Final Stop: Arches and Powell

August 10, 2010October 19, 2016 GOING NINETY MILESLeave a comment

Final stop – Arches National Park and Lake Powell. We didn’t do both in one day, but they go hand in hand. Lots of rocks and arches and fun!

Arches National Park in located in Moab, Utah. It contains the world’s largest concentration of natural stone arches. This National Park is a red, arid desert, punctuated with oddly eroded sandstone forms such as fins, pinnacles, spires, balanced rocks, and arches. The 73,000-acre region has over 2,000 of these “miracles of nature.”

We pretty much stayed in the car and drove the loop, it took about 2.5 hours. But there are trails to hike, a campground to stay at, you can easily stay a full day or more. My two favorites were balanced rock and the three gossips.

I heard she went out with Jacob last night. I knew she would cheat on Edward.

Careful now, concentrate, balance. Ooooommmmmm….

Lake Powell is next! Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River, straddling the border between Utah and Arizona (most of it, along with Rainbow Bridge, is in Utah). It is the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States.

We opted for the Rainbow Bridge Tour. Enjoy cruising past 50 miles of Lake Powell to Rainbow Bridge National Monument. At the monument, the tour boat docks and you will set off a fairly easy mile-plus trail to Rainbow Bridge. The bridge itself extends 290′ into the sky and 275′ across Bridge Canyon. Witness first hand the power of wind and water in their role of sculpting this remarkable landscape.

To catch the boat tours you must go to the Wahweap Marina, near Page, AZ. The cruise lasted about five hours total, you get a headset to hear about Lake Powell plus free lemonade and water! The boat has a seating area upstairs, or if you want some shelter from the sun (or the rain) there is also seating below. My parents and I had a nice time cruising the lake, checking out the sandstone and watching all the houseboats and waverunners pass us by. Here are some of my favs from the tour.

Rainbow Bridge was truly spectacular. Even better, I got to enjoy it with Mom and Dad.

architecture · arizona · earth · familia · Road Trip · travel · usa

Trippin with the Rents.

August 3, 2010November 20, 2016 GOING NINETY MILESLeave a comment

My parents have finally settled down in Phoenix, AZ. Finally! They were nomads for a couple of years and it seriously drove me batty. I guess in my old age I am just concerned about them in their old age (kidding mom, you’re not old, only dad). I know Mom was enjoying the nomad life, but not so sure about Dad. But now, with their son, daughter-in-law, grandson in the very same town, everyone can be happy. I think. Every time I am back in the states I seem to end up on a road trip with my parents. Like here or the European one here! And I seriously love trippin’ with Dot and Chuck. Maybe when my nephew and nephew-to-arrive-in-DECEMBER (!!!) are a bit older we can add my brother’s family along. That would require a little larger method of transportation, like the Winnebago my grandparents owned. It was the coolest ride ever.

At first, we were going to head down to Puerto Penasco, Mexico. Even with all the problems between Arizona and Mexico we were still going to go, after all it is only a mere three-hour drive! But then, a few days before we were going to leave a murder occurred in Puerto Penasco and we decided that maybe now is not the best time to go. Change of direction, lets head north-ish. And we were off with no real plans.

From Phoenix we headed up to Flagstaff and then over on 40E to New Mexico. Once we hit Gallup we went north on 491 up to Shiprock, because my dad likes to read the Tony Hillerman books and they are based around Shiprock. After we left Gallup and until a the day we drove back to Phoenix, my cell phone (the cool GO PHONE, everyone should get one. yes, i am being sarcastic) was never too reliable.

We drove up to Colorado and stopped at Durango for the night. Cute town! It was very touristy with lots of stores with souvenirs, jewelry and art. Plus the train is there to take you up to Silverton. In the morning we headed over to Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.

We bought tickets to see the Cliff Palace but we had a few hours before it was time for our tour so we drove around and stopped at many of the archeological sites to see. First one was the Pithouse.

That’s my cute mom walking around the Pithouse in her favorite Skechers Shape Ups.

The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are some of the most notable and best preserved in the North American Continent. 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.

Check out some of these cliff dwellings that the Ancestral Puebloans would climb down to with specially marked footholds. Truly amazing.

How in the world did they climb DOWN to that?

Here is a lovely pic of my Dad eating an apple….

Hehe. Okay, seriously. It was time for the Cliff Palace tour! There are three tours you can go on; The Cliff Palace, The Balcony House and The Long House. The latter two are the most strenuous with tall ladders to climb and small holes to crawl through. As I mentioned earlier, my apple eating Dad is old (love you dad! now go take your medication) so the Cliff Palace was the only one he could really do.

But he wasn’t tooooo terribly old to do this one. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in the park. A Cliff Palace tour descends approximately 100 feet into the canyon on a steep trail that includes 120 uneven stone steps. During the tour, visitors climb five, eight-foot ladders.

Recent studies reveal that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1-5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units. If you visit Cliff Palace you will enter an exceptionally large dwelling which may have had special significance to the original occupants. It is thought that Cliff Palace was a social, administrative site with high ceremonial usage. Here it is …..

Pretty cool my friends. But come back soon, this is just the first part of trippin’ with the rents. So much more to come. See you soon!

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earth · just how it is sometimes · planet · weird

Volcano Freak Out

April 17, 2010October 21, 2016 GOING NINETY MILES1 Comment

I must say this volcano eruption that is causing all the travel chaos is thrilling! Never have most European airports been closed for this long of a time. So far Madrid is still open so I could fly to the states at any time. But maybe it will close. Actually I have been constantly clicking on the interactive map from the online New York Times, I am obsessed with a volcano and I love it.

I have read stories of people scrambling for seats on the trains, the Eurotunnel, a ticket for a ferry. A journey that was supposed to be a simple two-hour flight turned into a 20 hour trip to get home. Taxi drivers are making buckets of money driving people all over Europe.

And scientists warn that the activity of the volcano has increased with no signs of slowing. Wow. I am completely enthralled.

* Look at that kickass header…up there! That is a closeup of just a smidge of one of my recent paintings.

earth · save our world · Things and Stuff

Compost Happens

September 14, 2009November 20, 2016 GOING NINETY MILES1 Comment

Well, my blog is turning out a bit random – advertising, photos, clothes, SHOES. Have you been longing for a blog with some real substance? Do you reminisce about the days I wrote about the police and roadtripping with the rents and schniedelwutz?

Okay, some real substance is what you are just dying for…..how about POOP? There’s some (smelly) substance for you. Some of my girlfriends are potty training their younguns and all I hear about lately is poop, pee – riveting shit, really. No really! Seriously ladies, I do love the stories and if I am one day blessed with a little one – you better be all ears for my poop on the potty stories.

All right, so besides poop, here is another subject near and dear to my heart. The ENVIRONMENT. Gone are the days when Amy would look horrified when I threw my Coke can out the window. I know, I KNOW! I still feel horrible. At least Bessie and I collected cans for money in high school (I guess this was after the throwing the cans out the window days). We would drive around in the hot OK summers with the windows down and Shawn Cassidy blaring out the Buick Electra and hop out anytime a can was spotted. The money made from the cans probably paid for the gas driving around looking for them.

There are so many simple ways to have save our environment. Not to be an EPA snob but I recycle almost everything (Spain has an amazing amount of containers for plastic, glass and paper), I bring a large canvas bag to put my groceries in (no more plastic bags) and my latest adventure is my COMPOST PILE. I love it and find it completely fascinating.

How%20Compost%20Happens

I will forgive my NYC friends for not keeping a compost pile (although there are plastic compost bins with lids that you can keep on a balcony) but all the rest of you with a backyard – here are some tips and an easy how to get started. Let’s save this erratic but wonderful world. It’s the only one we got.

Choose a spot where you want to compost. I have only a pile in my backyard that is hidden by the trees but some people prefer to have a bin to throw everything into. You can construct a simple box or bin using stiff wire mesh or slatted wood. The compost pile should be at least three square feet and three feet tall so that it maintains a constant temperature so the organic matter can decompose.
Gather the right materials. (Almost anything organic works.) You should have some “brown” dry material, like fallen leaves, dead flowers, straw, sawdust, shredded paper (especially newspaper), shredded cardboard or paper towels. This provides the “bulk” to a good compost.
Gather some “green” wet material as well, like grass clippings, fresh leaves and nonflowering weeds, barnyard animal manure, chopped leafy prunings, pine needles, coffee grounds, teabags and crushed eggshells. These provide readily-available food to the microorganisms that do the decomposing work. This green material will later be added to your dry mix.
The proportions of “brown to green” are not critical, as long as you have more “brown” than “green.”
Mix and build a pile. Combine your dry/brown material with your wet/green material and add a shovelful of good soil.
Compost also needs the correct amount of moisture to breakdown. Compost with the right moisture level should feel like a damp, wrung-out sponge. Too much moisture can cause temperatures to fall within the pile (and make it smell). Too little moisture slows down the decomposition rate and keeps the pile from heating up. Check your compost pile’s moisture level once a week and adjust it if necessary by adding water to increase moisture or more browns to help dry the pile out.
Turn pile with a pitch fork every few weeks. Doing so gets oxygen in the pile which speeds up decomposition.

Do not add animal waste, meats, oils, dairy, diseased plants, weeds that have gone to seed, or plants treated with pesticides or herbicides to your compost.

Sit back and enjoy the decomposition.

Next up – MADRID!! Off to the city of bull-fighting and flamenco, maybe I will return as one. You will have to stay tuned to find out. Olé!

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