bypass from Boise we headed towards Craters of the Moon, a 750,000 acre National Monument that the Shoshone Indians passed through on their annual migration.  The volcanic activity here dates back 15,000 years and the most recent was as early as 2000 years ago.  There was never a massive volcanic eruption but vast volumes of lava flowed from a series of deep fissures.  The lunar astronauts trained here in 1969 and now a small part is open to the public via a 7 mile driving loop that winds through the park, taking you to areas of different lava.  There are examples of the dried flows, spatter cones, cinder cones, projectiles, and if we wanted to hike in 7 miles, we could also see some of the lava tubes and caves.  The following photos are a few examples of what we have seen in the past few days.

Snake Warning

Sawtooth Mountains

National Monument

Road Built over the Flows

Rope-Like Twists

Projectiles

A Cinder Cone We Climbed

Palouse Country, Washington

After heavy hail in Manning Park; finding cherries and peaches for $1 a pound in the Okanagan, and torrential rain north of Spokane, we finally arrived in the sunny Palouse country in southeast Washington. Who gets excited about wheat fields, or "the Dried Pea and Lentil Capital of the US". Why would that area appeal to anyone, or us?
Think of an area from Vancouver to Abbotsford squared, covered with rolling hills formed by a dust called Loess, anywhere from 12 to 18 meters deep.  This rich soil produces double the amount of wheat and lentils, unirrigated.
In the midst of the area is the Steptoe Butte that rises 1000 ft above the surrounding hills with a road that circles the butte twice on it's way to the top.  Mike and I spent several hours there at dusk last night capturing images of the amazing play of shadows and light on these dune-like hills.  Up at 5 am today to head back up for the dawn light, when half way up the butte Mike noticed that our gas gauge was on the very bottom end of the RED warning section.  Afraid we'd end up miles from any passing cars we headed back down and with our hearts in our throats, we crept into a gas station, after finding that the first station had a "No Gas" sign posted on the pumps!
Today we learnt to: never let our gas run that low; that the Nez Perce Indians called their spotted horse breed Appaloosa, after the Palouse region; that here a 'creek' is called a 'crick' and that yes, there really is a Lentil Ice Cream!

Contrasts

Approaching Storm

Dune-like

Wheat Harvesting 

Rolling Hills

New Power Sources

LEAVING HOME

Just getting ready to head out on a 5 week ramble to the US Four Corners region.  This is where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet at one spot.  Our first major destination will be Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, followed by many sites we visited 20 years ago with Robin in northern Arizona, southern Utah and the mountains of Colorado.  Who knows where else?

In June 2013,  at 40* C and after a long 7 mile climb up a summit of 4000 ft our trusty Westphalia just couldn't make it!  All the bells and whistles were protesting so after a 2 day drive south to the Oregon/California border we decided to head back home, knowing that there were higher climbs ahead had we continued.  That was last year and now, after a new engine in Westie, we are going to try again.