And finally... Arches

OK - I promise, this is the end.  But isn't it a beautiful place? 

Capital Reef and the Petroglyphs

Geology

On our tour of Utah's National Parks...

By the time we got to Capital Reef, we were thinking about Geology: About the 'layer cake' of rock we were walking on, miles thick, made up of sandstone, mudstone, shale, salts, and limestone, all 'icing-ed' over each other in their respective ages - as the area was at times under an inland sea collecting the detritus of the coral reefs; part of a wind-blown desert where there were dunes of sand ultimately compressed into rock; or covered by river floodplains (dinosaurs and giant trees!) now seen as shale. There is gypsum, quartz and clay. Where did it all come from - and when? The timescale is staggering, as is the contemplation of what has been laid down under our feet over the millennia. And it’s all been carved up and exposed in irregular cuts from erosion, leaving behind spectacular cliffs and hoodoos.

Our Park notes indicate the exposed formation to be from the middle Jurassic Period (180 million years ago) to the Cretaceous Period (95 million years ago.) The Carmel Formation - oldest - has layers of gypsum which forms white striations in the red colored cliffs. Just above is the Entrada - formed from deposits laid down during the mid-to-late Jurassic Period and mostly fine-grained sandstone.

We know that rock layers (strata) are laid down in succession over time. Geologic time is identified in a complex system of categories that labels those layers... Evidently we are now in the Cenozoic Era and the Quaternary Period and the Holocene Epoch (with no "age" yet designated as far as my limited research indicated before I got bored with the whole subject.)

Perhaps you know already where all this Geology talk is going. Being us, we just HAD to start speculation about what is being 'laid down' in modern times and what future Geologists will make of it.


Mark designated it the "Cretinous" age and predicted its strata to be full of plastic water bottles, disposable diapers, petrified pizza boxes and Diet Coke cans.

Stunned by Bryce Canyon

Still reporting on our trip here...

Yes, Bryce was amazing. And it isn't too much to say we were stunned. And we've been here before! But walking down into the maze of hoodoos - sort of a stalagtite outside of a cave - and seeing the complex shapes and colors and heights of these formations was thrilling. Mark called it his favorite... but I'm reserving judgement until I look at some more pictures of the rest of the parks. Just sorting out some 'representative' pictures of Bryce was hard enough! Anyway, here's what I have to say about Bryce:

Wow.

Tucson etc.

We were mostly in Tucson to see family and friends, but we took some time to be tourists too - going to the Desert Museum and Tombstone and driving down the Sonoita-Patagonia scenic byway and stopping to see Tumacacori Mission.

And I have to say a few things about Tombstone.

Mark bought a few 'special editions' of the Tombstone Epitaph, detailing the life and times of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday - and on the back of one was a picture from 1880 of the exact place we were sitting and having lunch when we looked at the paper: the bar at the Crystal Palace Saloon. We'd have been right in the picture. The bar and mirrors and wallpaper and chandelier all look exactly the same.

Wyatt and Doc make for some interesting reading... no wonder they are legends. (Incidently, Wyatt Earp is burried in another of our favorite haunts - in the cemeteries of Colma, CA where all the folks from San Francisco are interred. He actually died in Los Angeles. And did you know he spent time in Alaska? Small world.)

The only actual historic register sort of place in Tombstone is the Birdcage Theater - a gambling and prostitution joint with a stage and bar and all the artifacts of the era (and a few other eras as well, probably) that could be crammed in for the $10 tour. We loved it. Except at the bottom level, where the gambling tables are still set up and some idiot - local resident maybe? - was trying to talk the 'ghost gamblers' into showing themselves by flipping a card for him or otherwise showing their presence. You'd think there would be some modicum of sheepishness in this endeavor, but evidently not. He wanted us to know, obviously, that he was 'in the know' about such things and 'the know' was definitely that there were gambler ghosts there. Good grief.

Tucson, by the way, is still my favorite place to get a good steak!

Zion (2)

We had a lovely hotel in Springdale - quite a fun town - and returned to the park bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for our second day, since it was clear and sunny! Very nice. Very different from the snow and rain of the afternoon before. Altogether we hiked on the Emerald Pools trails, the Weeping Rock trail, the Riverwalk trail and the Canyon Overlook trail. And yes, a bit weary by the end of the day. But what a place! The canyon is so deep, and the Riverwalk trail, particularly, winds around below the steep rock walls along the water and keeps turning corners and going deeper into the canyon long after you would assume you'd hit a completely dead end. The Canyon Overlook trail takes you out to the top of the wall that the big arch is on - way over the road and the tunnel and the canyon.

Zion National Park (1)

It snowed so much driving down I-15 in southern Utah that we feared we'd never make it to Zion, much less see it. But once we got off the highway and the uptake from the road and traffic was reduced, it was much better. Beautiful, in fact. And the benefit was to see Zion as few ever get to see it - with waterfalls spilling over all that rock. (My father would have been thrilled!)

I always remembered the tunnel in this park. Years ago you could actually stop inside the tunnel (assuming you could get through the traffic jam this created,) get out of your car and look out the windows that had been cut into the sides of the rock. Today there is a strict 'no stopping' policy (violated, just a little, when were were the last in a line of cars... but I digress) but you can see the windows from the road below. I always marvel at the strength of conviction that must have preceded such an endeavor as the building of this tunnel!

In the middle of all the snow and rain, there were a bride and groom, having their pictures taken with the backdrop of the canyon. I hope the wedding had already happened. Otherwise her dress was pretty much toast. Don't even think about her hair.

And before we left the park for the night we saw a wild turkey. Not a great find as far as wildlife is concerned but we were happy with him. He stretched his neck, lifted his head and gobbled at us. Very satisfying.

In the pictures - don't forget to look for the waterfalls. They aren't usually there!

And we're back

I looked at my last posting, 'before vacation,' and thought again about what an odd thing time is. On paper - or computer screen, in this case - there is just a half inch between the last blog post and this one - yet so much has gone on in between. We drove another 3,000+ miles, visited with family and friends, saw incredibly diverse sights, got snowed on, got sunburned, and took, literally, thousands of pictures... and here we are again, home, writing a blog post that is only a half inch above the last one. College basketball is over - Arizona didn't win again - and baseball has started - the Mariners aren't winning again either - but it is still winter here and tomorrow we have to go back to work.

Alas.

We had a wonderful trip - with really bad weather on the days we were driving and really good weather on the days we were sightseeing and hiking. In one place the snow was so deep that we were unable to access a trail we'd been hoping to hike, and in another place we dashed from shade to shade with our water bottles at the ready to keep from heat stroke. And we realized, once again, that it is hard for sea-level dwellers to hike at 5-8,000 foot levels. ("That's our excuse and we're sticking to it," is what we say to all you skinny folks who are smirking at this comment, knowing us...)

It's going to take me a while to process all the photos. We took both cameras and we both enjoyed taking pictures, right next to each other. It turns out that Mark's philosophy of photo-shooting is similar to his attitude toward target shooting: point and shoot, and do it a lot. Where one click might do, 3 or 4 are surely better. And having been to 4 national parks (Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef and Arches,) a national monument (Tumacacori,) the Desert Museum, Tombstone and all the 'scenic views' in between, that was a lot of 'shooting.'

There was a lot of people-watching too - something you can't really avoid while out and about to that extent. I'm afraid it is mostly our habit to notice the negative behaviors rather than the positive, but, that aside,we were surprised at the number of times people approached us to ask if we would take their picture in front of the scenery. They invariably offered to return the favor by taking our picture too...

And there we run into a little trouble. We have NO pictures of ourselves, together, on this wonderful vacation. The first time someone offered to take our picture Mark's gut reaction was to say "thanks, but every time someone takes our picture, two fat, old people show up in the developed shot and we are tired of wondering where they came from." We stuck to THAT story too. And now I wish we hadn't.

So. I will post pictures, but none of us. It will take forever for me to sort them out but I'll enjoy every minute of it, and after all, it IS still winter here.

One other non-trip related story I have to share... We got home on Friday night and on Saturday headed off to our local grocery store to load up on milk and produce etc - and when we were done in the checkout line the store manager was lying in wait for us. (Ok, ok, I just wanted to get home to eat the roast chicken we bought, but he was oblivious to that.) It turns out that we are 'Elite' customers at our regular grocery store. As soon as we swiped our 'club card' the manager was alerted that we were checking out, and came running. He shook our hands, explained that our club card allows them to track who their customers are and what they are buying and that he knew we spent enough money in that store every year to pay several of the clerks, discharge the electric bill and fund his new car.. and he just wanted to say 'thanks.' And he knows that we buy everything there (unlike many customers who mostly shop at Costco or look for sales, he says.) How embarrassing. Wasn't he basically acknowledging our perverse willingness to sacrifice good shopping sense for convenience? And since there are only two of us, and we spend more in his store than almost anyone else in town, well, what does THAT say? The more I think about it the more mortified I am! The upshot was that he gave us his cell phone number in case we had any problems or suggestions, gave us a permanent gas discount and week-long access to 'specials' etc. and all sorts of other perks. Chee.

We are finally in the big league. Other people are 'frequent flyers' or 'high rollers' or 'preferred customers.' We are, evidently 'elite' as well. Kings, as it were, at the grocery store. Woe to them the next time they are out of my brand of peanut butter.

Back to picture processing... Here is one of our friends at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum: