Visit with the daughters in Colorado and Utah

Tuesday, June 20
Stillwater, OK to Hays, KS; 310 miles
Super 8 off I-70

Packed the car the night before so ate a bowl of oatmeal, packed the cooler, and left Stillwater about 7:15 am. Just before getting on I-35N, I stopped to fill the gas tank at Cowboy Travel Plaza: Beer, Boots & BBQ and advertising "Best Pork Butt."

I-35 north to Wichita was pretty monotonous, though some fields were yellow with coreopsis and tickseed. Farmers on super-sized machinery were harvesting their vast fields of hay and wheat. I passed several large wind farms—three, I think—all in western Oklahoma and Kansas. I also passed pond after pond of hot cattle standing in the water up to their bellies. Near the exit for Wilson, I saw a sign for The World’s Largest Czech Egg. I looked this roadside kitsch up on the Internet and found that Wilson is the “The Czech Capital of Kansas” and the egg  is 22 feet tall. I also passed a Seattle Fresh Fish truck. Surely not fresh from Seattle in a box truck.

Young Czech princes and princesses before
 the World's Largest Czech Egg

I also passed an exit for Lindsborg, KS, a little Scandinavian town that we visited after our year in Norway. I thought of stopping there on the way home but it was “horse to barn” on the return and I zipped on past.

At the motel, a Super 8 right off 70N, I cancelled my plans to see downtown Hays and escaped into the motel's air-conditioning. It was 100°F on the nose when I pulled in. Dinner: two slices of Applewood smoked turkey, three-bean salad, and decaf coffee.

While eating I watched two National Geographic Channel Locked Up Abroad stories. Very scary, but both the people depicted seemed awfully naïve. The first was a very naïve guy who was targeted by a girl whom he thought he was in love with. She convinced him to go to South America with her and bring back some dope. Once there she flew back to the U.S. and the cartel taped pounds of heron to him and forced him to fly back to the States. He was caught at the airport and served three years in a S.A. jail. Unbelievably, when he got out he wanted to find the girl because he was still in love with her. The dope did not realize that he’d been played until someone told him point blank. The second was a Brit who was traveling in India and accepted an invitation to an “uncle’s house” in the country. He ended up an ISIS hostage, nearly getting beheaded before he escaped.

Wednesday, June 21
Hays, KS to Lafayette, CO; 355 miles
Overnight Lucy’s

Left the Super 8 about 8 am and traveled nonstop on 70 for what seemed like forever. More wind farms, more vast fields of wheat and hay. I saw only one field of corn and it was pretty sad. Wheat and hay seem to be the crops in Kansas and eastern Colorado.

When I reached Lucy's, she was waiting. She had fixed up my comfy room downstairs and had bought Song Bird bandannas for each of us. Her house is pure Lucy, decorated with her sculptures, paintings, and terrariums. She even has a couple of shelf fungi with small miniature RR trees on them above her dining table. After we unloaded the car and put the cooler items in the fridge, we ate a relaxed lunch: applewood smoked turkey, cheese, crackers, etc. and played a couple of games of Upwords.

Then Lucy took me on a tour of Lafayette and drove me to the Isabelle Farms Farm Store where she works. It is a lovely place and I got to meet several of her co-workers and admire the layout and the structure itself which is modern but with large barn loft and crossbeams.

The Isabelle Farms barn porch. On the day I was there, it was filled with workers selling bread and vegetables

We ate dinner in the Taj Mahal II in Louisville. An exceptional meal. I had curried chicken. Lucy got her favorite which I cannot now remember, and we had a naan side order. The white-tablecloth service was quick and very good. Lucy took me on a little tour of the area in her new car. When we got back to Lucy’s we gathered things for our camping week and then did a final couple of loads of wash. We hoped to leave early because Angel of Shavano Campground is first come, first served, and there are only 20 sites.

Thursday, June 22
Lafayette to Angel of Shavano Campground, CO; 184 miles
15 miles from Salida, CO

Well before noon, we arrived at the campground, tucked 10 miles up a narrow dirt road in the San Isabel National Forest. When we got to the entrance, the sign said “No Vacancy; campground full.” We were disappointed, but we decided to drive through and see what the campground looked like. A good thing we did. We came upon the campground host (a preacher formerly from Chickasha, OK) cleaning up a site. He said we could have that site or an adjacent one as the campers had left. We liked the large site he was cleaning up, so felt very fortunate to have found a vacancy.

Angel of Shavano, at an elevation of 9,200 feet, is named after an image of an angel that appears as winter snow on Shavano Mountain. The campsites were wooded with aspen and spruce trees, and a few of the campsites were located along the North Fork of the Arkansas River, which was roaring through, high with snow melt. We were glad that our site was not on the river because the rushing water was loud.

North fork of the Arkansas River rushing past the campgrounds

Setting up camp, we ran into a few glitches: No pot or dishes (other than bowls, a no-stick frying pan, and utensils) because we’d forgotten to pack them. Duh! Also, no potable water. So this is what the campground description meant by “dry campsites,” which I interpreted as tent sites with no RV-type hookups to water, but which meant that one had to bring one’s water in. The toilets were pit toilets, no shower or running water--actually no washhouse. The only other campground I’ve been in that had no water was in Alaska. Another glitch: The blowup mattress Lucy brought for me would not fit in my two-person Hubba Hubba tent. Finally, we set up the new canopy and placed it over the picnic table. It is a very simple setup but, of course, we attempted to do it without first reading the directions. Demerits for both of us.

For a bit, we made do, borrowing a small pot from the very genial host and switching tents so that I could sleep on the blowup mattress. After setup, we played a couple of games of Upwords. Lunch was hard boiled eggs, Spike, and cheese crackers. Lucy even managed a cup of coffee because the CG did have water . . . if one wanted to spend an exhausting time pumping an old blue pump to get a trickle of yellowish water.

While eating lunch, we watched a chipmunk as it came out of its burrow under two large rocks and sampled the grass and flowerheads in the area. It would return to its rocks and sit tall atop them surveying its territory like a small meerkat. Before we left the next day, Lucy left some salad greens before its burrow. I hope it appreciated the effort.

After lunch, we hiked to a gorgeous waterfall over very rocky and boulder-filled terrain, and then hiked back along the river to the campground. At one point we saw clawed up ground and overturned rocks where it seemed a black bear had been searching for grubs.

Lucy on a bridge over the end of the stream along which we would hike to the waterfall below

Lucy at riverside dipping our bird bandannas into the icy water.We wore them around our necks and they really helped keep us cool

Saggy, braless me, my shirt wet from my neckerchief. It looks like I weigh a ton here, but I have shed

some serious lead and am still shedding in an attempt to get down to a slimmer me.

At the end of our hike we decided to put our aching feet into the water.

The water was so cold it hurt, so we did not leave them in for long.

Lucy wincing at the cold water

Before dinner we drove to Salida to get water for coffee and oatmeal and something for Lucy to make her coffee in. She bought a sieve, used the paper towels we had as a filter, and was once again a happy camper. Dinner: turkey, avocado, hummus, salad greens, tomatoes, rolled in a tortilla. Lucy had coffee and I had a hot chocolate. It rained lightly but the big trees at our site and the canopy protected us from most of it. More chipmunk watching. More Upwords. No fire and early bed.

I did not sleep well on the blowup mattress which kept deflating and left my hip on the cold ground. The mattress also fit wall to wall and left me with a bouncy area from which to get up on my knees and out of the tent. My left hip is now going, so this was an awkward and difficult maneuver. I was glad it was dark so that no one could see the contortions I managed. One, I think, is a yoga move called “downward facing dog.” It was cold also, and I could not get warm. Spent a restless night. Whine, whine. I had brought along two Thermarests, so for the rest of the trip, I slept on them in my own tent and Lucy bounced around happily on the blowup mattress.

Friday, June 23
Angel of Shavano CG to Durango, CO; 215 miles
United CG of Durango

On the way to Durango we drove over Wolf Creek Pass, a beautiful pass with a pullout overlook before a technical s-turn descent and above a lush valley. We pulled off to stretch and rest. Lucy gobbled a hard boiled egg, and we took pix of the valley below and a waterfall. Google Maps tells me that the pass is actually in Creede, Colorado, not all that far from our neighbor Kay’s cabin. She did not leave for her cabin until the following week, however, so a quick visit was out.

The view of the valley from the pullout at Wolf Creek Pass; the rocks in the foreground are infant hoodoos in the making.

Waterfall at roadside at the bottom of Wolf Creek Pass

After the overlook, we both needed a bathroom. We found one in a tiny convenience store miles down Hwy 160. Here we met most of the other people who had stopped at the overlook. The place gets a lot of business from people crossing the pass as it is the only public restroom for miles and miles.

Somewhere along 160 we passed a very fancy gate. I turned around and went back for a photo. It was a wide gate and had painted metal life-sized horses affixed to it as though running past. At this location we also picked a big clump of beautiful foxtail grass. When we got to our Durango campsite, however, the foxtail grass awns were already spiked out, the seeds flying from their stems. I had forgotten that this beautiful grass would not keep as dried grass. Lucy waved the grass bouquet in the air near the washhouse to disperse the seeds (see photo below). Perhaps next year there will be some foxtail grass at the site.

Our campground was on the west side of Durango and we were disappointed when we first saw it. It

Lucy with fly-away foxtail grass

was chock-a-block with RVs. But the tent sites were lovely in a large, grassed, shady grove of cottonwoods well apart from the RVs and just east of the railroad tracks on which we would find ourselves the next day on the way back to Durango from Silverton. At the campground check-in, I bought a cheap fleece throw for me and a towel for Lucy. For some reason, the hostess thought we wanted privacy (the word was written on my reservation) so she put us at the very end of the tent sites with no one on either side of us. This was fine with us! We set up on our lovely grassy site and then made a beeline for the washhouse and its showers and running water.

After this refreshing interlude, we drove back to Durango, stopping first at a grocery along the way to look for a hat. When I pulled out of the grocery parking lot into 4-lane traffic, I nearly got broadsided because I did not see the oncoming cars behind the cars that were turning into the grocery parking lot.

In Durango, we stopped at the train station to get our Adventure Tickets—bus to Silverton at 9:30 am; back country ATV ride with lunch from 11 to 3; narrow gauge train back to Durango from 3:30-6:30 pm. We then toured Durango’s main street, which is full of interesting stores, restaurants, and bakeries.

Susan and her very stiff boyfriend in front of Cowgirls Wholesale Outlet; I do not wear bangs . . . except when I have hastily washed my hair and the wind is blowing.

Jeff fondly remembered the Jean Pierre Bakery & Wine Bar and had encouraged us to stop there. Lucy and I did think to eat dinner there but, alas, it was too pricey. We were still looking for a hat for me for the next day’s ATV ride, but could find nothing in my price range, i.e., cheap. It was very hot so we stuck to the shady side of the street. 

The bakery section at Jean Pierre's; Internet photo

Jean Pierre's Bakery & Wine Bar

Finally, nearly back at the train station, we found Nini's Taqueria, which had been recommended to us by one of the sales people. Nina’s had a small list of set menus. I ordered chicken mango tacos, which came as a triplet of soft flour tacos. The gals behind the counter were rude and abrupt, and the tacos all stuck to one another and were very sloppy to eat and not very tasty. Lucy treated this meal, and we decided that the food, eaten on high stools, was definitely not worth the nearly $25+ it cost.

After our Mexican meal, we returned to the campground and I did two loads of wash while Lucy organized the campsite and had some private time to talk to Laura on her phone. I sat outside the laundromat and called Jeff to report our day. A boy scout troop of teens sprawled on the grassy bank before the laundromat joking and teasing each other. I decided that I was very lucky to have two daughters, both of whom have been my good and true traveling companions on several trips. There wouldn’t be the same easy bond and travel with sons I believe.

Saturday, June 24
Durango to Silverton to Durango, 120 miles; then 50 miles to Mesa Verde
Morefield Campground, Mesa Verde

Mr. Bones at a Denver show; Internet photo

The next morning we were up and out in plenty of time to stop at Walmart and get me a floppy brimmed hat for sun protection. The only drawback: the small Budweiser label on the hatband. Lucy cooked delicious scrambled Egg Beaters, cheese, tomatoes, Canadian bacon for breakfast and we both had coffee. We washed our dishes, dressed, and brushed our teeth at the washhouse (a treat after the previous night’s primitive camping) and then were off to the train station and our bus, which we had to be at by 9:30. We parked near the train station and walked over to it, on the way encountering Mr Bones aka Timothy Seeber who dresses like a dinosaur skeleton and entertains kids and adults alike (see photo above). Go here for his website: https://www.facebook.com/timothy.seeber.mr.bones/ While waiting for the bus, we met an interesting couple from Ohio who were also scheduled for the ATV backcountry adventure. Our bus driver was a small woman who had worked in many capacities in national parks and who had also been an airplane mechanic. She gave us a great guided nonstop tour talk all the way to Silverton. 

The colorful main street buildings of Silverton,CO, an old mining community turned skiing, hiking, jeeping, ATVing, and mountain biking tourist attraction; the red building is an old school

What is now an arcade, the original jail, and an old pickup in Silverton

Gary, the owner of ATV Adventures, met us at the bus. He and his wife and daughter helped us register and find helmets. I had reserved a double—passenger behind the driver—but Lucy was worried that I would fly off, so for $50 we upgraded to a double side by side. Our red ATV had a canopy and we were wearing helmets, so our days’ long search for a hat was bootless, or should I say “hatless.” Also, the seats were comfortably conforming, so I did not need the foam rubber padding I had dragged along. It stayed at the ATV headquarters.

Before we started, Gary asked who had driven an ATV before. Only one hand went up, that of a young kid. I don’t know why Gary asked, because he revved up and took off with very minimal instructions. Lucy drove nervously at first until she managed on the fly to read instructions on the gear panel about shifting into low and four-wheel drive. Gary led with the four guest ATVs behind him followed by his wife and daughter. We were the second ATV behind Gary.

Dust flew! We tied our bird bandannas around our faces to combat the dust, which at times obscured the ATVs ahead of us. At the end of the ride, the white sun shirt that I'd been wearing and the faces of those without bandannas looked like they’d been dusted with chocolate. The dust got into Lucy’s eyes, too, causing them to tear and burn. I took several hilarious selfies of the two of us in our song bird bandannas. See below.

Susan in red helmet; Lucy in white and wearing her billed cap

We left town on a paved road, rode for a distance on a wide gravel road, and then climbed up to 11,760 feet on narrow, dusty rock-filled trails, some of them cliff-hangers. At one point I held my breath as Lucy navigated the very edge of a bend to get past a jeep. Gary had told us not to get closer than 14 inches from the edge, and had comfortingly told us that if we went over to “lose the ATV.” Following a stream, we climbed over large jolting scree, water, big stones and deep potholes passing old, abandoned mines and purple columbine and red penstemon growing from cliffsides. The area was stunning in its grandeur. We were along a rushing snowmelt river that sported snow shelves in places, and were among gorgeous snow-spotted mountains, waterfalls, and abandoned mines and miners’ primitive log houses.  Our climb ended at Animas Forks mining ghost town where we had 15 minutes to use the restrooms, explore the small log houses (great grandparents of today’s Tiny Houses?), and eat our lunches. Our lunch came in a cloth “backpack” and consisted of a deli turkey sandwich, a small bag of Cheetos, a chocolate bar, and water. It was still hot enough at nearly 12,000 feet to melt the chocolate bar so it was quickly eaten.

Gary, whose ATV broke down about here, telling us about a bordello
on the mountainside behind him

Gary, wearing a go-pro on his helmet, recorded the whole trip, which film he said he would send to each of us if we gave him our email addresses. Unfortunately, he got into an argument with one of the guest drivers when we got back to his headquarters (this guy had thrown the ATV into 4WD while coming down the mountain and broken the machine), and neither Gary’s wife or daughter was taking email addresses, so we left for the train and did not get the video or the professional photo of the group that Gary took at the ghost town. Fortunately I had handed him my camera so I got a cell phone shot of the group.We had a great and thrilling time on the ATVs, but the whole adventure was too rushed from its jump start to its two 15 minute breaks, to its argumentative conclusion.

Left: Helmeted, Lucy, a little po'd at Gary's lack of instructions

Old mine entrance

This two story building in Animas Forks ghost town was its largest structure and built by the man
who founded the mining operation; Lucy is looking across the way at a waterfall

Lucy posing by an old collapsed mine operation

The ATV-ers, all faces in shadow; that's me in the floppy hat. I am standing on a rock so appear
taller than I really am

The train ride back to Durango was lovely and relaxing after the speed and tension of our ATV adventure. We became friendly with a couple and their two teenaged sons. The father was a railroad buff and was interested to hear about California’s Skunk train. The mother was a good conversationalist as was the older son whom they were taking to the Air Force Academy. The younger son mostly kept to himself and was content to look out the window. As the train trundled along the Animas River, the scenery was gorgeous. When we came out of the mountains, we saw deer and prairie dogs. Also horses. Lucy and I had been playing Yitz. We both yitzed three brown horses and one white one. When we got into a back-and-forth about who got the five points for the white horse, the family could not stop laughing. Of course they had never heard of the game, which on long rides entertained all in our family when I was a child. Each white horse is worth 5 points. All others are worth only 2 points. Jeff and I played this game with young Jessica and Lucy on our cross-country trips. Into the family memory bank is a time when Jessica yitzed a horse but Lucy said: “No, you can’t have that one! I saw breast-es,” meaning that Jess had yitzed a cow and Lucy had seen the udder. Still makes me laugh.

The little narrow gauge Durango train rounding a curve; eventually it was high above the animas River on what is called The High Line. I sat comfortably on the other side of the train at that point.

As soon as Lucy and I got back to Durango, we jumped into the car and headed for Mesa Verde only 40 miles away. We stopped for gas and cell use, arriving at Morefield CG just before dark to set up our tents. I had forgotten what a twisty climb it was to the campground. (Mesa Verde's altitude varies from 6000 to 8500 feet.) When I was at Mesa Verde in 2011, I’d purchased an inexpensive ranger tour at the campground. The tour leader, Sharon, had been on the job only three days, but she was knowledgeable and a great driver on the cliff-hanging, s-curved roads. She’d been a driver’s ed teacher in a previous life and handled our open jeep-type vehicle with ease. There were only seven of us (three couples and me—one couple from France with little English) which made for a good group. However, in the intervening years, Mesa Verde had added a large Visitor’s Center, so one could no longer buy tour tickets at the campground but had to go back down the mountain to the Center. Because of this, and for several other reasons, we decided that we would drive a self-guided tour: 1) It was hot and the tours required hiking down into and out of each site; 2) many of the sites required climbing/descending ladders or entering tunnels; 3) most of the tours were now conducted on big tour buses with no AC and we did not fancy being amongst the herd, and 4) the tour prices had risen considerably. Thus, we decided to take a self-guided tour on our own.

Schematic of our tent site from my 2011 adventure

That evening we ate catch-as-catch-can out of our cooler and food boxes, and then headed for the showers. We had set up near where I had set up six years before on my road trip to Sarah’s. This site was nearly at the opposite end of a trail over a rise and to the back of the campground's general store, laundry, and showers. By the time we were ready for showers, it was dark, so we found our way by flashlight and headlamp. There was an outside wall of showers, each with its own door. Each shower had a box with a quarter coin slot in it, so we dredged up some quarters. A passing guy asked us how much the showers were and we told him that we guessed they were 50 cents. The coin box was broken in the first shower I entered. Because I’d already undressed, I had to re-dress and gather my things before I could step out and then into another shower. The coin box in the second shower did not work either. I tried the shower. Water came gushing from the showerhead, hot or cold, and required no quarters. Duh! Lucy had a similar experience, but she checked out the coin box and shower before undressing. A smart move. Don't know what the guy did who had returned to his tent site for quarters.

We’d had a long day of driving and ATVing and narrow-gauge training, so we were both in bed by 9:30 or 10.

Sunday, June 25
Mesa Verde, CO (morning) to Moab, Utah; 124 miles plus 54 “bonus” miles
Up the Creek Campground

In the morning, we broke down our campsite and drove to the campground headquarters. Here we shared a breakfast of all-you-can-eat pancakes (two the size of the plate) at the campground café and got in a game of Upwords, There was a mural in the café showing the Ancient Puebloan People with what seemed to be a dog and several turkeys. We asked a passing ranger about these animals and he told us that the Puebloans domesticated coyotes and kept flocks of wild turkeys whose wings they clipped. They wove the turkey feathers into their blankets for warmth.

After breakfast, we descended to the Visitor’s Center, picked up a map and pamphlets describing each site, and then drove back up, past the campground and along the North Rim. We stopped and walked to Park Point Overlook, drove past Far View Lodge (where those who do not camp stay), checked out the Far View mesa sites, and then drove the Cliff House loop, stopping at each pullout to view the cliff houses and storage areas. Lucy read each site’s pamphlet as we viewed it. Also, we had our binoculars with us so could see all of the structures well.

A view from Park Point Overlook

Trees killed by a 2004 fire just beginning to come back

Lucy photographing a flower with her ipad; it had three petals and a dark maroon almost black
center. I tracked it down on the Internet and found that it is a Sego or Mariposa Lily (Calochortus gunnisonii)

Lucy read the guidebook about this advanced Puebloan culture that had built the cliffside dwellings: “Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Puebloans began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they continued to reside in the alcoves, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. By the late 1270s, the population began migrating south into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By 1300, the Ancestral Puebloan occupation of Mesa Verde ended. On June 29, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park to ‘preserve the works of man,’ the first national park of its kind.”

It really is stunning how these Ancient Puebloan people built their houses and granaries in cliffside niches and holes in the ground. Just shaping the sandstone and getting it up and down would have been a feat. They used hand and toe holds to get to the mesa above to tend their crops. We learned in our reading that infant mortality was high, fully 50% of children died before reaching age 5. Of course I wondered how many of them died while trying to climb to the mesa top using the primitive hand and foot holds carved into the rock, and how many of them fell from the cliffs or fell from the ladders used to descend into the kivas and to upper level rooms.

We had good close views of Cliff Palace and Balcony House. We read that recent studies revealed that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms, 23 kivas, and had a population of about 100 people. Of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1 to 5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units.

Lucy viewing Cliff Palace with her binoculars

Cliff Palace. Note the number of tourists.

Reading the guide booklet

Far View was one of the most densely populated parts of the mesa from A.D. 900 to about A.D. 1300. Nearly 50 villages have been identified within a half square mile area, and were home to hundreds of people. Today, several excavated and stabilized sites are linked by a trail system. These surface sites include Far View House, Pipe Shrine House, Coyote Village, Far View Reservoir, Megalithic House, and Far View Tower.

Cliff dwellings that we could see with our binoculars along the canyon below

Our tour ended about noon, and after I had negotiated the twists and turns to get us down from the Park, Lucy took over the driving and was set to drive us to Moab. I had ridden my bike from Monticello to Moab in 2011 and remembered the road as straight. Well, we took a turn and drove 27 miles in the wrong direction before we realized that the road was anything but straight. After retracing our steps, I was again behind the wheel so that before entering Moab, Lucy could experience the fantastic scenery and rock formations along the route: Wilson’s Arch, Church Rock, Hole in the Rock, and all of the hoodoos and rock formations and views of the now distant snow capped San Juans .

 

Wilson's Arch

One place that I wanted to investigate was Church Rock, a huge sandstone gumdrop that sits all by itself in the sagebrush. I remembered that it seemed to have a door in it and I wanted to check it out. Alas, there was no road off 191 that we could discern that led back to it. The photo below is from 2011.

Church Rock

Road to Moab; that's Church Rock in the distant center and the snow capped La Sal Mountains in the background; photo taken in 2011

We got to Moab about 5 o’clock and met Lucy’s partner, Laura, at Up the Creek CG. Laura had arrived from Lafayette only a short time earlier. We registered and then used the campground’s little wheelbarrows to tote our gear to our site, which was at the end of the CG next to a Lux Tent, a large walled tent that the hosts rented out to “glampers,” glam campers. No one had rented it so we were fine on that side, but the other side of our site was very close to the next site, separated only by our picnic table. The girls erected the canopy over the table and we made sure that our tents were erected far enough from the grass that they would not get wet when the grass was sprinkled. 

Lucy and Laura setting up the campsite; those are Lux Tents for glampers behind them;
fortunately no one had rented them so we had no neighbors on that side.

Lucy at her handwashing station

Our tents; mine is the small yellow one; the white at the edge of the grass is cottonwood fluff

That evening Laura drove us into Moab for dinner, and we cruised Main Street trying to make up our minds among the many restaurants there. Part of the problem belonged to me: I can eat no dairy, which zapped pizza, ice cream parlors, yogurt stands and a lot of Mexican entrees with their sour cream and cheese. Eventually, we settled on The Spoke on Center, a burger restaurant, and ate upstairs. The place was crowded, the service and food okay but not outstanding. I had the salmon burger and sweet potato tots Laura had fish ‘n’ chips, and Lucy had a Texas burger I think. I won’t be ordering sweet potato tater tots again. They had no dipping sauce and were too bland.

Spoke on Center; Internet photo

Interior of the Spoke on Center; the place was crowded. We ate upstairs. Internet photo

Lucy and Laura at The Spoke on Center

Monday, June 26
Tour Arches National Park, about 6 miles from Moab
Up the Creek Campground

We three were up early and prepared our breakfast of coffee, oatmeal and blueberries as quietly as we could because the two boys camping next to us were still asleep—yes we could see them through the large mesh window of their tent. Last night it was too hot to use the fly, but out of modesty, I did, as my tent is completely mesh. I left the vestibules open, though.

After breakfast, we were off to Arches NP in Laura’s car as ours was so full of gear that there wasn’t room for the three of us. Lucy began in the back on Laura's dog's quilt, but at my insistence soon switched with me so that she could see better. This was her first time in Arches and I had seen it the year that Jess and Kim and Peter and I ran the Green River. It is a stunning area of the U.S. and world, actually. There are supposedly over 1000 arches in the monument. We stopped at Courthouse Towers and viewed The Three Gossips, traveled on to the Petrified Dunes and Balanced Rock, and then headed into the “Windows Section” where we climbed to Double Arch, viewed the Parade of Elephants and climbed to North and South Windows I took a photo of Turret Arch which we passed quickly through on our way to the parking lot and restrooms.

Just to illustrate the size of things

Parade of Elephants; Internet photo

Turret Arch

The rock formation above the girls looks to me like a lion or dog lying down
with its tongue hanging out

The Three Gossips and some dirt on my cell

Before Double Arch

Balancing Rock; I took the photo into the sun; hence, the silhouette

The valley behind Double Arch

Where's Lucy?

We then drove to the Devil’s Garden Campground. Lucy and Laura thought that maybe they would return to hike back to several stunning arches, the longest being Landscape Arch, but changed their plans the next day and ran the Colorado River and visited Canyonlands instead. We ate lunch in a small picnic area, finding some shade in the pinon pines and gnarled juniper trees. We sat at the end of a table shared with an interesting young couple who were traveling for a month before leaving for two years in China. At the picnic area, I spotted a black-throated sparrow and a pinyon jay. We also saw turkey vultures, ravens, and white-throated swifts above the rock formations.

Landscape Arch; Internet photo; one had to hike back to it and the day was heating up

Black-throated Sparrow; Internet photo

Pinyon Jay; Internet photo

 Last we hiked to the lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint. There appeared to be green scree in the distance from this vantage point and I’m still unsure of what it is. Copper? The photo below is a shot of it along the road. On the way down from the viewpoint we stopped to photograph a collared lizard that was sunning on a gnarled branch. My cell photo did not turn out well so those below are from the Internet. This lizard is very colorful. The one we spotted had bright yellow feet.

Laura and Lucy before Delicate Arch (top left), so named because it is due to crumble.
Those tiny specks against the sky top left are people at the upper viewpoint.
We hiked only to the lower viewpoint, which matched my stamina.

The fine green scree we could see from a distance; this is at roadside

A Collared Lizard; couldn't get it with my cell, so this is an Internet photo.
The Internet photo below is colored more like the one we saw with bright yellow feet

Before leaving the park we stopped at the visitor center where we viewed a movie about how the park was formed. Though the three of us had a hard time keeping our eyes open in the dark, we learned that the park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible, along with the wind, rain, and heat for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths that we had viewed. Thousands of feet thick in places, we learned that the salt bed was deposited across the Colorado Plateau 3000 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated.

The heat had soared to 107°F by the time we left the park and got back to the campsite about 2 pm. We lazed about the campground, organized our gear, and enjoyed some raucous crows in the trees near our site and four female and two antlered male deer who found the grass verges of the campsite enticing. 

That evening I spent a very restless night because of the heat and my hip.

Tuesday, June 27
Moab, UT to Salt Lake City; 234 miles
Jessica’s house in Millcreek Neighborhood

Up and out early after showering, breakfast, and loading the car. Lucy and Laura needed to be at the rafting put-in at 8:30. I was on the road by 8:00. It was an easy nearly empty route to Jessica's along 70W, UT-6, and I-15, though congested through Provo with 6 lanes on each side of the road! I am old enough to remember when two lanes was huge. On the way to Salt Lake City, Up the Creek CG called and wanted an additional $8.30 for Laura. She had decided to join us in Moab after I had made Lucy’s and my reservations and was considered a guest at $9 additional a night. I lost the UTC call when I drove into the mountains and lost the signal, but sent payment when I got home. Peanuts.

Left: 70W out of Moab taken from entrance to Arches NP

Jessica was home and on the phone when I arrived, but we quickly unloaded the car, parked it at street side and then relaxed over a great arugula/feta/

watermelon salad for lunch. Jess looks wonderfully tanned and fit, her calf muscles well developed from her cycling and snowboarding. Jessica’s house was as I remembered it, though she had added a new couch, decking and succulent containers out front, and had enlisted Lucy to strip her back balcony, a gargantuan job that will be finished by one of Jessica’s contacts. Cat Sherman “The Tank” Walker was as I remembered him also, a very mild-mannered grey furball cat who loves a lap. He was sleeping in Jessica’s sock drawer when I arrived.

Sherman "The Tank" Walker

A lounging Sherman and a selfie of Sherman lounging on me;
 he is one big cat with paws the size of ping pong paddles . . . just kidding

The original blue cupboards

Jess took an hour and a half bike ride while I took a nap, and that evening we watched a netflix episode over a delicious steak and mashed cauliflower dinner. Over dinner I remarked that Jessica’s l.r. shelves were still pale blue and asked if she wanted me to paint them while I was there. She did. But, she would be gone from 8:30 until 5:30 the following day at her bookkeeping class, so I would have to gather what was needed. That evening I unloaded the shelves/cupboards preparatory to painting the unit.

Went to bed early and slept well. After my week on a Thermarest in my tent, the bed felt luscious. In fact it felt so luscious that when I got home I ordered a Casper mattress, foundation, and a bed frame to upgrade my bedroom. Jess had recommended the Casper mattress. It and the foundation come in boxes. Each was delivered two days after I had placed my on- line order. Shipped free, as was the platform that I ordered through Wayfair. The platform arrived after a short four-day wait. Since we are having the now carpeted bedroom floor replaced with solid oak flooring, the boxes, at this posting, have yet to be opened as the flooring is going to take a couple of weeks to arrive and be installed.

Wedesday, June 28
Jessica’s house

Jessica left at 8:30 for class and I finished unloading shelves. Then I took off doors—10 screws per door, eight doors—with the aid of Jessica’s electric screwdriver. The cupboards are supported on a metal frame and the doors that could not be opened fully because of the frame were a trial. I got all but one screw out of one lower door and had to prop it up and wait until Jess came home to remove it. I drove to Ace Hardware at the top of Jessica's hill twice for wood putty and primer and drop cloth. Took the top doors—which have ornate, harem-style cutouts in them—out to the carport and sprayed white primer on the backs of each.

When Jess got home, we went back to Ace, and after consulting with their paint specialist, selected a gallon (turned out to be much too much) of dark gray paint, some small rollers, and some Krud Kutter to clean the hinges as I knew that KK worked on Sarah’s Ukiah cupboard hinges. After this, Jess took a bike ride and I worked on the hinges and on painting the cupboard doors. The top doors with their cutouts were difficult.

I think this was the day that we also ran to the Apple Store. They could not fix the problem immediately, so Jess made an appointment to return the next day. She is having trouble with her iphone's microphone which appears to be shot. When she calls the volume fades in and out.

That evening we ate fashionably late at 10 pm: Salmon and Evan’s Naomi wine. While eating, we again watched a little TV on Jessica’s computer: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and then bed.

Thursday June 29th
Jessica’s house, Salt Lake City

Jess was supposed to have her 8-hour class but rescheduled it, and the two of us worked nearly all day on painting the l.r. cupboards. We found that we had chosen a grey that was several shades too light to contrast with the pale grey walls the cupboards sit against, so Jess is going to repaint that section of wall white. I hope this makes the cupboard pop more. We decided that we should have painted the cupboards Sherman grey.

When emptying the cupboards, I found a folder with some beautifully colored papers and envelopes in it. Jess explained that these were made with dry ice and food coloring, and that she had made the designs several times with children of friends. I was eager to try this method, so we bought some food coloring and a chunk of dry ice and had a fine time creating fancy envelopes and designs that evening. We also food-colored our hands and fingers, but Krud Cutter came through and instantly removed most of the stain. I couldn’t wait to get back to Lucy’s so that I could show her how to create these designs.

Friday June 30
Jessica’s house, Salt Lake City

Friday morning after breakfast we drove up to Red Butte Garden, Utah’s Botanical Garden, operated by the University of Utah. What a wonderful place. This large botanical garden, situated in the foothills of the Wasatch Range, includes beautiful flowerbeds and little ponds, streams, and waterfalls, as well as an arboretum and ampitheater. 

Wish I could remember the species of these flowers, but . . .

As you can see, I got a little carried away taking pix of Jess and flowers.

 I included the bottom selfie of the two of us with gritted teeth

 as in it the lighting makes it appear that I have the pallor of a corpse 

The gardens are on a hillside and when at the top one has a great view of Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. Unfortunately the mountains trap the smog, and a haze of smog blanketed the city. Fortunately, Jess lives in the hills outside the city. 

Salt Lake City and Great Salt lake from the upper gardens at Red Bluff;
this area is just being planted in native species

We saw a group of mallards, a snake curled up under a plant, and a pond sporting both bright orange and 12-spotted Skimmer dragonflies. The orange dragonfly was too far away for a good pic but I managed a blurry photo of the 12-spotted skimmers, so named because they have six black spots on each set of wings. They are named for their black spots but the white patches in between are what make these dragonflies so attractive.The photo left is from the Internet.

We shopped in the gift shop and then after our morning in the gardens, we ate brunch at Roots Café, an arty coffee house serving local fare, including fresh-pressed juices, gourmet sandwiches and pastries. After brunch we strolled its adjacent antiques store. 

After Roots we ran errands and returned to the mall where the Apple store was so that Jess could keep her appointment. Yes, her microphone was kaput. She had a choice of buying a new expensive phone or using head phones. When I left, the head phones were working well. Somewhere in here we went into a Sierra store. Jess tried on a variety of shorts, tops, and clothing, but nothing was exactly right, so she did not buy anything. I liked a shirt but they had none in my size on sale. I checked the web and every place that carried the shirt sold it in small or extra small. I wish.

Then we drove over the mountains to Park City about 30 minutes from Jessica's house in Millcreek. Park City, an historic mountain town at 7000 feet, is the location of Utah’s Olympic Park, built in 2002 when Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics. During the 2002 games, Park City hosted the bobsled, luge, ski jumping, and Nordic combined events. The ski jumps are still there and we could see them on the hills overlooking the town. According to Wikipedia, Park City is also the location of the Sundance Film Festival, home of the US Ski Team, training center for members of the Australian Freestyle Ski Team, and has the largest collection of factory outlet stores in northern Utah. Though called a city Park City has a very small permanent population but is a huge tourist attraction with its film festival, mountain biking, ATV and jeep trails. Downtown Park City sports colorful wooden storefronts and is the headquarters for several outdoor-oriented businesses such as backcountry.com. Jess took me to Chubasco for a delicious Mexican dinner and then we drove Guardsman Pass Scenic Backway to Jessica’s house. Both daughters live in very beautiful areas of the country.

This is an Internet photo and must have been taken during the film festival or some other event; I include it so that you have an idea of the store fronts in downtown Park City

Jess took a panoramic photo here but it did not turn out. We are standing on a hill outside of town
looking left of Guardsman Pass I think

When we returned to the house, we attempted to hang the cupboard doors but found that I had put the hinges on backwards, so. . . we had to remove and replace them. Frustration! Plus the brass side that I had polished with Krud Kutter faced down and did not show. Phooey! A lot of wasted effort. Hanging the doors was an arduous task. Though we had marked the position of each door, the screws had to be tightened just so, so that the doors hung properly. Some were still being obstinate when I left the next morning, but Jess vowed to keep at them until they hung and closed perfectly.

After hanging the doors, we reloaded the shelves with the books and things that Jess had stored behind them. I found No Turkey for Teddy and signed it for Carson, the son of the couple who rent Jessica’s downstairs apartment. Carson had only recently celebrated his 1st birthday, his balloons and party things still hanging on the fence and in the backyard.

Jess went for a bike ride and while she was gone I packed up all of my things and washed the car windows. I had only to load the cooler and put away my pjs and toiletry kit the next morning.

That evening we had a delicious salmon dinner that Jess prepared using on the veggies the mandolin that Chef Jeff had sent her. Before bed, we watched a second episode of 1st Ladies’ Detective Agency.

Jess posing with the little mandolin that Jeff sent her

Saturday, July 1
Salt Lake City to Lafayette Colorado; 507 miles on I-80E
Lucy’s house, Lafayette, CO

I spent the day driving to Lucy’s. Originally I'd intended to break the drive into two parts but felt comfortable doing it in one seven-hour trip. Leaving Jessica’s, I climbed over the toes of the Wasatch Mountains and then cruised down the other side in great swinging s-curves. Across Wyoming, I entertained myself by asking Siri about the towns I was driving through: 

• Wamsutter ,Wyoming, bills itself as ‘The Gateway to the Red Desert.’ It is located along I-80 between Rawlins and Rock Springs. Founded in 1868 to service the transcontinental railroad, it was formally incorporated as a town in 1914 and has served since its inception as headquarters for vast sheep operations, roundups of wild horses, uranium explorations, oil production, and most recently, the development of natural gas reserves. BP America, Inc.is the largest area producer and sports a giant billboard along I-80.
• The name Utah comes from the Apache word meaning people of the mountains (yuttahih). The territory became first known as the land of the Utes, and eventually Utah.
• Cheyenne, the capitol of Wyoming, is a northern Wyoming railroad town and home of Yellowstone National Park. Grand Teton National Park and the Snake River are located in southern Wyoming and on a route that I have ridden on my bike.
• Okay one more: Colorado was named after the Colorado River, which starts in the state. Early Spanish explorers named the Colorado River the Rio Colorado or “red river”for the red-brown silt that it carries from the mountains. 
• Going for broke, I asked Siri how Oklahoma got its name. I already knew but wanted to see what she said. She just parrots the web and told me that the name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning “red people.” Choctaw Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government regarding the use of Indian Territory.

After all this talking to Siri across the vast emptiness of Wyoming, I had to pay stricter attention when I turned south on I-25 toward Fort Collins and hit heavy traffic. 

I arrived at Lucy’s about 2 o’clock. We unpacked the cooler and I toted my backpack down to the cool basement bedroom and then we snacked and almost instantly got into an Upwords tournament. 

Sunday, July 2
Lucy’s house, Lafayette, CO

The next morning we went to the Westminster Butterfly Pavilion, a nearby butterfly house that I’d learned about and had wanted to visit ever since helping Lucy move to Lafayette. We ate an early breakfast and arrived at the butterfly pavilion, which is only 7 miles away, 15 minutes before it opened. Yea! We were in luck. There was only one other car in the parking lot. Lucy had reported that the place can be clogged with kids and visitors. We were the first in and had the place nearly to ourselves for an hour or so, walking the Big Dry Creek Nature Trail while waiting for the pavilion to open. The gardens are designed to attract butterflies and other beneficial insects at all stages of their lives. Shrubs, trees, and groundcover provide shelter for chrysalids and roosting adults. Other plants, such as dill and showy milkweed, provide food for caterpillars, and, of course, the colorful flowers provide nectar for native butterflies.

Lucy beside an orange milkweed in the Pavilion gardens and top above Spider Orchids (Brassia Miltonia) and below them Spider Lilies, family Amaryllidaceae; both of the flowers were in the Pavilion's tropical gardens

The insect room, our first stop on entering the pavilion, contained tarantulas, leaf insects, scorpions, beetles, and giant millipedes. We photographed the several species of tarantula (see below). Since no children were around, I “earned my badge of courage” by holding “Rosie,” a Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula. She walked very slowly onto my hand and then just sat there. We did not think to get a photo of this experience. 

Not sure of the species of the left tarantua; I think the other two are a Brazilian White Knee (Aphonopelma chalcodes) and a Mexican Fireleg (Aphonopelma iodius)

Next we stopped to “pet” several species of starfish, and finally we explored the tropical conservatory that contained over 200 plant species and was alive with butterflies from rainforests around the world. We saw butterflies emerging from their chrysalides and many owl, blue morpho, and birdwing butterflies as well as the others shown below. The photographs below are a mix of my photos and photos from the internet. The Paper Kite, Common Lacewing, and perched Birdwing are three of my best shots..

Top row: Common Postman (Helconius erato) Central to South America; Red Peacock (Anartia amathea) South America
Bottom row: Top and underside views of Common Lacewing (Cethosia bibles) Asia; Metallic Blue Wave (Myscelia Caynaris) Central to South America

Top row: Underside of Common Morpho; Checkered White (Pontia protodice) North America; Malachite (Siproeta stelenes) Florida to South America  Bottom row: Clipper (Parthenos sylvia) Philippines; Common Tiger Glassywing (Tithorea harmonia) Central to South America, perched with wings closed and open

Top row: Underside of Blue-banded Morpho (Morpho achilles) and top side of  Blue-banded Morpho; Giant Swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes); Bottom row: Banded orange (Dryaluda phaetusa) Central to South America; Common Postman (Helconius erato) all Common Postman species can interbreed, so there are several subspecies

Top row: Paper Kite (Idea leuconoe) Asia; perched and top of Common Green Birdwing (Ornithoptera priamus) New Guiena to Australia --Birdwings can have a wingspan of 11 inches or more
Bottom row: Blue-banded or Achilles Morpho (Morpho achilles) South America; Common Morpho (Morpho peleides) Central to South America; Great Mormon (Papilio memnon). Great Mormons are polymorphic, occurring in may forms. Males and females differ in color patterns, and some females of this typically tailless butterfly develop like the one above with a tail on each wing.

After the Pavilion, we ate lunch at Moxies in Louisville and checked out some of the little arty shops there. We ate outside at a little table. I was carrying the literature from the butterfly pavilion, and when Lucy looked up she saw that a little girl was making off with the butterfly pamphlet. It must have fallen out of my purse. Lucy spoke with the girl's father and politely retrieved the pamphlet. A good thing, too or I would have spent a long time searching the Internet for the names of the butterflies above, which were readily available on the pamphlet.

I had showed Lucy the bubble envelopes I’d made with Jessica, so after lunch we were gung ho in search of food color and dry ice. This we found at the grocery store and they gave us a 2 pound chunk of dry ice free. We needed only a small corner of the ice, however, so put the bulk of it into the freezer. (Ha!) At Hobby Lobby we bought little white favor bags, some circular, metal-rimmed tags, and some small white gift cartons. Then we returned to Lucy’s and set ourselves up. Since Lucy has no kitchen sink (she has a sink and dishwasher in her large bathroom), we set up on her kitchen table placing the dry ice into a large pot, and then adding water and dish detergent. Voila! We were in business. We had a blast making our designs. Below are some pix of our efforts. Lucy instantly turned the metal-rimmed tags into earrings and necklace. She is one creative and clever woman.

The brown color resulted when we both threw more food coloring on the bubbles without consulting each other

Tigger watching Lucy make earrings of the bubble tags

As when I made these designs with Jessica, our fingers and hands became stained with food coloring. Dawn dish detergent worked as well as Krud Kutter to remove the stains. Lucy showed the designs to her landlord and his young daughter Yasmina, promising to make some designs with Yasmina the following day. But, that evening when we pulled out the bag containing the dry ice, it had disappeared. Who knew, Golda?

That evening, rather than spending big bucks on restaurant food, Lucy grilled hamburgers, zuchinni, mushrooms, and red peppers in Laura’s back yard—their two houses are nearly side by side—and we relaxed while Laura’s cat, Cheech, enjoyed some outdoor time. Laura had driven back to Stillwater for the Fourth and a week of R&R with family.

Lucy holding Laura's cat, Cheech

Monday, July 2

Stillwater, OK

I drove back to Stillwater in one push (11 hours), getting home about 5:00. Jeff had dinner ready. It was good to be in my own spot with Ted & Pad and Hunka again.