Wait a minute! Is this a food blog?!

Picked up a printed copy of Edible Baja Arizona. There is an article about local, small scale meat processing plants, which artisinal beef producers need to use. The big meat processing houses aren't interested in five head of cattle, they need more like 5000 head for a processing run. One of the few small plants happens to be the University of Arizona Food Products and Safety Laboratory, in the UofA agricultural school.

An easily missed photo caption practically gives me whiplash. "On Friday morning, butchers are busy preparing for the UA Meat Sale, every Friday from 3 - 6 pm."  *WHAT!* I gotta find this meat sale and check it out. This is like going to a opthalmology school for an eye exam, or a dental school for dentistry. This is a doggone butcher school, folks. I am so all over this.

I mention this to a friend who is equally intrigued, and agrees to go with me. There's a steady stream in and out of the parking lot and a line at the meat case. As tempted as I am to buy one of everything, I remember my earlier post about "Enough" and restrain my purchases to two beef tenderloin steaks, one grass fed, and the other conventional grain fed. You can also pre-order any cut and quantity of meat from any four footed critter that you want, if you can plan in advance. We are just going to take our chances. Ohh, I have died and gone to butcher heaven. The young students selling the meat cuts told me that the guy who has run the lab for forty years or so loves it when lay people are interested, and will welcome such interested people to sit in on a class. Tucson has just risen waaay up in the hierarchy of places I've visited.

When I was a student at the CCA we were exposed to butchery, but not very much. We had to process a lot of small cuts, but only had one chance to experience the break down of a side of animal, in our case, a goat. (A goat? It must have been cheap.) Sol used to like butchery a lot. His grandfather was a butcher, so he came by his interest  legitimately.  I picked up on this, and have been interested ever since. The money quote from butchery at cooking school?  "Follow the natural separations."

Fast forward to tonight, I decide to cook the grass fed tenderloin steak for dinner. It gets a rest out of its cryovac for about an hour and a half. (Don't worry, food safety purists, its maybe 60 degrees in here if I'm lucky.) The steak, fairly thin, but large in diameter, gets a generous salt and peppering during its rest. The newer school of thought claims that salting a steak in advance is a good thing. No sun dried garlic, I just want to evaluate the pure flavor of the grass fed beef.

Not gonna use a non-stick pan for this, unh,unh, I want the sear. I have a tiny Calphalon saute pan that will do nicely. It is problematic to saute in such a small space, so I can't get the pan quite as hot as I'd like, but it will do. I figure three minutes a side will be a good place to start. Remember, its a room temperature thin steak. The three minutes per side goes by in a blur of activity, adjusting the flame, covering the pan (heresy! but I don't want a thin film of beef fat all over everything), carefully loosening and wiggling the steak free, (condensation from the lid makes it stick, the price I have to pay), and turning it without a splatter.

Its done. Off to another plate to rest. Hmmm, am I going to let that fond in the pan (the brown bits) go to waste? Oh, no not me. A splash of the pinot noir I'm drinking into the saute pan, a nice deglaze, then a pat of butter swirled in to the reduced wine. Too many lumps, so I strained it onto top of the steak.

I was going to eat only half the steak and save the rest for a sandwich, but nope, I ate the whole thing. It was done perfectly, if I do say so myself. Consistently rare to medium rare, one or two bites were truly the purple dark red rare. It was just like I like it. The grass fed flavor was a little different, perhaps slightly gameier, but it had a lot of flavor, a lot of juice. I was very happy. Perhaps I'll go back to eating good steaks that I prepare myself.

Look, done perfectly!  Hungry?

 

Lessons from a very small refrigerator.

The refrigerator in my RV is 4.43 cubic feet, not all of which is usable. Let's say its really 4 cubic feet. The freezer is 1.51 cubic feet. After two and a half months of cooking out of my small kitchen with its tiny refrigerator, I am slowly coming to an important realization, and that is, I have to scramble to keep up with the food I buy. This is a very curious piece of dawning awareness.

I have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of calories on board. Now who exactly do I think  is going to eat all of that? For ease of calculation, let's say I need 2,000 kCal/day, 60,000 kCal//month. That's just not very much.

I have three pantry drawers that are full of food that is seldom accessed. Canned good include tomatoes in several different forms, tomato sauce, water and oil packed tuna, coconut milk, evaporated milk, pineapple, white beans, canned soups, a can of media crema. That's just the small drawer. The two larger drawers have various types of dried pasta, dried legumes, three types of rice, barley, dried shiitake mushrooms, a bag of Splenda,  a box of kosher salt, gelatin, back up Britta filters. Oh, yeah, flours sugars and coffee have another storage spot I forgot to mention. All the oils, vinegars, molassas, honey, fish sauce, chocolate, cocoa, raisins, currants, nuts, are stored in an upper cabinet. I have more teas than I could ever hope to consume in three years, if I drank tea every day. I very seldom eat out. I cook three meals a day for myself.

I have enough. I have more than enough. In fact, I have too much food. I've gradually realized this, and tried to adjust. but it is painful. I'm used to going to the grocery store and buying food because it looks good at the time. I buy more than I can eat.

If or when I live at a fixed address again, I wonder if this hard-earned realization, still not completely learned, will totally change the way I shop and cook.

I have enough.

Exploring Bisbee, and a concert.

A weather advisory for high winds is now coming to pass. Nothing quite like being cozied up with a warm computer, listening to the wind gusts having a tussle, and watching heavy clouds sailing majestically towards the northeast. (I like having a compass app in my smartphone, seeing as how I'm directionally challenged.) It looks and feels like it wants to rain, but Weatherbug says only a 30% chance. Too bad, I was hoping for some rain sounds.

Its a perfect day for some gingerbread! Something about all these clouds scudding by that makes me want to turn on the oven. Mise-en-place not so easy in my tiny kitchen, but all's well, cake is in the oven, smelling wonderful. I think I have the ingredients for lemon sauce, too.

I've neglected to tell you that I attended the Bisbee Communty Chorus concert last Saturday night. It was at the Queen Mine visitors center just a few steps away from the RV park, so how could I resist  a concert title of  "A Miner's Life". They did a good job, the programming was interesting and varied, and I learned a few things.

The chorus in miners costume,except for the conductor. 

A dramatic reading of "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night".

Stairs, stairs everywhere. Many follow old mule supply line trails ending who knows where.

Sometimes the stairs follow the contour of flumes built to carry desert monsoon runoff. I can see that this gets to be a problem in a canyon. A flume was originally just an arroyo, the naturally occurring water courses that you want to make sure you stay out of if there is rain anywhere nearby.

New stairs built over the water flume. It looks like something straight out of "The Secret Garden." The black pipe you can see along the side of the flume is natural gas pipeline (gulp!).

These grey pipes snaking their way across the landscape are more gas lines. The building inspector would be having a heart attack.

And finally, here's the gas meter. Who gets to read the meter? Words fail me.

On the way back down the stairs, a little respite for the imagination.

More art, tucked in the landscape.

Staircase #5, 151 steps, part of the Bisbee 1000 race route.

A yarn bomb! First one I've ever seen in the wild. 

Look! Its the RV park, waaaay off in the distance at the right, across the canyon. It gives you a idea of its prominent, yet largely invisible setting. My rig has the blue stripes. Awesome clouds, aye?

Bisbee photos, as promised.

There is a hike up to the top of the hill overlooking Bisbee. Yesterday, I thought I'd take this hike. Got half way up and turned around because I lost the trail which was entirely rocky and quite steep. I also had neglected to tell anyone I was going. A couple of near-tripping incidents and I realized I'd have a hard time getting back down the hill if say, I sprained an ankle. However, I'll try again with hiking poles and a more detailed inquiry as to the route. Maybe I can find someone to go with me.

All was not lost, however. I had a chance to get some good photos of Bisbee from a unique perspective. Here they are, enjoy.

Note Hwy 80, behind the town at the base of the far mountains.

Roots on the rocky trail all look like snakes! Fortunately, tis not the season for snakes now, they hibernate.

Erosion control.

Mining pollution remediation. Cute little conveyor belt system, small dump trucks.

"Reconstructed" retaining wall. Yikes!

Double retaining wall?

Corner retaining wall.

Really old retaining wall.

Cute retaining wall.

Retaining wall rehab.

Another post comming with Bisbee stairs, and some local color.

Where is Kathy living, anyway?

Its a lovely Sunday afternoon in Bisbee. I'm listenng to the Cajun/Zydeco show on WWOZ, doing a little cooking, got laundry in the machine, and generally having a lovely time in my little house. So I thought y'all would like a house tour. Wish I could add video and a sound track, but my technical skills aren't quite up to that task.

First, the loft bedroom, over the cab. Note the skylight, good for ventilation and stargazing. Drapes below are insulated curtains for the purpose of keeping out the cold and keeping in the warm, or visa versa, depending on the weather.

The dining room, seats three, or four if we're friendly.

The kitchen, very functional. Refrigerator of 6 cubic feet visible at the far right.

Shower, skylight, round drying rack.

Other half of the bathroom.

The back parlor, panoramic 180 degree view. Also the computer room and music system. Note stereo speaker at the front. Table has multiple uses, conference table, outdoor cooking zone, work table, or can be put away against a wall for open seating.

Mirrored closet doors, reflecting wall where table goes when not in use. See clock at the top?

That's it, home sweet home!  :-)

Bisbee No. 1

First, lovely little Bisbee, just waking up at dawn. View from my back passenger side window.

The view from my center back window, across Hwy 80. Notice the human made stone structure or foundation on the hillside. This RV park is up on a bluff overlooking the highway, the town, and a couple of mountains. Some sites overlook the pit mine. I was trying to find a location in Bisbee that would let me take a photo from afar of my RV, but I couldn't fnd a view. No wonder this RV park has a low profile in town. You can't see it from anywhere!

Thought I was at Burning Man for a minute.

Stone walls.

I didn't get too many more photos yesterday because I got sidetracked here. Thought I heard live music coming from this direction, and one thing led to another.

On my way back to the car, another stone wall, advertising the Bisbee 1000 and Ironman Ice race, which consists of a route through town climbing up various staircases totalling 1000 steps. The staircases were apparently built by the WPA during the depression to follow the old original mule paths. They're everywhere, but hard to photograph.

A spot on Tombstone Canyon Road. Note stairs going up to blue house. I think the rock formation is natural, i.e. not the result of mining.

A little wall between the two spires of rock.

Much more to see, do and photograph. Will try not to get sidetracked again, but no promises.  :-)

Sunday morning in the desert.

Okay, Facebook friends, you're right, I should be blogging. What I have to blog about, however, is fewer travelogue adventures, and more internal wanderings and wonderings. And now as I type, KDFC is broadcasting Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor, a work I've had the privilege of singing. Its profound beauty and familiarity brings tears to my eyes deep from my diaphragm. Kyrie eleison, indeed.

You see, I had left my home of nine years rather abruptly. I needed to leave, I'd planned on a two month RV trip anyway, so it occurred to me, why come back at all? For a very long time I've wanted to live and travel in my RV. Here's my chance, might not get another one. A hasty pack-up of all my worldly possessions into a "stuff-coffin" rental storage space, and off I went. However, in a case of "be careful what you wish for," the reality of my life has only some correlation with what I had imagined. For one thing, I had always imagined I'd do this traveling with a partner. Nope.  Big difference. Alone. Who am I, anyway??

At the end of my planned travels, now faced with a completely open itinerary, I became really sick. Now I don't do sick, I rarely come down with anything.But three weeks ago my body just came to a screeching halt. I think, I know it is directly tied to a fresh and immediate awareness of the looming chasm of being alone into the great unknown. Fortunately, after two weeks of misery, a week of amoxicillin has gotten rid of the illness, and my frame of mind has also much improved. Getting out for a walk or a hike helps a lot!

I'm at the end of my second week at an RV park in Benson, Arizona. I have made friends here that I plan to keep in touch with. Thanks for everything, DB. The desert is a remarkable environment, quite out of my normal comfort zone. Last night, the unexpected rain somehow amplified night sounds. There were coyotes quite close by, and the sad bellowing of a steer alternating with coyote cries and yips. I don't think it ended well for the steer. But the creosote smell was powerful and refreshing.

Next I'll be heading to Bisbee, and the Queen Mine RV Park. This park is right on the edge of a large abandoned copper pit mine. Talk about being right at the edge of the looming chasm! Bisbee is a cool little mining town. Its been through its ups and downs, but seems to have recovered from the loss off copper mining, and has turned itself into a quirky artists' colony of sorts.

So, I'm not, I can't, quit just yet, even though I miss my friends and my communities tremendously. More to learn about so many things.
 

Birding Intro

Got to chatting with a couple of serious birders at breakfast the other day. They invited me to go birding with them Monday morning (today). Apparently Steve and Nancy Z. lead birding groups regularly at Cataina State Park in Tucson, and have birded all over the country. Yup, serious and knowledgeable birders. Little did I know just how serious and knowledgeable.

The destination of choice today was the Holy Trinity Monastary at St. David, Nevada, just a few miles down Hwy 80. Much of their property along the banks of the San Pedro river is maintained as a bird habitat. So off the three of us go, binoculars in tow. By chance we meet another birder, Deb, from Colorado, who also had a spotting scope. (Apparently the brand of choice for birding optics is Swarovski Optik.)

The birding started in the parking lot next to a pond. Birds were in view almost immediately. Observations about shape, color, bill and beak shape and color, flight patterns, song, call or cry, started flying around my ears and eyes. Nancy showed me almost instantly the bird book listing for each species we saw. I was generally playing catch up, where, where?? The three of them would all point their binoculars at a certain spot, so I'd get the general idea, and look there too. Sometimes, I'd actually see the bird. Deb's spotting scope came in handy for birds too far away to see in detail. I did see a lovely cardinal first. I was very proud. Cardinals are bright red and stand out like a fire engine! They were all three very gracious and helpful to a birding newbie tagalong.

Part of our walk was through a dense old growth cottonwood woods. Although we didn't get a good look at them, we startled what they agreed were two large owls. The discussion about what species they could have been was lively.  I just listened, having been duly impressed merely by their silent flyby. We were trying to be stealthy through the undergrowth, looking probably like a bunch of Groucho Marx immitators. Suddenly they all snatched their binoculars from their chest harnesses up to their faces, and all looked in unison to one location in the woods.  I couldn't see what they were looking at, but their unanimous choreography was priceless.  They excused me for bursting out laughing.

What a great introduction to birding. I had the priveledge of being in a very small group, the rest of whom knew whereof they spoke, they were very kind, and I had a wonderful time. Just might have to try this pursuit again in the course of my wanderings.

Forty Days and Forty Nights

 You may have noticed a dearth of blog posts from me lately. There are several reasons for this. The primary reason is that I have ventured into the murky side of wandering. In some ways the novelty of new sights, great hikes, and constant change has worn off.

I reached the end of my travel plan this last Monday. After October 21, 2013 there is no plan. I am what the RVers call “fulltiming,” i.e. living in my motorhome with no other place to live. For a number of years I’d thought about, wished, and hoped to fulltime. However, the vision always involved traveling with a partner. That relationship has met its ignominious and lamented end through unconscious as well as intentional neglect.  Ah well, pick me up, dust me off, soon to realize that a golden opportunity to do what I had always wanted had presented itself, albeit in a significantly different guise. Off I went, and you can read about those adventures in the earlier posts of this blog.

But now comes the hard part. What does it mean to wander? Why is there such a significant Wanderer archetype present in our human psyche? What makes “home?” Do we ever really “choose” our home? What do Wanderers bring to the table of human understanding?

Think of Marco Polo and his brothers! Those guys really set out to wander. They all thought he’d died. Surprised the heck out of ‘em when he reappeared. I am but a mere, pale inkling of that kind of wandering. I have the instant communication of the internet, and I can fly anywhere in a day if I need or want to.  I’m certainly experiencing no privations whatsoever. Grocery stores are everywhere. I even have a wine cellar, six bottles!

Some of my urge to wander has to do with physical geography. The USA is a land of stark and extreme contrasts of very large proportion. As I grew up in another, very small country, my childhood ideas of the USA were always distant, mysterious, inaccessible, strange, and sharply filtered by our subscriptions to Time Magazine, National Geographic and Christianity Today. I don’t think I’ve ever completely outgrown that particular childhood vision. Basically, I’d still like to figure this place out.

Unlike Marco Polo we know what to expect when we wander about in the country. There are no more frontiers, despite the Arizona nostalgia for Frontier that shapes the self-concept around here. The maps are now all accurate, even extremely precise. We have GPS. There still is the unassailable desert, however, a harsh and forbidding but beautiful environment, ever so ready to impersonally and uncaringly kill the unwary and unprepared.

More of the urge to wander is, I think, a desire to identify and rescue parts of my true Self.  It has been gently pointed out to me that the vast majority of my adult life I have spent partnered. I have taken precious little opportunity to become aware and comfortable with me, myself, and I.  I have residual distrust of this endeavor, coming from the Christianity Today model of things. However, I find myself yearning for a better, deeper understanding of myself, even though this psychic endeavor is not to be rushed, or engineered upon demand. I wait patiently for snippets of understanding, a dream with meaning, a flash of a further question, an arrow pointing toward new awareness. The desert environment is traditional for this kind of growth. I can understand why.

This “after the plan” time has been unique in another way. I have been as sick as I ever remember being, with a severe case of sinusitis. It has been a ten day bout of pretty good misery right front and center in the old head. Oceans, oceans, I tell you, of yellow stuff, not to put too fine a point on it. Mounds of damp, soggy Kleenex accumulate everywhere in my motorhome. I have had to sleep sitting up the past two nights, just to be able to breathe. Mind you, this is in no way life threatening, or permanently damaging (I am quite on the mend today) but I find it curious that my body should hit me like a ton of bricks in this way precisely at this uncertain, liminal time in my life. I am quite rarely sick, and reflecting on this period of illness will I think, have more to tell me as I proceed.

In my fitful night sleep in the desert, I am quite often made aware of the cross-country freight trains rumbling and whistling off in the distance, chugging up toward the nearby Continental Divide, or deadheading (I imagine) back West toward the coast. I am given to understand that no two train whistles are exactly alike. I don’t think my tonal memory lasts that long, but in my recent experience, it is likely to be true. Anyway, I think about these trains, who is driving them, how do they stay awake across the vast, dark desert, what are they carrying? They are carrying stuff. Maybe cars, cows, commodities, containers from ships, coal, chemicals. Okay, I’ll stop with the alliteration, but you know, stuff. (If you’ve never seen George Carlin riff on stuff, I recommend you search it out quickly on YouTube.)

All this is to say that I am also reworking my relationship to my stuff. Living in a <200 sq. ft. motorhome, in which I have absolutely everything I need as well as lots of things I don’t use, makes me aware that I have a curious attachment to stuff that defies complete understanding. I have no room to put more stuff. This has put a screeching halt to the “shopping as entertainment” phenomenon. I am curious to see what effect this stuff diet will have, should or when I settle back in to a “stick house” of some sort.

If you’ve read this far, you have gotten the idea that lots is going on, and you’d be right. Therefore I’ve decided to give myself the wonderful opportunity to take a Forty Days and Forty Nights period of time to just sit with myself and all of this, and see what comes of it. Not often in life does one get such a chance to do this. I intend to make the most of it in the next six weeks or so.

I’ll have more of the fun type wanderings to tell you about too. Next destination is Bisbee, Arizona, a quirky mining town with much to recommend it. My campsite will be at the lip of the Lavender Pit Copper Mine (now inactive) at the edge of Bisbee. We’ll see what contemplative thoughts arise at that location. Stay tuned!

Family time

My DB (Dear Brother) has agreed to fly to Albuquerque, then help me drive to Tucson where my SIL (Sister In Law) will be joining us, all to visit the new DGD (Dear Grand Daughter), the DD (Dear Daughter) and her spouse. We will be taking a side trip to the Taos mountains to visit a high school friend of DB's, known hereby as PF. Got all those acronyms? And how did these acronyms come into blog usage?  I think people are cautious about mentioning people by name, so we'll use the acronyms for now.

There's a scenic byway to Taos called "The High Road to Taos."  Humph, should have paid attention to a name like that! Anyway, all's well. PF lives at about 8000 ft. elevation, in an off-grid house he has built over the years. Seriously off-grid. You get there by a 1 1/2 mile  muddy, rutted Forest Service road. Fortunately the mud was dry, only ruts. These Lazy Daze can go anywhere. This area outside of Taos is old Spanish Land Grant territory. The cemetaries are full of names like Sanchez and Lopez, and these families have been in the area for 400 years! Incredible.

We stayed two nights at PF's property. PF gave us a good back roads, insider tour of the area through Taos and the Rio Grande Gorge. There are some beautiful BLM campgrounds along the river that I now know how to get to for next time.We made dinner for two nights, something that was appreciated, I think, by the back country crew that showed up to enjoy them.

The second night there, I was woken by thunder, lightening and rain.  Panic, of that special  night time variety ensued. Having seen the dried out mud ruts, I didn't want to negotiate wet mud ruts in the Lazy Daze. We hitched up pretty quick that morning and beat a hasty retreat back to paved roads.

To complicate matters, upon hitching and checking the turn signals, the right turn signals for the LD and the toad were not working. DB suspected a fuse, but we were unable to identify the culprit. Finally I  resorted to a phone call to one of the LD knowledge base folks, who was able to talk us through finding the problem 10 amp mini-fuse in the engine compartment fuse box. I guess you can blow this fuse if you make the wrong contact with the electrical pigtail between the motorhome and the toad.  Thanks, John! So now I know how to fix that problem if it happens again.

DB and I drove hard all day from the High Road to Taos, and camped in Demming for the night near the railroad tracks and a truck stop. Couldda just used the Walmart, oh, well.

I have many thoughts about our time with PF, but they're still unformed, and I think there are some privacy issues I need to be careful of, even though PF is off the Internet grid as well as the electrical, water, and septic grids. In many ways it was a very precious time to have with someone we knew in a land and time far, far away, and so long ago now.  If you're curious, and you see me in person, I can tell you more about it.  

Generator wars

Uh, oh, generator didn't fire up today. This is not good when one is dry-camped or boondocking. Got a reference from the Lazy Daze knowledge base to go see Ken at Cummins Diesel in Albuquerque. So, everything in my rig had to be stowed, the leveling jacks retracted, and off I went. I took surface streets instead of the freeway, much more interesting that way.

Sure enough, they were able to fit me in. Ken said it just sounded like the carbuerator, and he could take it apart and reassemble it for about an hour's worth of labor. Turns out there were rust particles in the carbuerator indicating that at some point there had been water in the fuel supply.

Moral of the story? Run the generator frequently.

Sandia Mountains Hike

So who knew I was turning into a hiker! Just love it! Very invigorating. Probably because it is windy cold up at 10,682 ft. even on a sunny day.

Looking East from an almost empty parking lot at the Sandia Crest trailhead. The views are spectacular in all directions, for 100 miles.

You would not be amiss in thinking this might be a good location for antenae, and you would be correct. A photo of only part of the antenae farm.

However, once out on the trail, you can see craggy vistas like this one.

And this one. Southeast Albuquerque is visible in the distance.

Wondered if anyone had ever made it out to this point.

Yours truly, not close enough to the edge to be concerned. There were, however, lots of edges! The green belt in the distance is the Rio Grande river. This day's hike was about 3 1/2 miles. Us same three hikers hope to do a 7 mile hike on Monday, another trail in the Sandia Mountains. Am I glad I got those trekking poles. Pray for my knees!  :-)

Mesa Verde NP, before the you-know-what

Met some friends in Durango for lunch, then on into Mesa Verde National Park, a not too bad drive. This time, we stayed in the actual National Park campground for two nights, and with a Geezer Pass the rate was half price. Just tried to link to the NPS.gov website, and the websites are shut down too. Boy, if this isn't ridiculous!

In any case, Mesa Verde became a National Park in 1906 in order to protect its cultural and architectural integrity. Good thing. It is now a World Cultural Site. One Ranger told me that in the late 1800s white ladies of the area would organize "jewellery hunting" parties. They would go out and look for indentations in the soil and dig up the skeletons of the Ancient Peoples and take their burial jewellry. Grave robbing, essentially. Yikes, I hope we've gotten past that kind of behavior. However those kinds of crimes live long in the memories of indigenous peoples. I can understand the distrust.

It was a harsh environment and a hard life in these cliff dwellings. The Ranger also told me their lfe expectancy was age 35, and the infant mortality rate was about 50%. This was in stark contrast to the figures in the dioramas at the visitors' center. They looked mighty pinkish-white, sleek, plump or at least well fed, and tall. In reality they must have been short, wiry and probably undernourished. They were all pictured wearing only loincloths, but its cold up there! I seriously doubt they all ran around in loincloths all the time. We need more realistic dioramas.

Despite some obvious restoration, the dwellings had an unmistakeable air of the ancient and unknowable. I think the Native American descendants of these cliff dwellers have a connection to the ancient ones, but it is almost impossible for a white person to grasp.

The skill and labor involved in building these structures is remarkable. They must have been very patiet people.

This photo gives a good idea of how deep into the overhanging cliff the dwelling village is built.

Other peoples of another time. I wonder what they'll say when they excavate our McMansion ruins?

Two National Parks in one day? Probably not a good idea.

Driving to Moab from the overnight Willie Nelson truck stop, it was an iMax sky of thunderstorms and rain showers in every direction. Mostly we dodged the rain. Just outside of Moab, whew, thinking we had escaped the worst of it, we got slapped by the tail end of the storm that had been following our route to the west. Hail! The size of peas! Driving rain! Windy! Sudden, and loud! Wish I had the voice recorder going, but was too startled and distracted to think that fast, and it was probably wise to keep two hands on the wheel at that point Fortunately no harm done, and it didn't last long.

Relieved, we pulled into the OK RV Park just south of Moab. Really cute park, off the noisy highway, but a really not level site. And my levelers aren't working, low on hydraulic fluid, I think. Much machinations with the manual leveling blocks, and finally I am somewhat level. Personally I'm not too concerned about precise level, but the absorption refrigerator really doesn't like to be out of level, and they're expensive to replace.

Moab is hopping, a real tourist spot, reminds me of Hwy 49, the Gold Country. Lots of shops, Jeep tour and float trip operators, and a really good outdoor store at which I purchased a set of trekking poles. All the older hikers are using trekking poles, don't you know. It really helps preserve the knees by distributing pressure and weight to the poles. You have four points of stability, not just two.

The next morning, driving through Arches National Park reminded me of Yosemite. Okay, not quite so crowded, but at the popular arch viewing sites, the parking lots were full, and I had to drive on.

An overview of the Moab Fault.

A live picture of the same Moab Fault.

Not an arch, but I'm calling that guy on the right Easter Island.

This formation is called the Three Gossips, but I think the Three Wise Men might be better.

This and following photos are from Canyonlands NP. Although this park is quite close to Arches, it doesn't get near the visitors. But in a way, it is more interesting geologically. The terrain is remote, diverse and forbidding. Within the park is the confluence of the Green River and the Colorado River.  Both rivers are placid until they meet, then watch out! River rafters apparently love the rapids below. Could not see the rivers from the roads that were available for driving, however.

Canyonlands is perfect for the serious wilderness back country explorer and camper. Probably not going to happen for me. :-)

Being weary from driving all day, I enjoyed a steak sandwich and a piece of coconut cream pie for dinner at the local steakhouse, then got a goodnight's sleep.