We arrived in Santa Fe from Mesa Verde on August 20th and have been here for the past week.
Finally, the evenings and nights have been cool and enjoyable.
Santa Fe is one of my favorite places and I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay here. Needless to say, the highlight was the visit to the OKeefe museum. We were fortunate to attend a docent lead tour of one of the gallery rooms. The guy was very good - after the introduction to her life, he chose 3 of her works and very skillfully lead the audience in an interactive discussion of these works.
We also visited many other museums, wandered around the downtown area and ate lots of southwestern food. John found a very good used book store and spent two afternoons there.
We also had dinner with my friend from my TUNL days who now works at Los Alamos and lives in Santa Fe. (FYI: TUNL is the nuclear lab at Duke where I did my research for my PhD.) I had not seen Ron in over 25 years and it was so nice to spend an evening with him, Jane, and his two sons.
We leave Santa Fe tomorrow and will be heading back to Raleigh. Hope to be there sometime Friday.
Looking back, I feel that we have been dogged by issues on and off during this entire trip and that has tended to depress us at times. On the other hand, this trip has been fabulous for all the beautiful places we visited and that is what will remain in my memory,
Adios for now!
Monday, August 26, 2013
Mesa Verde, Colorado
From Bluff we made our way to Mesa Verde, Colorado. Our RV site was just across the highway from the Mesa Verde National Park and about 12 miles from the town of Cortez.
After getting everything squared away in the RV, we headed out to Cortez for dinner and to get some groceries at the local grocery store. By the time we got back to the RV it was dusky dark so we did not notice until the next morning that someone in the grocery store had backed into our truck. The passenger side bumper had been pulled out and the headlight was smashed in. Needless to say, we were very upset and not sure if the truck was road worthy. So we rented a car from Budget and decided to not let this spoil our visit to Mesa Verde.
We spend the rest of the day visiting the National Park and the cliff dwellings. The next day, we went to the local Walmart (boy! I seem destined to visit a Walmart in almost every stop on this trip.) and bought about 5 rolls of duct tape. John was able to tape the bumper and side panels well enough to make the truck ok to drive. We decided to have it fixed in Raleigh, but we contacted our insurance agent who advised us to file a police report - which we did. Unfortunately, we had parked the truck on the side of the store that did not have any surveillance camera.
These were taken from high above, looking across and down at the dwellings that have been carved out of the sheer cliff walls.
After getting everything squared away in the RV, we headed out to Cortez for dinner and to get some groceries at the local grocery store. By the time we got back to the RV it was dusky dark so we did not notice until the next morning that someone in the grocery store had backed into our truck. The passenger side bumper had been pulled out and the headlight was smashed in. Needless to say, we were very upset and not sure if the truck was road worthy. So we rented a car from Budget and decided to not let this spoil our visit to Mesa Verde.
We spend the rest of the day visiting the National Park and the cliff dwellings. The next day, we went to the local Walmart (boy! I seem destined to visit a Walmart in almost every stop on this trip.) and bought about 5 rolls of duct tape. John was able to tape the bumper and side panels well enough to make the truck ok to drive. We decided to have it fixed in Raleigh, but we contacted our insurance agent who advised us to file a police report - which we did. Unfortunately, we had parked the truck on the side of the store that did not have any surveillance camera.
These were taken from high above, looking across and down at the dwellings that have been carved out of the sheer cliff walls.
Bluff, Utah, 12 August
Bluff, Utah, is in the south east corner of Utah and in easy access to Monument Valley.
The town has all of 200 residents and before you can say "hello" you are in and out of the town.
Our campsite left much to be desired - gravel surface and no shade. We managed to get a spot next to the only small tree there was in that lot,
The only compensating factor was the mountains around us and a very good coffee shop (even John approved of their coffee!!!).
The three days we were there, it was blazing hot. So we did most of our sight seeing in the early part of the day and then got back to the RV to sit inside with the AC on. I really felt cooped up and sorely missed our awning.
Next door to the RV site was a gallery we tried to visit. The front window had a board saying: "I am always here except when I am somewhere else". On the evening before we left Utah, we found the place open and had a nice visit with the artist and his family. His sister-in-law was visiting from Delaware and much to our surprise we learned that she had attended Guilford College in North Carolina. After her degree, she taught school in Blanding, Utah (has about 202 residents compared to the 200 in Bluff) and met her husband there. He is from the Navajo tribe as is the brother-in-law who runs the gallery and has his work shown there. Talk about a small world!
We visited monument valley, Valley of the Gods, and Natural Bridges during our stay their, They were all breathtakingly beautiful, but I enjoyed the Valley of the Gods the most. It is so aptly named. We drove on non-paved surfaces through tight curves and over bumps for about 2 hours through this scenic sandstone valley. At every turn we saw these amazing sculpted rock formations. Look for pics in next post.
Bluff and RV site:
Monument Valley
The town has all of 200 residents and before you can say "hello" you are in and out of the town.
Our campsite left much to be desired - gravel surface and no shade. We managed to get a spot next to the only small tree there was in that lot,
The only compensating factor was the mountains around us and a very good coffee shop (even John approved of their coffee!!!).
The three days we were there, it was blazing hot. So we did most of our sight seeing in the early part of the day and then got back to the RV to sit inside with the AC on. I really felt cooped up and sorely missed our awning.
Next door to the RV site was a gallery we tried to visit. The front window had a board saying: "I am always here except when I am somewhere else". On the evening before we left Utah, we found the place open and had a nice visit with the artist and his family. His sister-in-law was visiting from Delaware and much to our surprise we learned that she had attended Guilford College in North Carolina. After her degree, she taught school in Blanding, Utah (has about 202 residents compared to the 200 in Bluff) and met her husband there. He is from the Navajo tribe as is the brother-in-law who runs the gallery and has his work shown there. Talk about a small world!
We visited monument valley, Valley of the Gods, and Natural Bridges during our stay their, They were all breathtakingly beautiful, but I enjoyed the Valley of the Gods the most. It is so aptly named. We drove on non-paved surfaces through tight curves and over bumps for about 2 hours through this scenic sandstone valley. At every turn we saw these amazing sculpted rock formations. Look for pics in next post.
Bluff and RV site:
Monument Valley
Monday, August 19, 2013
Grand Canyon, North Rim
10 August, 2013
It took us under 2 hours to get from Zion to Jacob Lake and the Kaibab CampeRVillage where we had reservations. The site is about 21 miles from the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park and another 15 or so miles from the entrance to the visitor center. We were told to allow about an hour to get to the visitor center.
I was all gung ho about watching the sun rise (scheduled for 5:37 am) and so convinced John that I would certainly be willing to get up at 4:00 am. All I got from him was a sound that was very much like a snort. Anyway, I set the alarm for 4:00 am, but when we checked the weather report, it called for overcast skies. So, of course I scrapped the idea of sunrise and instead, opted for sunset.
So we left the campsite a little before noon and got to the visitor center about 1:15 pm. We opted to do the two different scenic loops and were totally blown away by the beauty of it. We were very surprised to find that while there were a fair number of visitors, it was not at all like the south rim where (I am told) it was bumper to bumper with cars and tour buses and people falling over each other.
At 5:340 pm we managed to get seated for dinner at the Canyon Lodge (though we had no reservations and in spite of John giving the host a lecture about how Page is never spelled with an i as in Paige). We then sauntered over to the patio to listen to the Symphony of the Canyons by a group of musicians from the surrounding towns and witnessed the sun setting at about 7:25 pm. The play of light on the canyon rocks across from the western sky was too beautiful for words.
Driving back was quite an experience. It was pitch dark and just before we got out of the park, I very nearly brushed a bison that was at the very edge of the road. At least the rest of the herd were further away from the road. Then a few hundred yards later, the car in front of me stepped hard on his brakes and I saw the white rump of a big stag run past his front bumper and vanish into the dark. I was glad that he was ahead of me and the deer was safe.
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| Saw these deer as we entered the park. |
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| The Colorado River |
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| Look at the natural window in the stone |
We were at the highest point (about 8500 ft) on the north rim and looking down at this stone. At this scenic lookout some climbers had left a note asking any visitor who happens to be there to take a photo of them when they got to the top of this peak that you see in this picture. Unfortunately, when they go to this summit, no one at the lookout point had a camera. When John came on the scene with his telephoto lens, there was a unified cry from the bystanders that we were just a bit too late.
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| The Symphony on the lodge patio |
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| Moon rise |
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