Month: April 2022

Day 15

Nancy, our Biologist, told us that her favorite part of the three-hour Catalina Eco-Tour that she was leading was the second half. She said that the first half was all learning, but the second half was all fun.

          I think that she liked the second half of the tour because she really got to show off her four-wheel driving skills as she wielded our Toyota Tundra truck (with stadium-style seating for us students) around the interior of Catalina.

          Nancy works for the Catalina Island Conservancy who “owns” and manages about eighty-eight percent of the Island. The Wrigley family (Yes, that one, of Gum and Chicago Cubs fame) deeded over all of the land to them back in 1972. The family still has a presence on the Island, they are involved locally as benefactors and they have several residences there, one of which has stables and an active, producing, vineyard.

          Our day started really early as the availability of the high-speed catamaran that makes the crossing from Long Beach to Avalon was booked up by the time we arrived. The only places left for our day were on the first and last crossings of the day, namely 6 AM and 7:45 PM.  And we needed to be in line by 5:15 AM.

          Thankfully (and we didn’t plan it this way) the embarkation port was a five-minute walk from our RV Park.

          The benefits of this situation was a guarantee of a full day on Catalina and of course, great lighting for early morning photos! We were not disappointed as once again; we had a fifteen on the one-to-ten scale of weather. Catamaran’s ride nicely in the water, with a minimum of movement compared to a displacement (regular shaped) hull, but still, there is some movement, it’s the ocean!

          Avalon, the largest city (?) on Catalina was barely waking up by the time we arrived, the crossing takes a little over an hour, but that was ok, it afforded us the opportunity to have a leisurely breakfast and stroll around before we met Nancy for our adventure which started at 9 AM.

Avalon is a really cute little town, complete with the obligatory shops, but some how they have managed to remain less kitschy and rather inviting. The whole place is adorned with beautiful tile-work, most of it depicting scenes from around town, The Casino, which does not have gambling, is the gem of the harbor and is worthy of all of its fame. Unfortunately it is closed on Thursdays, so we were not able to avail ourselves of a tour.

         Nancy was a fountain of local information. We learned tons of factoids about the flora, fauna, and history of Catalina, all of which would fill this post with ease, but probably bore you to death! Maybe I’ll do a separate one with a Cautionary Warning about the content in the beginning of it.  😊 Some highlights are the fact that there are only about 4000 residents on the Island, there is a 20 year waiting list to register a car here, and the other mode of transportation, a golf cart, can only be had to residents and you only get one per household! There is one grocery store, Vons, which they all adore!

          Anyway, there are lots of stories about the waxing and waning of several species of critters and plants on the Island, namely the Bald and Golden Eagles, the Channel Island Fox, and some cool butterflies. Just like what Mr. Darwin learned way down in the Galapagos Islands, here too, Catalina has her own stories to tell about how species adapt and evolve separated from anywhere else.

          Oh, and there are American Bison (Buffalo) on the Island.

           They are not endemic, they are invasive! The story goes that twelve males  were brought over to the Island back in the 20’s for a movie that never got made here. Enter a well-intentioned Wrigley family who brought a bunch of females over to keep the males company and the rest, well, let’s just say biology took over and in a few years there were over 500 of these grazers roaming the hills. Combine them with the goats and sheep which were descendants of some long-ago settlers, and we have a recipe for intense over-grazing.

          Here’s the good part of the story.

          Enter the Conservancy who determined that the optimum number of Bison was about 150, (sans goats and sheep who were successfully repatriated to farms on the mainland). That was all well and good, but what to do with the rest? They put out inquiries to anyone that they thought that would like them, but the caveat was that they could not be slaughtered. The Lakota Indian Nation of South Dakota was interested but when they found out what the cost was going to be to round up, inspect, and transport them, they determined that they did not have the funds to accomplish this. So…. they sent out a request to every Tribe in the United States asking for some assistance. Every single Tribe responded in the affirmative and even sent a representative to help with the round-up when the time arrived.

          There is now a very nice herd of American Bison securely ensconced on the Lakota Reservation thank you very much!

          The Bald Eagle story is as good. It involves DDT (Boo!) and an enterprising young biologist, Dr. Sharpe (Yay!) who use the fine imposed on the nasty company that dumped all of the DDT illegally off the coast, and started a very labor-intensive salvation program. This involved the gathering of nesting pairs of eagles from the Northwest, watching the nests, taking the eggs out of the nests, replacing them with wooden ones, hatching said eggs, and putting the little guys back in the nest after they hatched.

          Phew!

          It was very successful and now the Eagle population is thriving once again on Catalina!

          Our inland excursion ended around noon back down in Avalon. Thankfully there were no cruise ships in port this day. I cannot imagine this tiny town being over-run with that many people. Good for business, but I’m sure that our experience would not have been as enjoyable. We were able to procure a water-side table on the deck of Antonio’s for lunch and once again, we took our time as our next adventure did not start until 3 PM.

          At 2:45 we reported to Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus where we were given or orders to report to the engine room of the submarine for Duty Training before our under-sea excursion.

          Well, not really.

          We did report to the Captain, but it was to be shown our seats aboard the semi-submersible craft that we would cruise over to a Marine Sanctuary in to view the undersea denizens that lurked behind every strand of propeller-entwining  kelp there.

          Well, not really.

          The kelp is just really pretty and all of the little fishies like to swim around it.

          After we were safely deposited back on terra-firma we made our way back into town and awaited the arrival of Bear, our Avalon Discovery Tour Guide. He probably could nave been one of those guys at Disneyland as he peppered his travelogue with funny anecdotes that kept us smiling. I can’t believe how he guided his large, articulated, two-bus sized, vehicle around those tiny streets. Up and down the surrounding mountains we went to give us great views of Avalon.

          An hour later, back in Avalon proper, we landed at the Blue Water Café, the prized location for lunch or dinner, which has a first-come, first-served policy. The waiting times can be excruciating as this place is right next to Antonio’s, which means waterside!

          No Cruise Ship, No Waits!

          We procured a rail-side table complete with two propane overheard patio heaters as it was starting to get cool. Avalon is on the east side of the Island, so those surrounding mountains cast a long shadow in the evening, helping to cool things off. Good in the hot summers, but this day was around 70 degrees, so when it cooled off, it cooled off!

          Dinner and dessert completed we walked back to the pier and waited for our ship to come in (literally).  We tried our best to fall asleep on the voyage back to Long Beach.

          Catalina is one of those places that you can immerse yourself in and not worry that there’s no Walmart or rental cars, or any fast-paced annoyances to mitigate your de-compression from real life.

          The kid in third grade staring longingly at Catalina from his school bus those many years ago, was not disappointed.

Day 13 / Palos Verdes

          This narrative is not really something that will help you if you decide to go traveling, it is more of a reminiscence for me as I spent two great years here in 1963/64 when I was in 3^rd and 4^th grade.

          And I still think about it all the time.

          Paula was a trooper as she followed me around the Peninsula yesterday. We drove all over and even though I tried to explain where we were and what I did there, so much more was locked up in my head that I didn’t say.

          Who cares if that house is where Tommy Daniels lived, or that’s where my old school bus stop was?

          So, I did my best to show the highlights of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and not overly expound on its virtues because  unless you’ve lived here, there is absolutely no way to describe it.

          Palos Verdes is a Peninsula on the California coast just outside of Los Angeles. Not only is it a peninsula, but it rises to about 1500 ft. and everything else around it, including L.A. is basically at sea level. This means that from the very top of the peninsula, where my grammar school and the playground were located, I could look out across the Greater Los Angeles area all the way to the San Bernadino and San Gabriel Mountains and all the way up the coast to Santa Barbara.

          My bus ride to school was maybe one of the best in the world because we went past Marineland of the Pacific (this was way before SeaWorld even existed), up the hill past the active Nike Missile Base, and all the way along I could see across the Catalina Channel to the Island that holds the same name.

          Catalina Island (Yes, that one, “Twenty-six miles across the sea, Catalina Island is awaitin’ for me,”) haunted me for those two years that we lived there.

          We never visited it.

          We went lots of other places in Southern California, Sequoia, Lake Arrowhead, the Salton Sea, and uncountable weekend days at the local beaches, but we never went to Catalina.

          So every day I stared that twenty-six miles across the sea at that mysterious Island that haunted me in a way that only a nine-year old can be haunted. It took another thirty-four years for me to get there. That was on a family vacation that we took combining it with a wedding in Lake Tahoe.

          We are going there for a full day tomorrow and that should make a really nice post! We leave on the 6 AM jet-boat to Avalon Harbor and don’t return until almost 9 PM. Blog Post to follow (If I get up in time)!

          Back to Palos Verdes.

          Lots of things have changed since I lived there. Many more homes, the Japanese farms have disappeared (that’s where the homes are) and some of the areas that I hiked in as a kid are now nature preserves complete with hiking trails. There are four different political entities on the Peninsula, but they all seem to have each other in mind.  They collectively keep the whole peninsula cohesive when it comes to planning and executing public places and they even have a coalition of Conservators that help keep these public trails and ocean-side areas  maintained.

          We hiked down the cliffs to get to the beach where the tide pools are. It’s not the same as back then, the sea urchins are gone, as are the abalone, both victims of our modern (read environmentally stressed) times. We did see some anemones!😊 We were there at low tide and were able to scramble out on the rocks a bit. The water is still clear, but way too cold to try and go in.

          We stopped at the Wayfarer’s Chapel, an all-glass chapel built in 1949 and was designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, and you can see all of the Wright-inspired styles in it. What a setting!

          This place, as close as it is to Los Angeles, is about as far away (in all ways that you can imagine) from it as it can possibly be.

          I take back what I said in the beginning. This would be a great place to visit and spend some time. There is a world-renowned spa and hotel here and more outdoor activities than you can imagine. All in encased in the Mediterranean -type climate that helps make Palos Verdes so nice a place to be at.

          It truly is in a world of its own.

We don’t gamble, we don’t smoke, and we rarely drink.

          So why in the name of all that’s Holy would we spend almost three days in Las Vegas?

          The answers to that and the secret of life will be revealed a little later.

           But first, we are in Day 11. Our travel day from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, a trip that was supposed to take about five hours which instead took almost eight hours. You all know our Wind stories by now and are probably sick of hearing them so, I promise No More Wind Stories, unless they are significant enough to warrant a mention.

          Mention!

          Day 11, yesterday, was mainly traveled through the high desert lands of California, namely the Mojave Desert. This is where Edwards Air Force Base is located, the scene of both various Space Shuttle landings and also the location of where Chuck Yeager broke the Sound Barrier.

          It is also the location of High Winds.

          All of the Winds that I have previously reported to you, have been in the 18 to 20 mph range. These are obviously high enough to wreak havoc on driving otherwise I would not have given them a mention.

          Yesterday (our Travel Day) we encountered winds of double that speed.

          Yup, 38 to 40 mph winds howling across the desert and through the mountain passes, were high enough to have our cell phones go off with Dust Storm Alerts. The bad part about wind is not its speed, but the force that it exerts on our big flat-sided vehicle as we drive.

          The Force goes up exponentially as the Wind Speed increases,

          For Example,

          A Wind Speed of 5 mph exerts 15 pounds per square inch of force on an object.

          When the wind speed doubles the force does not. The force is not 30 psi as you may expect, it is 60 psi. Now lets cut to the chase and look at yesterday’s wind speed of 40 mph and we arrive at a screamingly large (for driving a motorhome) 960 psi!

          That was enough for us to need to travel slower, say, like 40 mph, which in turn, made our travel time increase, say nothing of our stress level, which also decreased the slower that we went.

          Hence aa almost eight-hour foray into Southern California.

          Now that we’re here I can comfortably report on Day 10 of the trip, our last day in Las Vegas.

          In the beginning of this post, I asked a question, Why in the name of all that’s Holy would we spend almost three days in Las Vegas? 

          Well, there are actually several reasons, and you will find them illustrated here in just a few paragraphs. Paula has been here once before about twenty years ago with her cousin. I have never been here, and I have always wanted to see The Strip (as it’s called) and also see some of the older sections of town that still exhibit the original architecture, which is something akin to Art Deco, and also see where the boys from the Rat Pack hung out. Frank, Sammy, Dino, Peter, and a few others put Las Vegas on the map when it came to entertainment and even though I was in NO Way cool enough to hang with them (and too young!) I just love their renditions of the Classic American Songbook, as it has become to be known.

          Did you know that most of the fancy parts of town are not in Las Vegas at all? I wondered why when driving up Las Vegas Avenue (The Strip) past the Venetian and the Strat (the high needle-nosed building with the revolving restaurant at the top) I passed under a sign that read, The City of Las Vegas Welcomes You.

          It turns out that of all of the big-name casinos, only the Golden Nugget is actually located in the confines of the City. The rest are in the unincorporated sections of Winchester, Paradise, Enterprise, and Spring Valley.

          But no one cares!

          It’s like saying “I’m going to Newton” when you’re really visiting the Walmart. No one says, “I’m going to Hampton”. It’s the collective area that carries the moniker of Newton. Most of the time  😊

          We were able to find an original section of La Vegas, known as Fremont Street. They have managed to make this into a more modern, partially-closed to traffic, covered street, but if you walk a few blocks you can see the older places still in existence and a few Wedding Chapels, awaiting both loving and inebriated couples with all the kitsch that only Vegas can muster.

          We went back in the evening because you can only really experience the true spectacle of Las Vegas after the sun retreats behind the surrounding mountains.

          If you have been here before, you know what I am speaking of.

          If you haven’t, then…. Yikes!

          This place is one of excesses in all ways and means that that word can express.

          I wanted to see the buildings and lights after dark and I was definitely not disappointed!

          This place is like Times Square on steroids!

          We were there with about 750, 000 of our best friends who were on the street at the same time as us, and this was a Sunday night! I cannot imagine what it must have been like on Friday or Saturday nights! We walked a few miles, up and down the Strip, with all of the others, gawking at the sights, some of which (the drunks) were not pleasant to see and others (the pretty girls in their “Show Girls” Photo-Op outfits) that were!

          Since we are not the smoking, drinking, and gambling types alluded to in the beginning, we would probably not go back. I know that the shows are great and maybe we should have tried to see someone, but we accomplished what we set out to do and were happy with the outcome. Saying all of that, I o recommend visiting Vegas at least once in your life, if only to be able to say, “It’s Vegas baby!”

          I almost forgot.

          I did say in the beginning that I would reveal not only the answers to the questions, but also the secret of life.

          That is easy.

          It is Chocolate.

I’m not sure where to begin with on this one.

          Everything about it is a superlative and so very well done.

          Our destination yesterday was Hoover Dam. It spans the Colorado River just east of Las Vegas and is responsible for providing both water and power to this part of the Country.

          And it does its job well, provided of course, there is available water to use for these purposes, but that we’ll talk about that another time.

          There is nothing trivial about Hoover Dam. It’s list of firsts, statistics, and accomplishments are so significant that the place seems to be an entity, something with a personality, and is as proud of itself as a four-year old kid in a Batman tee-shirt.

          When it was built, and for many years after, the Hoover Dam held records for the usual Guinness Book-type records and even though those numbers have been eclipsed by some more modern structures both here and in China, they are nonetheless still incredibly impressive.

          Here are just a few:

          It is  726’ tall and 660’ wide at the base. This is over two football fields wide, filled with concrete.

          It is over 1200 ft wide, spanning the Black Gorge and holding back the Colorado River to form the largest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead.

          Here’s a good one, probably not able to be accomplished today…..  It came in under budget and two years ahead of schedule. This is much like the Empire State Building that was constructed basically at the same time.

          There were obviously several engineering obstacles that needed to be overcome. The solutions to these obstacles had never been an issue before because nothing this massive had ever been attempted before! For example, if they had not come up with a way to help cure (dry) the concrete used in the making of the dam, it would have taken 125 years for it to completely dry.  Which means that not until 2060 would it really be ready.

          That obviously would not work!

          Enter the innovations.

          First they constructed the largest refrigeration plant in the world and made over 1000 TONS of ice a day so that they could make the cement with ice water instead of regular water. Second, they imbedded over 600 miles of pipe that had water pumped through to help carry away the heat caused by the curing of the concrete. Concrete cures not by evaporation, the drying is actually a chemical reaction that gives off heat in the process. This also led to them not using a “one total pour” process. They instead made forms in place and poured the concrete in giant blocks that can be seen on the face of the dam. Once the pouring process started, they made a cement “bucket” dump every 78 seconds for two years. By my calculations that is over 880,000 cement dumps made by giant buckets suspended by large cables over the building site.

          How about this one?

          How do you build a dam in a very deep canyon that has a raging river running through it?

          Their answer was to first bore four tunnels, two on each side, that were 56 feet in diameter to carry the flow of the river around the construction site and dump the water just past it downstream. Two of the tunnels are still used to divert water from the spillways when the water behind the dam gets too high. After the water was diverted they needed to scoop out over fifty feet of mud and sand from the riverbed in order to get down to bedrock where the base of the dam was fastened.

          How about workers?

          This is the desert; the only town is Las Vegas about 20 miles away and back then it had only about 5000 residents. The job site needed about 5000 workers, so that means that every man, woman , and child would be needed to work there!

          Enter “Boulder City”.

          The six companies that banded together to work on the project  and the Federal Government,  constructed “Boulder City” to house all of the workers and most of their families. Complete with a “Company Store’, parks, and neighborhoods, this city is still in existence today. It was finally incorporated in 1960 which means that it was finally self-governing and could elect its own mayor and council.

          We went on a tour of the generating station that is bout 500 feet down on the sides of the dam. We went through tunnels of that bedrock that the dam is fastened to and used elevators initially designed for the workers, that now carry an abundance of tourists, most of whom (as far as we could tell) were folks from Europe and Asia.

          It was nice to see that Hoover Dam has really held its own in the World of Wonders for all these many years.

Trip Day 9

          Our second day of travel to Las Vegas had the same 15 (on a scale of 1 to 10) weather.

          Oh well, somebody has to have good weather! Again, no winds, so that made the driving a very pleasurable experience.

          We did not rush out of the Walmart of Page, we had all day to make a five-hour trip, so it was nice to be able to not go crazy. Luckily for me, there was a large motorhome sized manual spray carwash right across the street. We were unable to get the rig washed before we left Texas and again in Durango.

          Technically it makes no difference if the motorhome is clean or dirty.

          Psychologically it makes a TON of difference to me!

          We are already at a disadvantage when it comes to “looks” as compared to the others…. They rarely get used, some even sit in covered storage and look brandy-new no matter how old they are! This may be petty, but I can’t help it. Maybe it’s a “guy” thing, but it feels SOOOOOO much better when we can drive around not looking like the Beverly Hillbillies!

          So, all sparkly and fueled up we continued westward.

          But first we needed to go North, then South, then North again, and then finally kind of Southwest until we hit Nevada. The reason for this is that the road that we chose (there are not many to choose from) did all of that meandering all by itself! We dipped above and below the Utah/ Arizona border several times, which, if you really wanted to, it could drive you crazy because the two states follow different time-zoney things.

          Arizona does not follow the Daylight Savings Time format.

          Except the Navajo Nation Reservation that does!

          So, If you travel through the Rez, then the State , then cross into Utah, then dip back down into Arizona, then go back up into Utah, then……

          I’m sure you get the idea, but that is exactly what did!

          Wisely we just kept the clocks set to Pacific Daylight Time.

Next up……

          Have you ever heard of Pipe Spring, Arizona?

          (No…. not Radiator Springs from the Pixar movie Cars )

          Pipe Spring, Arizona was on our way and is the home to one of our smallest and least known National Monuments.

          This Monument keeps the multi-faceted story of the struggle amongst, and between,  the Paiute Nation, the Mormons, and the United States Government from being lost. This is another National Monument that is run in cooperation with the local Tribe (the Kaibab band of Paiutes) as was the Navajo National Monument from the previous day.

          Unfortunately, the story here follows the usual path of how the Native Americans were treated by the new settlers that were compressing their homeland and hunting grounds.

          Not to make light of these struggles, but rather to simplify the root of them, I will explain the basic ideological difference between the Native Americans and the Settlers..

          Native Americans did not have any concept of ownership of any natural resources. Water, land, game, etc. were all things that were shared.

          Not owned.

          So, when the settlers came and wanted to make treaties about using the land, or whatever else they needed, the local tribes said,        “Sure, there’s plenty.”

          The Settlers thought that they were negotiating for the ownership of these resources.

          Now we’ve got a problem!

          Add in the issues of how the Settlers, (Mormon or otherwise) and how they thought that the Native American’s were not “Civilized” and therefore beneath them socially, et al, we find that the vast majority of the White folks had no respect for the peoples who had inhabited these areas for the last thousand years or so.

          Double problem.

          Augment this with the conflict between the US Government and the Mormons, mainly over Polygamy, but also involving the Mormon’s control over local commerce, we now have the proverbial kettle boiling over.

          This is illustrated no where better than at Pipe Spring where there is, guess what?

          A natural spring!

          Something that in this semi-arid expanse of desert, is quite useful for basic survival.

          Along come the Mormons out of Salt Lake City, sent by none other than Brigham Young, to settle this and other lands further South. They come upon the spring and actually build a fort over the source of the spring, depriving the locals of most of its use.

          Bigger problem!

          As you can imagine, there were issues, but the major outcome of this and other situations like it was the gradual demise of the Tribes and their natural way of life.

          Enter the Park Service back in 1923 and a visit to the area by Stephen T. Mather, the first NPS Director, who thankfully understood the significance of what had transpired here over the years and decided to purchase the now privately owned Pipe Spring Ranch from its owners and fold it into the National Park Service registry.

          These are the kinds of things that make driving around the back roads of our great Country so satisfying. The ability to stumble across these little hidden gems of our history make this trip that much more enjoyable.

          Sure, we can’t wait to get to Big Sur and the California Coast, but I’m not so sure that the impact of that will leave the same lasting imprint as the story of the struggles of those who preceded us.

The time needed to get to our first ‘Foreign” stop of the trip would only take about four hours, so we knew that we had plenty of time to lolly-gag along the way. Our first “Foreign Port” was that of Page, Arizona, a town who had its genesis when the Glen Canyon Dam was being built on the Colorado River. Behind this dam are the waters of Lake Powell, the second largest man-made lake in the States behind its big brother, Lake Mead (which is further downstream behind the Hoover (Boulder) Dam just outside of Las Vegas, which just happens to be our next destination!

          The weather was finally good for traveling, (read No Wind!) and on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 15! Traveling westward from Durango we passed many of the places that we’ve visited before and their geologic features are now familiar landmarks to us.  The high promontory that marks the entrance to Mesa Verde is only about forty-five minutes from Durango. Out in front of us the city of Cortez lies just east of Sleeping Ute Mountain. Continuing south and west on a deserted Route 160 we could see Shiprock and the Lukachukai Mountains,(affectionally known as the Lucky-Chuckie’s) and just northwest of us, about eighty miles away, the Abajo’s Range jutted from the floor of the desert like a big pile of mashed potatoes plopped on a tabletop. It’s fun keeping track of all of these as they mark your progress across the expanse of the Colorado Plateau, of which, the Four Corners Region is heart.

          Speaking of the Four Corners, we finally were able to stop at this monument as it was finally open. The Navajo Nation was severely impacted by Covid, and all of the public Tribal Parks were closed until they decided that it was safe enough to open again. The Navajo Reservation is three times the size of New Jersey at 28,000 square miles and in it are some of the most dramatic places on the planet, one of which is Monument Valley. I think just about every John Ford directed Western movie, no matter where it was supposed to be located, showed a scene with those iconic towers and buttes of Monument Valley in it. They became, like the Saguaro Cactus (which only grows in a portion of the Sonoran Desert), and the Marlboro Man,  symbols of the Old West that us Easterners can identify with.

          The Four Corners Monument is administered by the Navajo Nation and is crazily popular. Here we were on a Thursday in April standing in line for about fifteen minutes to have our photo taken by the “Line Friends” that we made who were just behind us. We, in turn, took their photo. Surrounding the actual concrete pad and bronze plaque in the ground were approximately thirty permanent stalls, like in a Flea Market, which the Navajo artisans can use to sell their wares to us Touron’s. In this vast, mostly arid, homeland of theirs, there are not that many opportunities for gainful employment, so the enterprising Navajo’s take every occasion to sell these beautiful examples of their culture.

          We almost didn’t make it to the Monument because we practically got swallowed up by cavernous craters in their parking lot!

          To be honest, if I were the manager of a world-famous attraction and my place looked like that I would be extremely embarrassed. All it would take is a few dump trucks of dirt/gravel/sand to remedy this situation. But where can you get this kind of stuff way out here?

          Wait!

          Holy Gravel-Pit Batman!

          There’s a place right across the highway and besides, the whole place is dirt, gravel, and sand! (I feel a letter to the Establishment brewing inside me)

          We left the actual Four Corners feeling happy that (despite the moon-like parking facilities) we had stopped. I guess that is the advantage of traveling around like this, if we don’t need to be in a certain place at a certain time, (Walmart of Page could care less when we pull in) we can stop along the way and smell the cactus…. Carefully!

          Our next destination was another place that we had previously tried to visit which was also closed for the same reason as the Four Corners. The Navajo National Monument is another Navajo Tribal Park and happens to be run jointly by the Navajo and the National Park Service. It was discovered by the Wetherill family back in the late 1890’s. These are the same folks that brought Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde to our collective attentions. There are three very well-preserved cliff dwellings here. They are, Keet Seel, Inscription House, and Betatakin. One of the reasons that they are so well-preserved is their location of the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo treated these ruins with respect and actually did not frequent them because they knew a holy place when they saw it. Also, being on the Rez kept most of the outsiders from visiting, or even knowing about them. They became a Park in 1909 and eventually fell under the National Registry of Historic Places. They are only accessible by guided tours which have yet to be re-opened because of Covid. We did take a jaunt on the trail that leads to the Betatakin Overlook. Again, the weather was just incredible and despite the elevation, (7200 ft.) we felt great. I guess that spending a week in Durango at about 6200 ft. helped acclimatize us to the point where we thought that our hike was actually at a lower elevation than Durango, not higher!

          After Navajo National Monument we continued to our ultimate Daily Destination, that of the Walmart of Page, Arizona. I suspected that we may have some company here, as this area, with its incredible abundance of outdoors activities, is another mecca of sorts for those of us with motor homes, travel trailers and other RV’s.

          I was correct.

          When we got our first glimpse of the Walmart parking lot we thought two things,

          One, there would be no problem with the possibility that this Walmart was one that discourages RV’s from staying and then…

          Two, where would we fit in?

          In reality, the parking lot was large enough, but we’ve never seen one that resembles a RV resort! It looks like folk’s camp out here for an extended period, which is definitely against the RV World Code of Ethics! (I made that last organization up  😊)

          After dinner, we took the Lifeboat/Honda out for a spin and visited Lake Powell which is so low from the extended western drought that the intakes for the hydroelectric plant are dangerously exposed.  

          Today we finish the trip to Las Vegas, which is only about five hours away so we will probably try and find some fun stuff along the way.

          Tomorrow!

Good Morning Boys and girls,

          Welcome to the first day of Ancestral Puebloans 101.

          (I warned you yesterday that there would be a History Lesson today!)

          Initially I should point out that the current term Ancestral Puebloans is the preferred way that the current Native Americans that are descended from these people, namely the modern Pueblo tribes, would like their ancestors to be called. The name/term Anasazi is a Navajo word meaning “ancient enemies” and this does not really accurately describe these folks from long ago. Bedsides, the Navajo are not related in any way to the Old Ones.

          Now that that is out of the way we  can concentrate on how interesting the A.P. are. There are many theories about all of the things that we think that we know about the lives and cultures of them. The stories and traditions handed down from generation to generation of the present Puebloan society help give credence to many of the facts and ideas that we now believe.

          The questions that usually surround discussions of the A. P. are topics like,

          Where did they come from?

          Why did they abandon such magnificent structures?

          Where did they go?  

          And a host of other questions, but these main three are what most people concentrate on.

          I am going to over-simplify the answers to these questions because I’m guessing that by now your collective eyes have already glazed over and are eagerly looking at the clock and hoping that the Professor ends class early so you can go catch some Frisbees on the Common.

          So here goes.

           They came from the same place as most Native Americans, the Siberian Land Bridge, thousands of years ago and started making their societal organizations in about 1200 B.C. It took another thousand years before they started  acting anything like the Ancestral Puebloans that we study today.

          They abandoned their really cool buildings probably for the same reasons that you or I would move.

          Their jobs changed.

          Their jobs back then were simply to exist.

          That means that if the growing conditions, (drought) or availability of food, (hunting) became negative, or if their religious leaders said, “We’re getting out of here!” that’s what they did, they got out of there!

          The third one is probably the easiest.

          They went south, (no, not to Miami) just down a-ways, far  enough for them to be able to live where the forces that made them migrate no longer impacted them as they did before.

          Now, I told you that I would simplify (actually over-simplify!) all of this and that is what I did. If you are in any way interested in any of this there are two wonderful authors that help with the understanding of these topics while making the journey (both figuratively and literally) through the Four Corners Region an incredible literary experience.

          They are Craig Childs and David Roberts.

          Two vastly different styles of writing, but both of which I wish were my friends.

          Read House of Rain by Childs and start with either In Search of the Old Ones or the Lost World of the Old Ones by Roberts.

          No worries if delving into all of this is not what makes you tick. Maybe you just want to get out and see some neat stuff from a long time ago and come up with your own questions and possibilities.

          No problem!

          Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Taos Pueblo are all on the UNESCO World Heritage list and as such are fairly guaranteed a special place in our current society for years to come. In addition to these Big Three, there are thousands of archeological sites strewn about this area and most are on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land and as such are there for your careful and thoughtful perusal at your leisure. There are several etiquette type aspects to this type of exploring, most of which can be categorized as “Make sure you leave the site nice for the next people who happen to come along”

          Durango, Colorado is one of our Home Bases and my daughter Lorelyn and her husband, Travis always make us feel right at home. If you go back in the archives you will find several posts having to do with Tomboy Farm and its surrounding environs. There’s even on having to do with all of the Critters that live here and how we watched over them when Travis and Lorelyn went to Eastern Europe last November.

          Or best welcome this time was given by Ling-Ling, the fluffy, white, skittish, introverted, and mostly nocturnal, cutie-pie of a cat that most people have only had a perfunctory glimpse of. Even the fortnightly cleaning ladies called Lorelyn in a panic one day, reporting that there was a strange cat inside the house!

          It was obviously Ling-Ling and even though they had been coming in for years, they had never even had an idea that she even existed.

          We wondered if Ling-Ling would even remember us, much less make an appearance. To our delight, not only did she grace us with a sighting, but she also came right over to us and jumped up on our laps for a brief snuggle.  😊

          All is good in the land of friendly critters!

          When we visit here we love to be part of the general progress and improvement in the never-ending quest for the time when all the projects are completed and the time for just sitting around descends on Tomboy Farm.

          This much-anticipated event is scheduled for some time in 2050.

          Travis and Lorelyn are always asking us what we would like to do while we are here. We’ve been on many an adventure with them and sometimes, even though there is a lot of work to do around here, I think that they secretly hope that we want to have one of those adventures so that they can leave the chores behind without a guilty conscience. Usually, we are content to just visit and hang out and help with whatever needs to be done.

          They are in the throes of finishing the converted, tear down the old one, build a new one, truck barn/garage/workshop/apartment upstairs project.

          We are only too happy to help out.

          It a “My kids” thing.

          We do the same when we are at Danny and Katie’s place in Texas, we are only too happy to help out and do projects.

          We were going to help paint up in the new apartment, but the painter actually showed up and finished what needed to be done before the next step could begin. So, when Lorelyn decided that she’d had enough of the goats hopping the fence and eating her ”good” plants, it warranted a full-scale offensive on making a Critter Free zone in front of the house. That meant that the janky original, looks like something from Dorothy Gale’s farm in The Wizard of Oz, gate need to be replaced.

          Project Time!

          We raided the myriad of original wood piles strewn strategically around the property that were just waiting for a project like this in order to find the materials needed to make a replacement gate. Notice I did not use the term new gate.

          The mantra here is “Everything old is still old and will never be new again” because that’s the way they like it.

          It all looks original down to trying not to use new shiny screws and bolts, or at least an attempt is made to hide them.

          Here’s some photos of the endeavor.

          Today were supposed to be going to visit Mesa Verde National Park, home to the incomparable Cliff Palace made about 800 years ago by the Ancestral Puebloans formerly known as the Anasazi, but the Park Service needed to do so many projects and repairs on so many of the important structures and roads in the Park that it would have been a waste of time to try and have a meaningful visit.

Our friends, Glenn and Stephanie are making their first foray into the Four Corners Region, and this of course would have been on the top of their To-Do List, but we will just whet their appetite with a visit to Chaco Canyon National Historical Park and introduce them to the incredible culture of these Ancient Ones.

          It practically guarantees having them return in the future. 

          Be ready for a Don’s Traveling History Lesson tomorrow so you too, can astound and amaze your friends with your knowledge of the old culture of this region. I can hear it now as you are standing at the water cooler with everyone talking about the NCAA Finals and you drop a line like, “Speaking about the Anasazi…..”

Well, that did not go as planned.

          I’m sure that you all know Murphy’s Law,

          “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, (at the most inconvenient time.)”

          There is a Society attached to this corollary and of that, I am a card-carrying member.

          First I should report that our first leg of the journey has been completed and we are safely ensconced in the warm, snuggly, confines of the Tomboy Farm farmhouse.

          This was after setting two traveling records yesterday:

          Longest Traveling Hours (13+) and

          Longest Daily Mileage (766)

          The reason we needed to jam all of those traveling tid-bits into one day was that we were determined to arrive in Durango not a minute later than we had planned notwithstanding the fact that the fix of the DEF System did not go as well as we had originally thought.

          It, in fact, went much worse and was exacerbated by an untimely flat tire on the Honda.

          Oh, and for those of you that are eagerly awaiting the outcome and score of Madison’s Herd-Ball game, well, in the words of Kaitie (her mom), “The Feral Kitties (previously known as the Wildcats) were frosted by the Rainbow Donuts.”

          No worries Madison, there’s always next week.

          Back to the DEF System trials and tribulations.

          We showed back up at 8 am the following morning as instructed by Larry the Service Manager to have the new DEF Header (that I had with me) installed.

          This was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of the fixes that were needed to put us back on the road with only a slight delay. Once the new hardware was installed with all of its new silicon ships and do-dads, the computer would say to itself,

          “Hah, There it is! I’ll now re-set myself so that these fine folks can get on their way!”

          That was what was supposed to happen.

          What really happened was something other than that.

           After all the work was done, the “Faults” cleared out of the computer, and the “Labor Only” bill was paid, we hooked the Honda back up, waved good-by to Larry, Sam, and Billy, and proceeded north-bound on Rt. 36, headed for Lubbock and points west.

          About eight miles into the trip the same “Faults” came back onto the dashboard blinking their warning lights while saying “We saw Murphy down at the shop, he said to say ‘Hi” when we saw you!” or something like that.

          I called Larry from the Bat-Phone, he just repeated the same expletive that I had just uttered a few moments before and followed it with, “Bring it back in….” A few minutes later we arrived and the guys once again, abandoned the work that they were doing and started looking for anything else that may be causing the Faults to appear.

          Meanwhile, Paula and I went to lunch. While we were driving, a light came on the dash of the Honda! (You can’t make this stuff up!) It was the Tire-Pressure light indicating that there was an issue. I looked around at the tires when we got out and determined that the right rear looked a tad low, and I would check it when we returned to the Truck Center.

          Sure enough, it was by now, noticeably lower. Good thing I carry a plug kit and air compressor with us. I can fix most issues without even taking the tire off of the car.

          But not this time!

          I located the sharp metal object that was responsible for making the tire feel low and dejected. I succeeded in extracting said object but lacked the leverage to insert the plug while the tire was still on the car.

          Out came the jack, and we soon had the tire off and plugged. I then wheeled it through the Truck Center front door and through their showroom. Larry took one look at it and pointed to the back of the service area where their compressor was located. A few minutes later, inflated and spit-tested for leaks, we installed it back on the car.

          We still needed to wait for the outcome of the renewed efforts of the courageous repair guys before we could try all of this again.

          It turns out that Sam went through the whole system and found a wire that was a bit corroded. Things like that can keep the computer from getting the ‘full story’ and indicate such with a ‘Fault’. They also found some extraneous build-up of DEF remains in and around the injector parts of the system. When all of this was finished they performed a “SCA Whole System Test” which is where a service computer takes over the engine and runs both it and a diagnostic test at the same time. This requires an additional hour to complete.

          So, here we are, it’s about 3 pm by now and we still haven’t hit the road yet.

          A few minutes later, Larry came over to me and said, “The test came out good, why don’t you take her for a spin, check it out, and if it ‘s all good then come back and hook up your car and get outa here.”

          Good idea.

          Off I went, leaving Paula as collateral for the work that was done this afternoon and I drove a total of about fourteen miles with no issues!

          Back I went, “thumbs-up” to the crew, and hooked the car up. I then went to Larry and asked for the bill for the additional time that they spent on it this afternoon. He said, “No charge, just get going and have a safe trip.”

          They will all get presents from our trip upon our return in September.

          We obviously could not travel as far this day as we had originally planned. We had lost about nine hours of travel time so what was supposed to be a leisurely two-day excursion was not to be. We drove until about eight or so, and were finally getting too tired to continue. We found a Walmart in Brownwood, Texas which now holds a Five-Star Rating from the Paula and Don Traveling Circus Rating System for no noise, no annoying lights piercing our windows, no loud, unmufflered cars, (it seems that one of the pre-requisites of being an employee of a Walmart night shift is that you must possess a car that has no muffler and your number one priority when you report to work is to drive by the motorhomes in the parking lot several times before punching in), and only one train whistle all night!

          We arose early and were on the road by 5:30 am, headed west towards Lubbock, Texas and Clovis, New Mexico on the way to Albuquerque and finally Durango. As most of you know, Wind is the bane of our existence when it comes to driving. We have surmised that when we detect, Oh, say thousands of windmills in a particular area, that it does not bode well for a peaceful traveling experience.        

Apparently they do not put windmills in areas that have little wind.

          Oh well.

          But the Motorhome and her DEF system performed flawlessly 😊and we only stopped once for a splash of fuel and a few other times to change drivers. We have not yet perfected the Switch Drivers While the Cruise Control is Engaged and One Holds the Wheel While the Other Slides in Behind Them trick. Other than that, we eat and do other “important” things while the other person is driving.

          We made good time, all things considered, as we pulled into Tomboy Farm around 5:45 pm to a raucous welcome from CubScout, Ling-Ling, Munchie, Nibbles, Chloe, and all of the Chickens who thought that we had arrived to feed them.