Dobbs' Desert Trek 2010

We are home again. 


Yesterday we drove 650 miles and had such problems with sleepiness that I began to suspect we had exhaust fumes coming into the car from some awful damage we'd done to the car in our off-roading. But maybe it was just the miles and miles of corn and the lack of red rocks at the road's end.


We drove almost 3300 miles on this trip, and it seems like we've seen just about every variety of land - farmland, plains, mountain peaks, forests, and desert. We had rain, hail, snow, wind, and heat. We've crossed many rivers to count, most of them multiple times (Wabash, Mississippi, Kaskaskia, Kansas, Republican, Rio Grande, San Juan River, Animas, Colorado, Eagle, Blue, Platte, and Green).  What an awesome country we live in.
It is good to be home. Everything is so GREEN! The trees, grass, and corn are just beautiful here right now, having had oodles of rain while we were gone. My drama queen the hydrangea is laid out drunk on rainwater in the flowerbed. With all the rain, the corn has grown several feet in two weeks (no exageration!) and the grass has grown like crazy. Yay for lawn guys.




Usually we get a huge, hyperactive, nibbling, yelping greeting from Goldie, but this time you'd have thought we just got back from the grocery store. She definitely got more attention with the in-laws in the house than with us (she even seemed mildly disappointed this morning that we're still here this morning).


We are so blessed to have been able to take this trip. We've had plenty of years when a two week vacation across the country would have been out of the question. It's still tough to manage, but the payoffs keep us going. We are relaxed, have had a change of scenery, and gained fresh eyes to see the world with. Both Mark's family and mine always made it a priority to take vacations every year, whatever the budget allowed. We have carried on that tradition, and I'm so glad. 


What's next? Weekends at state parks, a short trip later in the summer with Mark's folks, a trip to Las Vegas in November for a wedding, and maybe the east coast next May? Or maybe it's time to convince Amy to do a study abroad so that we can go visit her in England. Or maybe we'll make it back to the red rocks and stay at the Red Cliffs Lodge . . . or maybe . . .

It's official. The $40 I saved last night on the hotel room was NOT worth it. Too bad. I probably slept more in  the car today than I did last night in the hotel. To think I used to be able to make it on a two week wilderness trip sleeping on the ground or on the floor of the bus along the way. I'm a wimp now.


When we stepped out of the car at the first rest stop of the day, we knew we were back to business as usual. The humidity was like a wall, the air thick. Dry heat is as real as wind chill, don't let anyone tell you differently! A storm brewed up to our south and for a while we considered stopping early to avoid the walnut size hail that was supposedly ahead of us, but decided to make a run for it. Hey, if the motorcyclists in shirt sleeves could make it, we could, right? In the end we beat the storm to Salina, Kansas - but the high winds were no fun to drive in, even with our relatively low profile Altima.

And speaking of our car - either I have had a few too may cheeseburgers on this trip or we really did do some damage to that poor car on that "road" in Monument Valley. We keep bottoming out on parking lot entries - I think the poor Altima is going to the shop when we get back. Good thing we didn't buy any souvenirs on this trip. I think the damage to our suspension might be our souvenir.

Tomorrow is either "steely determination to make it all the way home" or "get to St Louis and collapse." We'll see how we feel at St. Louis! Ready to be home and in our own beds. When I was growing up, going to a hotel was such a treat! But now that I'm paying the bill, either I go cheap and the room is not as nice as home, or I pay a lot of money and the room is gorgeous . . . but then I feel guilty about the money spent. Being grown up is overrated.

We enjoyed a beautiful drive today from Rifle to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Not many pictures of the beautiful drive along a narrow canyon, since it was hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. The Colorado River kept us company the whole way through the gorge portion of the drive, often showing off with wild rapids and whitewater. There was also a bike path along the highway with many dedicated bikers - Colorado is big for bikers evidently - we've seen so many people training on all sorts of terrain. Today's off-highway route also included several ski resort towns and driving over several peaks. We crossed the Continental Divide (again) via the Hoosier Pass - how appropriate!


We met up with our Indiana friends, the Becker family, at Garden of the Gods, which is a city park at the edge of Colorado Springs. This park is basically a beautiful and unique landscape to explore - much like a state park in many ways, with a visitor's center, informative movie, and hiking trails. The geology of the area is beautiful - sort of like scooping up some of Utah's monument valley and dumping it amid the trees and hills of Colorado Springs. The beautiful green trees and the sharp blue skies were bonuses that made the red rocks really "pop!"


Seeing red rocks once more helped put off my ultimate red rock withdrawal. I don't dread going home, but I will miss the desert. I'm going to load up lots of desert photos for my digital frame to warm me in the winter to come. Hard to let go and head for home, work, and thunderstorms.

Hopefully we'll sleep well tonight, but as I listen to the people next door I suspect I should have paid the $40 more dollars for the La Quinta across town. Oh well. So much more to say about today and some leftover from yesterday, but it's been a long day and we have Driving to do tomorrow! I put the rest of today's pictures up on the slideshow, as usual, but I won't post them all here. Until tomorrow . . .

Before we left Moab today, we finished our petroglyph hunt from the night before, and of course petroglyph hunting always seems to coincide with slowly destroying the underside of our car. We found two sites in a row, but the one petroglyph I especially wanted to find was called the Birthing Rock and was off of a (you guessed it) gravel road. The problem was, we just could not find it. We eyed every boulder that was down off the road, and I guess-timated our location. No luck. We looked for telltale paths to boulders. We squinted. We binoc'ed. Still no luck. I was ready to give up when Mark wondered if we'd really gone the entire 1.7 miles we were supposed to. He suggested that we go back and remeasure. Sure enough, we had gone 1.5 miles, not 1.7, and there at 1.7 was a huge, obvious rock in plain view. All that squinting, oh bother. 

This was our kind of day. We slept in until 9:30 without meaning to, went to breakfast in Moab, then made our way out to Canyonlands National Park. After stopping at the visitor's center (very small), we began our drive out, deciding to stop and see Mesa Arch.

 I know that in looking at our pictures you might begin to think, "Oh, no, another rock picture!!!" Believe me, our photography skills really don't do it justice. Seeing it in person is such a rich experience. The sheer size of these sculptures is humbling - they are majestic.


And then as you get out in this landscape and walk along, you find that there is much more to see than you realized from a distance. Maybe that's why I take so many flower pictures, and why it sometimes takes us a very long time to walk a mile. Wildflowers bloom and grow on sand or rock, cacti surprise you with brilliant blooms, and juniper wood logs become artistic sculptures.


From our perch on the edge of the mesa, we were able to see out into the canyons. Looking down into the canyons reminded me of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon.  In the far distance you can glimpse the Colorado River, and twisting through canyon to the right was the Green River. We liked the Canyonlands Park, in that it was much less crowded than Arches or Mesa Verde, and the amenities, while somewhat primitive, were nicely done (Actual shades over the picnic tables! What a concept!).  The only crowds we saw came in comfortable shoes and greyhound buses - but they came and went harmlessly enough.


After driving and walking around Canyonlands for most of the day, we decided to see if we could find a few petroglyphs. The only one we had really seen so far was at Flaming House. We followed directions out along the Colorado River, where sheer rock soared hundreds of feet to our right, and the fast flowing Colorado was to our left. There wasn't much clearance between the cliff and the road, but rock climbers dotted the roadside, leaving chalky handprints on the walls. I have to say that I used to think rock climbing was fun (and yes I have pictures to prove I used to be able to) but now I would much rather hunt petroglyphs! In our search we pulled in temporarily to a little campground and saw . . . snow?

Since we've had quite a few long days on this trip, today we decided to take it a little more leisurely. We got out to Arches National Park by 10:30 and began with the visitor's center. We didn't stay long but it really is a very nice center. Their display on local birds helped us to finally find out the name of the birds that buzzed us in Mesa Verde. They are not swallows, but White Throated Swifts - and they are absolutely made for speed. They rarely seem to land, which is why we don't have a picture of one! 


We did the short trails to several arches, which were beautiful. Our favorite was landscape arch,which is the longest arch span in the world.  In 1991, tourists were there filming when a huge chunk of the arch fell, leaving the narrowest portion of the span just 6 feet thick. They have now closed the trail beneath the arch. 


As we trooped along the trails to these wonders, we were constantly passing other tourists coming and going, so I decided to do a little social experiment. I have the habit of making eye contact with those I pass by and giving a nod, a smile, or a hello. I decided to mentally tally the reactions I got. If I had an excel spreadsheet kind of brain like some people I know, I could give you the statistical variants by age group. But since I don't, here's my unscientific results: 


30% Enthusiastically greeted me with a hello
20% Mumbled hello with a quick glance
18% Studiously avoided all eye contact
15% Did not smile, but their mouths twitched upwards
10% Frowned
6% Said hello and offered some other small conversation, ("the view is worth it!")
1% asked me if I thought her shoes were pretty (okay, she was three).


And then there was this guy: I was trying to take a picture with my new camera, and when I pressed the shutter, it began to beep and I had no idea why. I knew it wasn't my battery, and I was baffled! As I began to say "what is wrong with this thing?!!?" A total stranger passing by (carrying his own Canon Rebel) said, "it's in timer mode" and came over to help. I would have felt like a total idiot if it weren't so funny. I knew how to set the stupid timer but hadn't used it, and so had never heard the beep feature. The very nice guy smiled and went on his way, leaving us laughing.



As we toured Arches today, we had our own personal guide, Dobbs' style: Mark had purchased an Arches National Park Guide app for his iphone. Each arch or area of the park was narrated with lots of references to things like "bifurcation, ex-foliated, expansion, strata, deformation bands, and porous." But we enjoyed her narration in spite of her heavy use of vocabulary words. They also sell an audio CD in the visitor's center which might be worth it if you're the geologically curious type. 


In true National Park style, there were the usual headaches. There were just a few picnic areas, and when we decided to eat at 1:15 the few tables available were all taken, along with all the parking spots. In fact, most stops had no available parking spots, so you ended up feeling like you were fighting a traffic jam all the time. There are some out of the way drives we will be taking in the next few days, which we understand are stunningly beautiful. 




One word of advice if you come out this way: Bring water! It was in the mid 90's today, and once you get past the visitor's center there's not much out here. We went through a LOT of water today, and the people I saw who were most bothered by the heat were not carrying any water. It's supposed to be 97 degrees tomorrow in Canyonlands National Park, where we'll be. 97 in Utah isn't as bad as 97 in Indiana, but still . . . we'll have to stock up on water. We're all out, again.

John Wayne and Henry Fonda are just a couple of the movie stars who helped make the monuments of Monument Valley famous the world over. When we visited today, there were indeed visitors there from all over the world. The Navajo Nation owns the land the monuments are on, and they run the show. So we paid our $15 bucks, enjoyed the view from the visitor center terraces, had a nice lunch in the restaurant with a great view of the monuments, and then set out to see what we could see. If you look at the picture below, there's a little road snaking through the landscape. You may drive this road at your own risk, or you may take a jeep tour (which had been recommended to us). At $60 person, we decided to skip the jeep tour and risk our car's suspension for a closer view of . . . The Big Rocks.


The road to the monuments unpaved - and that is an understatement. We barely made it a quarter of a mile when we got tired of looking in our rearview mirror for the pieces we were sure were falling off of our car. The clincher was when an entire group of jeepers turned as one to stare at us after hearing our car make a particularly horrible 'clunk.' We limped back up the road, defeated (watching the gas gauge closely to make sure weren't leaking 16 gallons of $3.94 gasoline out on the road).


All was not lost, however, since monoliths sprout out of the ground everywhere in that area, not just on Navajo land.  Each one we looked at, one of us would inevitably say "that looks like . . ." So, I decided that monoliths are kind of like Rock Rorschachs. Some really looked as if they'd been carved by people instead of sculpted by wind and natural forces. What do you see in these?
Monument Valley was amazing, but the highlight was definitely yet to come. We had gotten directions to a slightly off the beaten path ruin and stopped to do that hike on our way to Moab. We found the dirt road as directed, and stopped at the trail head. The trail led along a mostly dry creek bed and it was QUIET. Plenty of birds, lizards, rustlings in the bushes, and our footsteps on the sandy path. Rick's directions said to watch for a sharp bend in the creek and a large pine. And sure enough, there it was:
This is a completely unrestored Anasazi ruin. Several of the rooms have smoked ceilings, indicating that they were living spaces. Around the corner there was even a petroglyph of a human hand:
The best part of today's hike was the chance to explore a ruin on our own. No rangers, no ropes, no aluminum ladders left laying around by rangers or archeologists, no tour groups of 50 people. When we found the petroglyph, we weren't naive enough to think no one else had seen it before us, but we got to discover it on our own today, and it was awesome. We sat for quite a while, just listening and looking, and talking about the people who must have lived there - a luxury. This is a beautiful spot and we took more than a few pictures.