Dreams, Moments, Travels
Our vacation covered a lot of landmarks, including these 12 National Parks and Monuments. After having visited more than 120 facilities, we have collected a crate of these brochures, sadly, budget cuts are going to trim how many brochures the parks are sent to a mere 5000 – imagine that the Grand Canyon has millions of visitors every year. Missing from the photo are brochures for Pt. Reyes National Seashore and the Grand Teton National Park.
Adenium Obesum, or Desert Rose, was in full bloom today, greeting us with only its second flowering since the year 2000 when we bought this plant. A million thanks to Rinku Shah, who thankfully took care of our plants and cat while we were gone on vacation.
Disclaimer: This blog entry wasn’t written until 17 years after the trip. It should be noted that it was a huge mistake to have not written it way back when. Sometimes, after writing so much about other days, it happens that at the time directly after the trip (or even during), I convince myself that the details are not that important. Years later, these details are that important, and pulling them out of foggy memories is difficult. The photos help and often leave clues, and then Caroline’s memories are usually far clearer than mine. With that said, here goes.
Here, we are approaching the conclusion of an incredibly ambitious, maybe overly ambitious, trip that took in 9 states over 16 days. Our overnight was at Jacob Lake Inn, where we snagged a cabin; we were about to have breakfast at their restaurant.
Under incredibly clear skies, we are driving down to the north rim here in the Grand Canyon National Park, our 14th National Park or Monument of this trip.
Talk about choosing the right day to be here.
The south rim looks like it’s a stone’s throw away, while the San Francisco Peaks over in Flagstaff are about 60 miles away as the crow flies but about 200 by car.
You might notice that we were not out here for sunrise, nor will we be on hand for sunset, which is all okay as there’s no small amount of exhaustion going on. Then again, this kind of visibility is outrageous.
While this side of the Grand Canyon is not as busy as the south rim, how we calculated our arrival when absolutely nobody else was here will have to remain a mystery.
As I said, no one else is here with us.
Just us and this tree.
As I stop to really look at this photo of mother and daughter, I’m realizing that there are more photos of these two together in the United States than were ever taken of them in Germany where they were born and Jutta still lives.
We are now on our way home; if only that were our home over there.
The Vermillion Cliffs area of our state of Arizona is one of our great treasures, but rarely, if ever, have I heard anyone else mention them.
From here, we’ll turn south and, in about 4 hours, be pulling into the driveway of the place we live. Here is the Navajo Bridge.
Both the new and the old Navajo Bridges cross the Colorado River. The old one is now only used for foot traffic while foot traffic is forbidden on the newer road bridge.
So, as I wrote in my disclaimer in the previous days’ posts, these entries have been written between 15 and 17 years after the events of the days covered. There was indeed a two-year gap in finishing the writing and photo prep due to losing track of working on this sequence, with other things grabbing my attention, but now they are done. While lacking the granular details, I’d like to have reminisced with, at least we now have a comprehensive visual record with minor tidbits brought to the blog, which will allow a greater chance of us stumbling into the images than when they sit in storage on a hard drive. Writing today, I think back to when my mother-in-law still had the ability to join us for such grueling adventures and wish we could share these old memories with her, but she’s in assisted living these days, and cognitive issues limit her ability to follow what she’s looking it on a computer or phone screen. Another reminder to do the things with those you love when they can be fully enjoyed and then celebrated for years into the future.
Disclaimer: This blog entry wasn’t written until 17 years after the trip. It should be noted that it was a huge mistake to have not written it way back when. Sometimes, after writing so much about other days, it happens that at the time directly after the trip (or even during), I convince myself that the details are not that important. Years later, these details are that important, and pulling them out of foggy memories is difficult. The photos help and often leave clues, and then Caroline’s memories are usually far clearer than mine. With that said, here goes.
There is no swinging steak and eggs for breakfast at the Mexican Hat Lodge, and Monument Valley is not on the itinerary for this trip, so we are heading into new territory on Jutta’s behalf. Regarding the weather, no worries. I’ve looked ahead in my photos and see that we’ll be enjoying blue skies later in the day, but for now, we have drama above.
There’s also the matter of drama in our backsides as we drive up this narrow gravel road known as the Mokee Dugway, which, while beautiful, is fraught with nail-biting fear as the edge of oblivion is always too close for comfort. Yep, it’s cold and windy up here at this overlook, and Jutta’s thin little cardigan ain’t cutting it.
We used to take photos of places as reminders with the idea that one day, we’d return and stay at that place. Well, it turns out that Fry Canyon Lodge was closed for renovations, except those renovations would never end or maybe never begin because it never opened again.
There’s a river out there, a mighty and great river.
It’s called Colorado.
Little did we know that the era of Lake Powell reaching all the way up here to the Hite Marina was well over. Across the way, on the right, you might be able to make out the boat ramp, obviously, it no longer reaches the water. The bleached rock was underwater just a few years before, but in 2002, the lake level dropped too far.
Reminder to self: not all views must be vistas and dramatic horizons; there are spectacles closer to us if we slow down and check out what’s around us.
We’ll continue on Utah State Route 95 a ways further as our destination is mostly to the west.
No, Jutta didn’t just go and get tough; it was warming up by the time we reached the Capitol Reef National Park.
With water flowing through the park, we’d be extra cautious as it’s been drilled into Caroline and me regarding the threat of flash floods. We are far too timid to risk something like being caught by one.
So, instead, we’ll take the high road.
The really high road overlooking the entirety of Earth!
Oh my god, I don’t know if I can drive over that. Both sides fall off at such an angle that only death can result from leaving the road. Why are there no guardrails on this ridge? My plan was to look way out there and ensure I wouldn’t see one other car ahead of us and then drive right down the yellow stripe, and that worked I can only hope I never have to drive this again in my life.
Well, if this is the reward for maneuvering the precarious tiny slice of road, maybe it was worth it.
I’ll bet a dollar that before engine-driven water pumping all the beauty in the world didn’t make up for how hard it was to farm out here. Now that we can extract every drop of fresh water from below our feet, you can bet that’s just what we’ll do.
National Park number two is right here at Bryce. Years ago, when we first brought Jutta through the area, we only got as far as Zion, so now we’re closing the loop.
It’s late in the day when we got here, which you can easily tell by the shadows, huh? So there will be no hikes into the hoodoos, but then again, nobody would ever expect that of us as we race across the United States, the entire western United States.
Sometimes, a selfie with just the two of us reminds us that we are here together, which can easily be lost when Jutta and Caroline try to spend as much quality time together as possible while taking in a million new sights and experiences.
Disclaimer: This blog entry wasn’t written until 17 years after the trip. It should be noted that it was a huge mistake to have not written it way back when. Sometimes, after writing so much about other days, it happens that at the time directly after the trip (or even during), I convince myself that the details are not that important. Years later, these details are that important, and pulling them out of foggy memories is difficult. The photos help and often leave clues, and then Caroline’s memories are usually far clearer than mine. With that said, here goes.
My mother-in-law might be old, but she’s not that old, meaning that this is her first steam engine train ride, and she had to come all the way to America for the experience. Like so many people, as they grow older, Jutta finds herself to be cold while the rest of us are comfortable. Knowing this, we bought her a new sweater while we were in Yellowstone so she could give up my old Jackson Hole sweater she’s been monopolizing. The first big sweater she acquired in the United States also came from a National Park, Zion, and it was a nice deep green.
We are on the Durango-to-Silverton Narrow Gauge Steam Train en route north from Durango to, you can guess it, Silverton. The trip is three and a half hours long each way, with a two-hour stopover for lunch. We could have opted for a speedier coach ride back, but we love the experience out here. The cost of the roundtrip is $62 per adult and $31 per child. (As I add to this entry in 2022, yep, this paragraph above was part of the original post; the price of the open gondola car is now $115 per adult)
It’s called a gondola, but I can’t help but think of it as the cattle car with shade. Why are we all the way back here instead of up in first class? We are cheap, but that’s not the only reason; I like the idea of being able to jump back and forth from side to side for photos without asking someone to use their window. Then there’s also the benefit of feeling the mountain air and being bathed in the soot from the burning coal.
This is a perfect example of what I just explained as I’m obviously now on the left side of the train admiring the view from the opposite side…as if by magic.
There’s a lot to see out here, and while the train moves along at a relatively slow pace, you must be ready at all times if you want to capture some of the best sights.
We were just on the road that passed all of this yesterday, and yet the world looks distinctly different from this perspective.
Pulling into Silverton.
It was getting late when we pulled in yesterday for dinner at the Black Bear Cafe, and as we still needed to check into our room, we wasted no time and ate before jumping back in the car to continue south. Today, we have two full hours here.
Lunch was at the Handlebars Saloon, which comes with plenty of Western flair for a sweet German lady who I think still pinches herself that she’s doing any of this.
See that blown-out cloud? I was still shooting jpegs instead of RAW due to storage demands and processing requirements. We were traveling so much, and often, when my mother-in-law was here, we’d select a bunch of photos before she returned to Germany, get them printed, and pack them up with her for the flight home. Shooting RAW wouldn’t have allowed this convenience, and also, of note, the software for processing RAW, along with the slow CPU, crap operating system, and expensive hard drives, all conspired to dissuade me from opting for the better quality. Now, all these years later, you can be sure I regret it.
Leaving the small mining town of Silverton behind.
It seems there was a high level of confidence that this river corridor wasn’t prone to flooding; otherwise, whose idea was it to put this narrow train track right here?
You might think sitting at the far back of the train is disadvantageous. Obviously, it’s not – while I may not see where we are going, I have the best view of where we’ve been.
I don’t believe I was aware of it at the time, but we could have taken the train to Silverton and rafted the Animas River back to Durango, not that I would have been all that comfortable with my mother-in-law putting her back into paddling whitewater. Heck, I don’t know if I had the guts at that time.
Almost back to town, where we’ll collect the car and start our drive west.
Also, in the area in Mesa Verde National Park, which we didn’t have time to visit this time, and maybe as interesting is the lesser-known Ute Mountain Tribal Park that we are passing.
Sunset over the Old West can only mean one thing.
That means that dinner must be under the stars and include a good portion of cowboy beans. The Mexican Hat Lodge serves up just that, along with the world-famous swinging steak. Mexican Hat is located between Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley; a better place to stay and eat cannot be found.
Disclaimer: This blog entry wasn’t written until 17 years after the trip. It should be noted that it was a huge mistake to have not written it way back when. Sometimes, after writing so much about other days, it happens that at the time directly after the trip (or even during), I convince myself that the details are not that important. Years later, these details are that important, and pulling them out of foggy memories is difficult. The photos help and often leave clues, and then Caroline’s memories are usually far clearer than mine. With that said, here goes.
Woke up in Green River, Wyoming, and before getting on the road south, we stopped in for breakfast at Buckaroos Family Restaurant because what sounds more old west than that? Wyoming State Road 530 is a small road, which suits us fine; it was on that when we crossed this arm of the Green River on its way to Flaming Gorge down in Utah.
Utah State Route 44 is an amazing drive, not only for the incredible beauty it traverses, but there are interpretive signs all over the area telling what kind of deposits were laid down here, during which era in the historic record they came to be, and what you might find int hem such as alligators, dinosaurs, petrified sand dunes, or in the case of the Park City Formation from the Permian, phosphate for fertilizer.
Funny that across the border in Colorado is the town of Dinosaur, but here in Jensen, Utah, the Dinosaur National Monument is found.
This skull pokes out of the petrified mud on the upturned river bed along with hundreds of other fossils frozen where they fell millions of years ago or within the past 6,000 years, depending upon your particular belief system.
So there they were, God and a bunch of his (her?) assistants (?). It was the third day of creation, and dry land and plants had just been created. Already, I’ve got serious issues here as those plants need a sun for photosynthesis, but that arrives only the next day, and what about the water? Water shows up on day 5. But let’s go back to day 3. This is devious because with the dry land already in place, God knew that in the future, day 6 for him specifically, he was going to create land animals and people, which means in the making of all this rock, he planted hints in the shape of giant extinct lifeforms, knowing we’d be baffled by the mystery. I suppose I can go with the idea that he knew that the people he was creating were not going to be as dumb as a river bed of rocks, but come on, look around you. We are that box of rocks.
Come on now, those of deep faith, just go ahead and admit that the spine that was destined for you got lost in the mud of creation, turned to stone, and now your ability to consider reality is as petrified as these old dinosaurs right here.
Well, that was probably enough of me blaspheming his holiness’ mythologies and so we should just get on down the road and into Colorado, the colorful (and windy) place.
Ah, here’s something else I can stir the pot about. Remember Native Americans? Yeah, not many do because our ancestors were close to being fully effective in making relics like those found encased in stone, such as the dinosaurs. Do you know why that is? Because we are white gods cleansing the world of pesky things we don’t need, such as clean air, water, food security, a roof over poor people’s heads, and compassion. I’m not saying all of us whites are bad, just the bad ones, and you all know who you are. Sweet Jesus, our Lord in Heaven, says the atheist to nobody reading this; what’s the big axe yer grinding here? Oh, you think vacation is all about double cheeseburgers and sunshine? Luckily, we can still pass reminders of the people who lived on these lands for THOUSANDS of years before George, Helmut, and Lorenzo dropped in to kill everything that moved.
Pictographs at Canyon Pintado are the only other reminders left in all of Colorful Colorado that Native Americans once lived in the area. Take notice of the red outline of the arms and hands, somebody (defaced) painted it all white in an effort to erase the reference to the Indian that first made it.
Oh, it seems I was mistaken, and the evil oppressors missed something; no worries, I destroyed it right after I took this photo. Seriously, this is wall tongue-in-cheek, but I do have a real beef in that I don’t think America has begun to reconcile its sordid past of hate-based politics of exclusion. As for the God stuff above my incendiary Native American blatherings, that nonsense is just beyond the pale and needs to be retired.
Grand Mesa Byway is a terrific byway as far as byways go. The road travels to places that, if you’ve never been on this byway, will be unseen by you until you travel out this way. And when you get to the destinations the Grand Mesa Byway will bring you to, you’ll know that you’ve been there because that’s what byways do.
Uh, we did not; I repeat, we specifically did NOT order snow for this trip. A frozen lake in June? Give me a break; it’s summer, right?
Sure, I know there’s snow out there, but that’s just decorative, so I can attempt to take dramatic photos.
Ouray back when it was just a small mountain town still unclaimed by the wealthy horde that was about to take it over.
The Million Dollar Highway was cut out of Billion Dollar Views.
Why there is Twenty Dollar Weather hanging out over perfection is an unknown, kind of like how God creates light on the first day, but the sun doesn’t show up until day 4. I’m living in some kind of Catholic Parallel Universe trying to make sense of what’s inspiring me to write so much nonsense when I’m obviously not writing a bible.
Brown Bear Cafe in Silverton was our temporary heaven as they had hot food. There were no angels, but they did have dessert.
We are quickly running out of light, and me out of ideas about what else I can write here to finish fleshing out this blog post that would probably have been a whole lot better had I written it 17 years ago as the events of the day were unfolding. Well, at least the photos are now here.