Afternoon, Campers! Yep, starting early
today where we remain for night 2 at Navajo National Monument. We took a
day off the road and this place is far enough from civilization that we
had no cause to leave the campground all day.
Today marks three weeks since we left our
island home. We would be 2,155 miles from home as the GPS flies, but
we've actually driven about 3,200 miles including junkets, side trips
and excursions. If you plot where we've been, our course meanders like the Mississippi through Louisiana.
It was a warmer night than we've seen
recently with a low about 50 degrees +/-. This was the first night we
didn't have electricity to plug into. The combination of a bright
afternoon yesterday to power our solar system and the addition of a
third battery gave us plenty of power to drive the furnace blower
through the night. We could easily have handled colder temps which gives
me confidence as we approach the Grand Canyon and Utah where we will
generally be in National Park campgrounds and they generally don't have
120 volt power at campsites, either.
We decided to be lazy this morning. Mrs.
C' bet I could do it. Naturally, I said "It's on, woman!". Within 15
minutes I said "I think I'll make some bread dough". I lost. I wish
there was more to that story. If there was, it would probably have been
that I offered double or nothing, she accepted and 15 minutes late I
said "I need to adjust the solar panels." Dang!
So, let me tell you a bit more about this
place. First off, here is a Google maps link to the precise camp spot
we have occupied for the past 24 hours:
Two things: 1. Make sure you have
"satellite view" turned on in google maps to see and appreciate the
location. I don't know why they call it that... the pics they use are
taken from airplanes. I'm sure the Obama administration has expensive
lawyers spending the money that used to be yours to figure out how to
bring Google to justice for that false claim. If you don't know how to
make your browser show satellite view, ask anyone between the ages of 10
and 18 to show you. 2. Zoom all the way in then zoom out slowly and
look for the following: a.) about a mile northeast of our camp spot
(that's up and to the right for those of you who are descended from the
Fa-gah-wee tribe we talked about the other day) are two deep, lush
valleys surrounded by mesas. These valleys form a lobster claw shape
reaching for our campground. The pics I will show you soon were taken on
a one mile walk from the park visitors center across the mesa that runs
down the middle of the claw. b.) zoom out farther and you'll see that
those two valleys have many neighbors. This place is littered with
canyons. The water that carved them, and still carves them, eventually
forms the Chinle River. I enjoy taking pics of these places and sharing
them with you. Hopefully you enjoy them, too. My pics are the "snap and
run" variety. Like a teenager at meal time I am generally more
interested in speed and quantity than quality. If you want to see what a
professional photographer does with this landscape, check this out.
It's a few miles from where we are camped: http://www.faucherphotography.com/photo/chinle-river-at-tsegi/
c.) if you zoom out more until Lake Powell appears in the upper left,
take a look around. Vegetation is sparse, place names are unfamiliar and
the roads are straight. In that area are many places you've seen in
movies including Monument Valley where John Wayne filmed five moves
including "Stagecoach" and generally showed us how to fight off attacks
from all manner of toe. Forest Gump also was filmed running there. d.)
one more zoom until the Grand Canyon appears on the western edge. We'll
be pulling in there in three days. First we have two nights near Page,
Arizona on the shores of Lake Powell. Stay tuned tomorrow and Sunday for
that.
So, let's talk about the park and what we
saw today. If you followed my instructions on the Google map link
above, you know about the mesa and the lobster claw. There is a trail...
a paved trail I might add... about a mile long with 400 or 500 feet of
descent starting at the visitors center and heading northeast across
that mesa then turning north to an observation platform on the edge of
the valley. It was about 2:00 when we went. The air temp had measured
about 80 since 10 minutes after the sun rose and hung there. There was a
mild breeze with occasional gusts. The air was as dry as a talcum
powder factory with a forecast humidity here today of 13%. If you
combine the humidity here with a typical day where we live in Florida
the total is... hmmm... let's see.... carry the one and... 110%. I'm now
thinking the people who built the cliff dwellings didn't die off, or
flee, they dried up and blew away. This is the only place I've ever been
where you can be standing in direct, blazing sun with 80 degree air and
when a breeze kicks up you say "I could use a light jacket today". I
forgot my towel this morning and when I stepped out of the shower I said
"Hon, could you toss me my tow... never mind". It's dry here.
The first part of the trail was an open
field made of a single stone slab. This area is comprised mostly of
Navajo sandstone. I'm no geologist, but it didn't look like sandstone to
me since there were no visible layers or faults. Here's what it looked
like:
After that the trail entered a wooded
area populated primarily by Utah Juniper (like the tree I shared in a
pic in last night's blog). End to end it's about 20 minutes of walking.
As we walked we could see a hint of the landscape the professional I
linked you to above saw. Here's what I mean:
The harsh, white quality of the midday
light at this altitude is perfect for newspaper photographers at a crime
scene. Intense, contrasty, illuminating. It's not so helpful for the
aspiring amateur landscape photographer, but like I said above, I've got
pictures to take, so I took the and moved on.
From the observation point it was about a
mile across the canyon and 1,000 or 1,500 feet down to the object of
our walk. Cliff dwellings. These are the Betatakin dwellings which are
similar to the Mesa Verde ruins except they are salmon colored. Hey...
I'm sure there are more differences, but I'm not an archeologist, I'm an
artiste' and to my eye "same form, different color". Both
these ruins, and the other one associated with the Park - the Keet Seel
ruins which is a 17 mile hike usually taken by backpackers and
including an overnight tent/sleeping bag experience -- were built by
relatives of the Mesa Verde crew. The tribes from then are all known
today by both scientists and the local, modern tribes as the "Ancestral
Puebloans". Like the residents of Mesa Verde, archeologists believe
these dwellings were used for a very short time. We were planning to
take the 17 mile Keet Seel hike and bivouac with the others but it
wasn't open for the season yet so after our walk we decided to head back
to the trailer to rest. Before we did that, we took these pics for you:
The complete cliff (note the multiple alcoves each of which could have been the site for a village)
A closer view of the arch in the center of the pic above:
So, that's the story of our tour around
the Navajo National Monument. We got back to the Airstream and started
resting. 15 minutes later, I said "Oh, I forgot, I was going to wash the
dog this afternoon". So I set up the folding table (the area under the
tonneau of the truck is somethink like a clown car at the circus... far
more comes out than you could imagine would fit there). Then I deployed
the trailer's awning to keep us out of the sun, checked the batteries to
make sure the inverter would have enough to power to make 120 volt
current for the dog clippers (we are not barbarians, you know), moved
the solar panels to give a bit more power, dragged the two 5 gallon bags
of water into position and got to work on the dog. 25 minutes later she
was in the "Navajo hairdryer" (that's the trailer with the hatch open
at one end, the awning window at the other and the wet dog inside
feeling the flow-through benefit of the dry air). 2 minutes and 35
seconds later and she was dry.
So now I'm writing to you and... Oh, it's
time to start the grill and make dinner. Tonight it's fresh baked pita
(from the bread dough that's been rising all day) with grilled chicken
breasts topped with sautéed sun dried tomatoes and roasted garlic and
fresh buttered peas. Tomorrow it's on to Page, Arizona, Lake
Powell, the Glen Canyon Dam, Antelope Canyon... phew... It's gonna be
busy. Lucky I was lazy today to rest up.
Later...
SC'
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