Tut Tut Denver

From Wheat Bridge, Colorado to Denver to Cheyenne.

In Denver, after going to the wrong museum on the wrong end of town, we finally made our way to the Denver Art Museum and its King Tut exhibit.

It was fabulous. It did not include the solid gold sarcophagus, but amazing it was. No pictures allowed. Go if it shows up in your city. Tut is in Denver until January.

Some pieces must weight tons and tons.

Afterwards, I approached two young museum workers while we waited for the 3D movie (also fun) to let out and let us in. I said, Regarding all the great stuff on the floors above, I'm thinking lots of bubble wrap. They seriously explained that they didn't know how it was shipped.

Oh well.

More misc ...

Since pictures are uploading quickly for the first time on this trip, I'm going to try to take advantage of that and toss in some favorites. No particular order or theme ... just ones I like.

Here's Mike at the Arches:

Probably mountain lion track ...

Eisenhower Tunnel

On the way up to the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest point on the interstate system in the US (11,100+), we passed near many famous western ski areas, including Vail.

The Colorado River flows past many green areas.

And some no name little towns

Then you start the climb to the tunnel. Here's Vail in early fall ...

Most of the houses look something like this ...

Earlier there was the unusual (first time I've seen it in 29,000 touring miles) design of I-70 where the west bound highway went through a tunnel and the east bound (our direction) did not.

Back to Canyon De Chelly for a moment

Mike wanted to make sure you all know about the help we provided a Navajo man. On our way to one of the overlooks -- all of which are serious and sacred in nature -- we had a light moment. Driving very slowly as posted, I stopped for some "open range" cattle. (Just what it sounds like -- no fences. They are free to go wherever they choose. There are, however, some grates spread about that tend to keep them in a restricted, but large, area.)

Anyway, they wandered across, mostly to my right, while two bulls went into the bushes to my left. A short time later a Navajo man came walking down the road towards us. He looked at us, stuck his index fingers up alongside his head, bent slightly, and gave us a questioning pose. We nodded and pointed back over our shoulders. He smiled and continued down the dirt road towards his cattle.

Mike says we now speak Navajo.

.000000000001 x a mountain

... give or take many orders of magnitude.

Anyway, here's a few of my favorite small pictures from the Sorrel River Ranch.

(They're all more interesting if you click on them to zoom in ... but the last two are especially neat seen that way.)

Arches +

What is it?

From the Arches National Park

Balancing Rock

From Sorrel River Ranch in Moab, Utah, where we are spending two days

(and I do mean spending)

View directly in front of our porch

A little to the left of our porch, where Mike likes to sit with his coffee on the swinging seat

 

Red rocks on and on

Fortress Rock

A Navajo man named Russell told me about this island rock. At the bottom for maybe 50 feet straight up there are no apparent handholds to even begin the seemingly impossible task of reaching the top. The Navajo successfully held out against the Spanish here. They had secret ways down to resupply their food and water.

Later Russell also said that there is a hole in the top that may or may not be a way to get to the bottom. There is a chimney of sorts on the right hand side that can be used by very skilled climbers to work their way up, if they can find a means to access it.

Also he said that somewhere on the top, but in a recess or cave, there is a drawing of a giant snake that dates back past his grandmother's memory. The snake was said to swallow cows whole. Whether or not it did, as Russell said, the story kept the youngsters from wandering too far from the adults.

Adah Aho'doo'nili

"The place where two fell off"

Click on the picture of the story board.

On this ledge perhaps 100 died.

Painted Desert

The Painted Desert is one of Mike's absolute favorites. We unexpectedly went back to it this year.

These highways remind me of the long, straight sections of so many Vermont back roads. This one you could see about eight miles ahead, but it ran another seven without the slightest bend or curve on the way to Chinle, AZ, one of the places in North America that has been continuously inhabited for perhaps 10,000 years or more. Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "Shay") with its enormous caves used for storage and protection are a primary reason for people making a home there. We'll be exploring it a little later today. (Did I mention Arizona is on Pacific Coast time right now, but the Navaho reservation is on Mountain Time and that there are four labeled clocks at many stops trying to help you keep track?)

Flagstaff 1, Sedona 0

Finally I get to not recommend somewhere. Sedona, Arizona, may rhyme nicely and look pretty, but it's not for me or Mike. If you're very wealthy it becomes a better destination in that some of the artwork for sale in its many such shops is quite good. Better than I've seen offered in many other larger cities. (Subjective or what? Ah, that's my opinion anyway.)

The backdrop is great. The shopping area reminded us of an upscale Wall Drug with log structures all the same color. Speaking of which, you can build lovely expensive homes on the hills around this town (not entirely dissimilar to the Hollywood Hills, as long as they are made of adobe and are brownish red or green and a maximum of two [maybe three?] stories).

My apologies to Bee for saying she recommended Sedona. What I realized later was that she was emphasizing the trip there on the very scenic and twisty 89a (Flagstaff to Sedona).

Meanwhile we stayed two nights in Flagstaff, one of our favorite little cities. Freight trains run through it day and night. Big trains. Container trains. Semi trains loaded with a hundred or more J.B. Hunt trucks out of Texas headed east. Mt. Humphrey (12,600' +)  and its ski areas looming over the city. Not far from the Grand Canyon or the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert.

And it has the haunted Museum Club and our Miss Jane, who literally jumped up and down when she remembered who we were and found out that we may have caught one of the Museum's ghosts on film last year. (She recalled details of that day before we could mention them.)

People have died in the Museum. People have bought drinks for at least one of their ghosts. People have been wrestled to the ground by a ghost of a woman who died there and been released upon being warned, "You need only fear the living."

Mike and Miss Jane, who invited him behind the bar for this shot.

Both Mike and I believe that when the time comes, Miss Jane will take up permanent residence in the Museum Club -- which was once the largest log structure in the world.

Monument Valley part deux

Here's some shots from the heart of Monument Valley.

A better view of the Mittens.

On a whim, we're now in Flagstaff, AZ. We plan to go to Sedona tomorrow. So many people have recommended Sedona that when Bee, a Navaho woman who hopefully will be sending me some pictures she showed me that she took of the monuments in a low fog, also said don't miss Sedona, we added the 400 miles to our trip.

Moki Dugway

The scariest road either Mike or I have been on. If you google it and watch the popular video of a truck going down that switchback hard-packed washboard loose-stoned stretch of insanity, know this:

1. I believe they must have closed off the road to all other traffic. (There simply isn't room for a truck and any other vehicle for most of its three miles.)

2. The few feet of guard rails and concrete siding are no longer there. Flash floods have taken care of those niceties.

Mike made quite a nice video of part of our trip down the Dugway, but so far I am unable to post any videos. Later perhaps.

The drop off at the top is said to be 1100 feet pretty much straight down. Below is Google's satellite view of the Dugway.

Monument Valley

On the way I there was such beauty that it broke my heart that everyone couldn't be with me experiencing all we were seeing. My bucket list now is reduced to just one item -- getting others to go where we've been. If I can be there with some of them, that would be sensational ... but more important is to know someone else will go there and continue to spread the word.

Below is a photo taken at the Natural Bridges National Park. In person the optical illusion is greater than in this photo. Do you see the bridge?

There were two driving incidents worth mentioning, I believe. Perhaps a young driver might find some value down the road from them.

First, going down one of the countless long straight stretches of a two lane highway in Utah, I saw a big white SUV with its left turn signal on peeking out behind a semi headed towards us. There was zero possibility for him to pass. I started to slow down anyway. Then amazingly he popped out anyway, practically sliding sideways across the highway into a little dirt pull off on our side of the road. There was no chance for me to stop in time. I had to swerve towards the other lane to miss the back of the SUV. I stayed as much as possible on my side of the highway.

Mike saw all of the above and reacted to it verbally.

What Mike did not see -- because he was focussed on the SUV -- was that a car behind the SUV also pulled out, apparently with the intention of passing the semi. He was three to four feet across the center line ... the very same center line that I was hugging. In that brief moment, he made no attempt to pull back onto his side of the road, so I had to swerve the other way so that we didn't catch each others front ends. It all worked out and nobody stopped. (Except the SUV in the dirt turnout.)

Mike knew something else had happened, but never saw that second car.

What I would like to point out especially is that a hard swerve to avoid one accident can lead to another (that almost happened on our last trip). And secondly just because one crazy person is on the road in front of you doesn't mean there isn't another right behind them. (Also, I suppose, I should mention that if I went all out on the brakes that wouldn't have turned out well.)

The other incident, Mike was driving. Yet another giant white SUV pulled out to pass on a similar stretch of highway. He only completed the pass because Mike broke hard (not slamming on the brakes) and went from 65 to 25 to allow the SUV to squeeze back into his lane to complete the pass. The point to this incident is that such long stretches of road can fool the eye about how much distance and time you have to pass. It is more tricky than one might think. I try to allow twice as far as I think I need and I add a little buffer to that.

Thankfully this is how the day ended in Mexican Hat on the Utah/Arizona border and on the banks of the muddy San Juan River. (Mike's photo.)

Odds and ends

In Yellowstone we were served each time by a nice fellow from Georgia named Danny (one of three in a row with my son's name). Young people from all over the world go there for the summer season. I think it's terrific to mix everyone together and have them tell their friends and family things not found in the news. (I feel I must mention that similar jobs across the country were filled by a surprisingly high percentage of youngsters from the former USSR. And a truly surprising number of tourists also came from there.) So of course I tried to do my part to further international bondings.

I was talking with Danny about his summer season at Yellowstone (he has a brother in Burlington and relatives in southern Vermont) and it came up that he thought a co-worker of his (a particularly attractive and pleasant young woman from Romania named Alexandra) was someone he would like to know better. I thought it was too late in the season for him to not have made this clear to her. So, yes, I spoke with her about Danny and how he liked her and how he was shy about letting her know. She seemed to truly like what she heard. The next day before we left, I caught her eye from some distance. She immediately flashed a big smile and waved enthusiastically.

Who knows?

Bear Lake

Yet another surprise. Bear Lake in southern Idaho and northern Utah. It seems (now this is just my imagination speaking) that a whole lot of rich people have moved to the western shores of this gem ... and they are forming a new hot spot for their family and friends on the hills above Bear Lake.

The only other comment I have for now is that this trip has been through and over so many mountains and twisty roads and cliffs and fallen rock areas and yellows and rusty reds and pine trees and elevations well over a mile up that it just boggles to think there is so much of that still in this country.

Here's some pictures from around Bear Lake.

(We're in Price, Utah headed for Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border tomorrow.)

Beyond Bear Lake