Green River Raft Trip

Prequel

Saturday in Steamboat Springs was dedicated to preparing for our raft trip on the Green River. I put in hours of vegetable chopping/lemon squeezing/garlic pressing to make a huge batch of tabouli. Sally made hummus and brownies and added some sautéed chicken to Kate and Liza’s big pot of curry. Mark labored on mysteries concerning the raft and its equipage. I agonized over what exactly to pack for the trip and what container to put each item in. The great thing about rafting is that you can take tons of stuff on the raft, so it makes for very cushy camping. But you do have to haul stuff up to the campsite and back to the raft each day, so you don't want to pack too much, and you want to be sure you have certain things easily accessible when you’re on the river (e.g., sunscreen, camera, water bottle, warm clothes in case the weather turns or you accidentally go for a swim), so you have to think about where to pack things. Each of us had a large dry bag for our sleeping bag and bulk of clothing, a small dry bag for bulky items you might want while on the river, and an ammo box for little items you might want on the river. All of these are designed to keep things dry if the raft flips or is swamped by a wave, but I know from past experience that they work only to a point. Fortunately, that was not an issue this trip, except one day when my ammo box got splashed too much and the New Yorker inside was waterlogged.

Sunday morning the packed dry bags, coolers, rafts, etc., were taken to the home of friends and loaded onto two flat-bed trailers. By noon, our caravan of pick-up trucks and minivans headed west on Route 40. We stopped in Craig for lunch, nearly doing in the folks at the City Market deli counter with our volume of business. There were 20 of us: 3 teenage girls, one 30-year man, and the rest of us of an age where you don't disclose your age. Of those, there were 5 married couples, 4 men on the trip without wife or S.O., and 2 sisters, both named Ann. Apart from the sisters, all these people had rafted together before and had the process down to an art: each subgroup responsible for a meal; designated rafts for the "kitchen" (large ammo box with cooking equipment), the "groover" (large ammo box for human waste, so named for the grooves it used to leave in one's derriere before they upgraded to having a more normal toilet seat), camp tables, etc.; everyone working in easy harmony to set up camp, take down camp, rig the rafts, wash the dishes, etc.

Ladore

After lunch in the City Market parking lot, we continued west to Maybell, where we turned northwest on 318 to reach the Gates of Ladore entrance to Dinosaur National Monument. That pearl in the nation’s necklace of public lands begins in the very northwest corner of Colorado and crosses into Utah. The Green River has carved a deep canyon into the Uinta Mountains, and for nearly the entire trip we had 2000-2500 foot walls of rock on either side as we floated down the river. We reached the Ladore campground at about 3 pm, and had the afternoon and evening to putter. A number of us went to the end of the campground road to see the "hatchet" stuck in the rock by the river. It turned out it was a rusted pickaxe head, one spike solidly embedded in solid rock. The rock was beyond any human reach. It was a mystery. How did it get there? Why? When? If you pulled it out, would you be king?

Some us continued beyond the pickaxe on the short nature trail, whose pamphlet explained the geology, ecology and history of the area. The end of the trail afforded a beautiful view of the mouth of the canyon -- the Gates of Ladore. They were so named by a member of John Wesley Powell's team when they arrived here in 1869 on their expedition to fill in the last blank spot on the map of the U.S. The Gates of Ladore were so named by a member of the team who was reminded of "The Cataract of Ladore", a poem by Robert Southey. "The cataract strong/Then plunges along,/Striking and raging/As if a war raging/Its caverns and rocks among;/Rising and leaping,/Sinking and creeping,/Swelling and sweeping," etc., etc. You can read the full poem at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/652.html.

Big Mike and Brad made us a delicious dinner of steak grilled over briquettes, corn on the cob, and baked beans. After dinner, Big Mike loaded logs on top of the charcoal and we created a circle with our camp chairs. Mark had brought along a 3/4-size guitar, a garage sale special whose 5th string buzzed every time it was plucked and which you wouldn't terribly miss if it ended up at the bottom of the river. As on each night of the float, I played and sang while the others chatted. (Well, a few voluble people chatted while the rest of us listened and laughed.) We watched to the east as the light of the full moon increased above a hill. Then, in a trice, there was the first speck of moonlight, like a bright flashlight. Most people headed to their tents, hoping to sleep despite the intense moonlight -- so bright that one's shadow was sharp on the ground and features of the landscape were discernible miles away.

Day 1

Monday morning I awoke at first light, well before anyone else, and went for a hike on the hill behind the campground. It was thrilling to watch the sun's first horizontal rays light the crests of hills and cliffs on the other side of the river and then advance down their slopes. By the time I got back to camp, Dick and Dana had set out breakfast. They did all the breakfasts for the trip and all were the same tasty selection -- two kinds of Entemann's pastries, 5 kinds of granola, a variety of bagels and cream cheeses, hard boiled eggs, melon, oranges, bananas, apples and orange juice. Each morning, Ken, who doesn't drink coffee, made pot after pot of drip coffee for the rest of us.

We then began the complicated process of loading the 8 rafts and the one "rubber ducky" (kinda an inflatable canoe, or an open-top two-person kayak). Nothing was loaded on Jesse's little one-person kayak. Kayakers get others to haul their stuff, in exchange for hanging around the bottom of rapids in case anyone falls out of the raft. At about 10 am, the ranger came over to do the permit paperwork and verify that we had the proper safety and environmental protection equipment, such as a lifejacket for each person plus an extra for each boat, first aid kits, a screen (to remove solids from dishwash water) and a groover.

Finally we pushed off onto the Green River. Rather than being green, it was a muddy red. This was because heavy rains Friday night had washed red soil into the river from Red Creek and Vermillion Creek. Sally said that, when the water is clear, it is in fact a pretty green. Maybe they should call it the Christmas River, or the Chile River. We had hoped for fairly high water, since it was a huge snow year, but in fact the water was at minimum, the gates pinched tight at Flaming Gorge Dam above us. So we rowed as well as floated into the maw of the Gates of Ladore. We spotted a large insect floating in the water. With fondness, Mark identified it as a Mormon cricket -- he had learned about them on a memorable fishing trip. The cricket had a large brown-red body, very long antennae, and a long, thin tail. Soon we noticed a number of the crickets in the water. Had they been washed in by a spike of dam release in the night?

Shortly after passing the Gates of Ladore, we went through Disaster Falls. Powell's group, having not the benefit of a dam to temper the flow, nor the technique for nimbly rafting whitewater (developed a few decades later), lost one their 4 rafts and lots of their provisions at that point. (Undaunted, they continued on and made their famous exploration of the Grand Canyon.) We had both a dam and rafting technique and bobbed through without incident. After about an hour, we pulled over at a small beach and inhaled the tabouli, hummus, summer sausage, breads, carrots, grapes, chips, and brownies. Then, more rowing between the high walls of blood-red rock, until we reached P0t Creek campground. On the way, we saw three families of geese cross the river and forage in the grass. The goslings were about half grown, their bodies still fuzzy with down. Then we a saw a merganser with 20 tiny babies in tow -- one riding on her back. At times, the group "ran", little puffs skittering across the water.

At Pot Creek we undertook what was the routine for each evening of the trip: everyone first scouted a tent site; a table was set up and adorned with gin, tonic water, limes and ice; someone set up the groover at a site that afforded privacy; and everyone unfolded their chairs in a circle in the shade. We sat around, drank beverages, talked. A group had a cribbage game, using a large cooler as the table, and there was lots of commotion over an insect that joined the game. It was 3 or 4 inches long, had pinchers at its mouth and a long segmented abdomen that dragged behind it like a train for a bride wearing armor. There also were Mormon crickets everywhere -- on the trails, on the rocks, climbing up stalks of grass, on the ground where you wanted to put your tent. At one point I felt a biting sensation on my upper arm, and discovered a Mormon cricket was digging in its claws to perch there. AACCKKKK!

Our camp was on a beach on one side of the river; across the river was an immense wall of blood-red Precambrian rock, the vertical face irregularly cross-hatched with cleavage lines. Even when not in direct sun, that wall seemed to glow, as if from an inner light. The campsite was at first hot, but we were soon in shade as the sun dropped below the high wall behind us.

Vickie and Marty provided the delicious dinner of curried shrimp, salad, and rice, with homemade rhubarb cake for dessert. Some of you know I hate rhubarb, but this was quite tasty (al fresco magic?). After dinner there was a ferociously-fought horse shoes competition, and the cribbage folks played well into the night, a battery-powered lantern hung over the cooler-table.

Day 2

I awoke second after Dick, which meant I got to take a cup of fresh coffee with me to a rock perch above the river, stepping over many Mormon crickets on the way. A beautiful blue jay (which I later identified as a Stellar male, with the handsome black crest) squawked in a nearby tree, and other unseen birds chirped away. Buddhism speaks of "the 10,000 things", meaning the huge variety of things in the universe that our personalities get caught up in -- like children bedazzled in an F.A.O. Schwartz store -- distracting us from the stillness of the soul and knowledge of the Oneness of all. I'd always thought of the 10,000 things as referring to all our material trinkets -- cell phones, TVs, Victoria's Secret nighties, Hummers, Adidas, titanium golf clubs, etc., etc. But sitting there in the stillness of sunrise, not an electronic transmission device nor a mall for furlongs around, I realized that even unadorned Nature provides the 10,000 things. The rush of the river, the redness of the rocks, the green of the trees. What kind of bird is that? What kind of insect? What's the name of that flower? How old are those rocks? What's for breakfast? My mind found many distractions from my meditation mantra.

This was the day of lots of rapids, including the dreaded Hell's Half Mile. Big Mike offered to take me in the rubber ducky. At first I demurred, but then talked myself into being more adventurous. Other women seemed concerned for me. Vickie loaned me her dry jacket, since I unquestionably would be splashed. Dana loaned me her gloves to keep my hands from blistering on the kayak oar. I think they really were proffering talismans against the wrath of the white water. After a few practice rapids, we pulled over at a small beach to see if the water level would come up (rapids are easier with more water to take you over the rocks). While we waited, Ken sunk two short sections of PVC pipe into the sand and brought out a selection of large steel washers, painted in sets of 3, for the game of "washers". This is similar to horseshoes, with the goal being to put the washer in the PVC pipe hole rather than the horseshoe around the stake, but the flat washers will slide on packed sand, adding another dimension to the toss technique. I took 3 washers and, within two sets of tosses, leapt to a 5-0-0 lead over Ken and Big Mike. There I remained for the rest of the game while they built their scores up to 21. After another couple of games (without my abashed participation), we gave up on the water level and floated down to the top of Hell's Half. There we all got out and scrambled downstream, scouting the rocks and currents in the river. The men discussed the pros and cons of left or right at length, and then we each went down, one raft (or rubber ducky or kayak) at a time. Big Mike and I came through upright, although the river insisted we go right where the plan had been left, and there was one dicey moment as we took a unique path at the bottom of the rapids. Everyone else also came through fine, some more elegantly than others. Sally, Mark and Liza found a toy truck at the bottom of their run and tied it to the bow of the raft as river booty.

We continued on to Rippling Brook campground for an excellent lunch of Audrey's chicken curry. Dessert was sunbars -- chewy, sunflower seed-laden cookies that compelled me to eat and eat. (Rationalization: I must have spent lots of calories negotiating Hell's Half. Wink, Wink.) A very fat and relatively fearless chipmunk came scouting for handouts. A dunk in the river felt good in the hot sunshine. We finally got back in the boats for the last leg of the day, which required a fair amount of paddling against a stiff wind. Somewhere in this stretch the tops of the cliffs changed from red to buff, and the name of our campsite was Limestone. Here, the Mormon crickets were replaced by small red beetles that were everywhere and quickly made way into your dry bag, your sleeping bag, the tent, etc. Where there was a tasty morsel of dung or other food of interest, they joined in clusters of 20 or so, looking at a casual glance like a single shimmering red insect.

Charlie and Clare provided the dinner of marinated salmon grilled over charcoal, couscous with pine nuts, and green beans with sliced almonds. Everyone needed a break before the dessert of cream puffs and bing cherries. It was excellent, but foreshadowing of the next day occurred when stiff gusts of wind blew sand into our plates. Exhausted by the thrills of whitewater, I went to bed shortly after sunset.

Day 3

I again woke with first light and went for a hike on the steep talus slope above the camp. The trail at first was stair-like, to get atop a layer of rock, but then went horizontally along the rock, paralleling the river upstream. Eventually it came to a pretty side canyon that was filled with greenery and the sound of a stream. I didn't go down into the canyon, but learned that Brad had done so and had found columbine and other wildflowers down there.

Sally, Mark and I were in the last raft to push off. As we did so, a strong gust of wind blew a cloud of sand around us. It was the weather throwing down its gauntlet. For the rest of the day, the wind blew without surcease. A ranger at our camp that night said he had measured the wind at 47 miles an hour. I doubt it was ever below 8 mph, seldom was below 15-20 mph, and sometimes was at least 80 mph. Mark's strenuous paddling at times did no more than keep us from going upstream, and at times not even that. A couple times we got out and pushed/pulled the raft against the gale. We thus made our way to the point that the Yampa River joins the Green. Opposite the mouth of the Yampa is a sheer rock wall. The Yampa makes a Y at that point, with one small stream flowing in on the upstream side of the Green, and the bulk coming in on the lower leg. We initially tried to row down the Green between the rock wall and the island created by the Y, but the wind pushed us 2 feet up for each foot rowed down. Finally we went with the wind back up to the smaller leg of the Yampa and pushed/pulled the raft up that leg (I felt like Kate Hepburn in The African Queen). This enabled us to use the greater flow of the other leg to take us back downstream into the Green (there was no dam restraint on the Yampa, so that its waters provided a strong current). So, to those of you who asked if I would be on the Yampa as well as the Green, the answer is yes.

After this accomplishment, we rested at a flat rocky island in Echo Canyon, along with other rafters from both our group and another group who had battled hurricane force gales and 3 foot waves. We waited in vain for the wind the die down, and then adventured on. We thus slowly made our way past Mitten Park Fault, where you can clearly see layers of rock turned nearly vertical by upthrusting. Next to it is Steamboat Rock, a narrow upright slab of rock vaguely in the shape of a steamboat, around which the Green makes a hairpin turn. On the far side the wind was less ferocious, and the extra oompf of the Yampa contribution made our progress more rapid. That is, until the oar became stuck in the bottom mud in a shallow area. Mark dived off the raft and vainly attempted to swim upstream to the oar. Sally gamely leapt into the rowing seat, unfastened the extra oar, inserted it in the oarlock, and rowed us to the shore. Fortunately, Charlie and Clare were above us and were able to row to the oar and retrieve it. Charlie dryly pointed out that the wind had been pushing us upstream all day, but right at the moment the oar was lost, the raft happily swept downstream. Mark took off his wet shirt and was happy to row hard against the renewed wind to stay warm.

In Whirlpool Canyon, Sally and I were swamped from head to toe as the raft plunged into some deep troughs of rapids. It therefore was fortunate that we very soon afterward pulled over onto a little beach, where I could put on dry clothes and soak up heat from the sun-warmed sandstone walls and white sand. Ann and Mikey-Mike provided lunch of make-it-yourself wraps of ham, hummus, olives, onions, red peppers, etc., etc. Another stretch of rowing against the wind, and we finally reached Jones Hole camp, a spot we had had no confidence of reaching earlier in the day. It had been colder after lunch, and was overcast by the time we made it to camp. Although I was weary, everyone said the Jones Hole Canyon was worth exploring, so after pitching the tent and putting on some warm clothes, Sally and I followed the spring-fed Jones Hole Creek a ways up, through more beautiful sandstone canyon.

The teenage girls -- Kate, Liza, and Emma -- were in charge of dinner. Kate and Liza had raided their dress-up box and created 20 bags of costumes for the traditional dress-up night. Everyone had to grab a bag (contents unknown), and put on whatever was in it. Of course, several of the men got dresses. Mikey-Mike got a flaming fuchsia satin dress that fit him perfectly and became the diva of the evening. He had a soul-mate in reserved Vermonter Brad, who transformed into an suave entertainer in his Michael Jackson gold lame skin-tight shirt and his one white glove. We also had an Alpine racer, a Frenchman, a cowboy, some colorful bag ladies, a devil, and several who-knows-what. I was amused that aprons my mother had made and worn during my childhood were components of several costumes. After we had spent considerable time laughing with and at each other, we decided to parade over to the next-door campground, which was inhabited by a group also from Steamboat. There was much prancing, parading, flirting, uproar and laughter, and then we returned for our dinner of chicken curry. As we began our dessert of strawberry shortcake in the dusk, there was a sudden uproar from the first persons to see that our next-door neighbors had decided to one-up us by giving us a parade of their naked bodies. Throughout the trip, Sally had prompted "Family trip!" whenever an adult used a foul word or made a ribald reference. All such pretensions were now defeated. After much laughter, the exhibitionists departed and we finished our desserts, admired the last rays of light on distant cliffs, and went to bed. The ranger had predicted rain in the night and more high winds the next day, so we went to sleep with some misgivings.

Day 4

I again awoke early and went back a little ways into the Jones Hole Canyon for meditation and a little walk. Around a corner I came upon a mule deer that, after staring a bit, decided I was harmless and went back to eating grass by the stream. It let me come closer than any other deer I've ever met. Lots of little birds were driving me crazy by singing loudly but appearing invisible. I finally spotted one perched on a high branch and swung up my binoculars, only to discover the lenses were black from water that had gotten inside. Does anyone know what bird goes "dat-dat-dat fwee - ee - ee - ee - eet"?

The ranger's predictions fortunately were wrong. It had not rained, and there was no wind. It was overcast most of the day, which may have been our salvation from the wind (keeping the sun from warming the canyon and causing hot, rising air). We first floated and rowed through the placid and tranquil Rainbow and Island Parks. DEET drenching was necessary to combat the many mosquitoes, but it otherwise was beautiful. Sally was bummed we missed the bison petroglyph on one of the sandstone walls, but I considered this more than compensated for when a hummingbird flew up and hovered a couple seconds right in front of us. (Perhaps it thought our red raft was a flower.)

Back into canyon, we stopped for a lunch of leftovers and a final washers competition. Another very fat chipmunk appeared and begged for handouts. At one point, it had disappeared, and I looked for it beyond some bushes. It did show there, but then was chased off by a rabbit who apparently hoped to have precedent in receiving any treats.

We then had a final set of rapids. Because the water was so high, they were all easily negotiated. (After each rapid, Sally or Mark would proclaim that they usually had to pick their way through rocks at that point, whereas we had sailed through unimpeded.) At about 2 pm, we reached the takeout ramp at Split Mountain. There then was a long process of unloading the rafts, deflating and folding the rafts, and loading the trailers. Once loaded we drove out to Route 40 and headed back east to Steamboat. Along the way we saw a coyote, an elk, a moose, and some buffalo (the latter were being raised domestically). We stopped for dinner in Massadona at a roadside establishment that advertised steaks and seafood. The seafood was shrimp, shrimp, shrimp or cod. The food was fine, but our group of 20 completely overwhelmed the kitchen. So it was about 10 pm when we arrived home, tired, dirty and happy, our heads and hearts full of canyon beauty and river calm.

A note: The other Ann sister was from Boston and New Hampshire. This was her first time West, her first time on a raft trip, and her first time eating curry. If you were counting, we had three curry meals -- 4 if you include leftovers on the last day! Fortunately, it was all to her liking.

Many thanks to Dana, Dick, Emma, Marty, Vickie, Jesse, Charlie, Clare, Ken, Audrey, Mikey-Mike, Ann, Big Mike, Brad, Clark, Mark, Sally, Kate, and Liza for a wonderful time!

Where'd you go?

It's been one thing after another. But I hope today or tomorrow to post my rafting trip on the Green River. Check back!

Welcome to the Wild West

Friday morning, June 9, was dedicated to sorting and packing my stuff and then packing the car. (Yes, I’m hauling that much stuff with me.) Then I headed north, seeing again the beautiful reddish-buff badlands that spread across one’s view as soon as topping the hill out of Santa Fe. At first, the drive was the same route as to Ghost Ranch, but I turned north on 285, passing through Ojo Caliente and Tres Piedras out of New Mexico. That route takes you on the far side of the Rio Grande rift from Taos, and the ragged blue of the Sangre de Cristos is a charming fellow traveler, paralleling the route north on the eastern horizon. Just shortly before crossing the border into Colorado, the higher, more jagged and snow-covered peaks of the northern Sangre de Cristo range appear in the far distance. The land changes from sagebrush grazing lands for antelope herds (part of the Carson National Forest) into irrigated fields of cow pasture. Short of Antonito, I drove through a cattle drive that was occurring right on the shoulders of the highway, complete with cowboys on horseback and lots of imposed-upon-looking cows.

At Alamosa, I stopped at the Sonic Drive-In for a last green chile cheeseburger (plus chocolate shake). I missed the turn that would have taken me up the “gun barrel” – an absolutely straight 50 miles of road in the middle of the San Luis Valley. (The San Luis Valley is a triangle of very flat land bordered on two sides by 14,000 foot peaks that drive the northbound traveler into Poncha Pass.) Instead I went northwest a stretch before turning north at Monte Vista for only 35 miles of absolutely straight road (actually, the true Gunbarrel) up to Saguache. Near Monte Vista, I crossed the Rio Grande, which at that point is only a mountain creek. At Saguache, the road turns east and skirts the edge of the mountains before joining up with Route 17 from Alamosa. There was a rainstorm over the mountains on my left side, but open, sunny sky on my right. The sun was behind me. At one point, huge drops of rain were lit by the sun as yellow streaks shooting down toward my windshield –- incoming at 11 o’clock, about a 30 degree angle. It was like special effects in a movie about a missile attack, or about flying a spaceship through an asteroid field. Fortunately, all that happened was a big Splat! as the gob of water hit the windshield.

There was rain on and off as I went up and over Poncha Pass. This afforded beautiful scenes, with a shaft of light through the clouds lighting a single pine-covered peak, or a sun drenched valley at the bottom of shadowed hills. Soon the road was next to the Arkansas River, which looked very full. The contrast to dry, dusty New Mexico was intense. Whilst New Mexico suffered from record low snowfall this winter, Colorado enjoyed record high snowfall. The swollen Arkansas was on the right; on the left were the impressive Collegiate Peaks still sporting snow in the shaded slopes of their bare heads.

The road climbs steadily to Leadville, a town at elevation 10,200 ft. I took a short stroll down the main street to find some coffee, enjoying the bracing air. For you Broadway fans, Leadville is where The Unsinkable Molly Brown (played by Debbie Reynolds in the movie) met her hubby. Then time to head down Tennessee Pass to I-70 near Vail. For the second half of this stretch, the road is a narrow ledge on an extremely steep slope, about 1000 feet above first the Tennessee Creek (??) and then the Eagle River, which joins up at Gilman, a tiny town of houses perilously clinging to Battle Mountain. Not a good place for sleepwalkers or persons subject to vertigo -- apparently no one lives there now, due to mining contamination (www.ghosttowns.com/states/co/gilman.html). Again, the streams looked very full.

By the time I stopped for gas at Avon, it was dark. I had a short stretch on I-70 (on which, despite the mountain curves, the speed limit is 75) to Wolcott, and then turned north on 131 for the last leg to Steamboat Springs. It was an exciting leg. First, a very curvy, unfamiliar road in the dark. For about 270 degrees, there was a lightning storm at the horizon, but behind me the moon was shining. That light went away during a heavy hailstorm. Then the hail halted and the road straightened out considerably, but just short of Yampa a dog chased a rabbit across the road, missing being struck by the car by inches. When I came to Oak Creek, a barrier across the highway announced a detour, which required me to take a sharp left and then a right onto a dirt road. This eventually became a paved road, but took me completely past Oak Creek. I kept waiting for the ambush. (I later learned that the Annual Soapbox Derby was the next day, and they had closed off the main street for that.) Coming out of the Oak Creek area, a fox ran across the road, with more margin of safety than the dog, and then a cat. Lots of suicidal animals in these parts. The road was now pretty straight and dry, and I thought I’d finally make good time, until coming upon a stretch of construction, in which they had completely ripped up the pavement and the ruts in the dirt were so deep that I bottomed out at one point. Pavement returned, and at last the lights of Steamboat Springs came into view, and the rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Reporting on this last leg to my sister and brother-in-law, they said, “Welcome to the Wild West.” Nice to know there are still some unpolished edges out here.

Pause in NM

From Sunday to today, I've been in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, visiting friends, doing administrative tasks, and driving down a number of memory lanes -- sites of old homes and haunts. Today I drive to Steamboat, Colorado to join family and friends for a raft trip on the Green river, so this is my last entry for about a week. A few highlights of the last few days:

Apparently apache plume, Indian blanket and Spanish broom like drought. They are all in magnificent bloom.

The drought was broken a bit by a decent amount of rain in Santa Fe yesterday. I take credit, as I had washed my car that morning.

More birds: Spotted towhee, black-capped grosbeak, a very noisy Western scrub jay. There has been a constant concert from the white-winged doves. Some birders say their call is "Who cooks for you?", but I thought it was more of a report on a wild party: "Wah-hah! Woo-hoo!" On Sunday, I was in the doorway to the garden, and a mountain chickadee flew onto the doorjamb and hung there, inches from my face. It then flew into the house. As my mind raced on how to get it out, it flew to the top of the doorjamb (i.e., hanging upside down), then flew away. But a while later, it or a friend was back and flew in again. It clung to the mullion of a window and rubbed its beak on the glass -- I think it was trying to get an insect that was in the space between the storm window and regular window. Then it flew to a window sill. I thought if I put my hand on the side away from the door, it would fly to the door, but instead it tried to fly straight ahead through the window glass. So then I started to try and catch it, and it hopped onto my hand and stayed there while I carried it outside. Very special.

One morning Pam found a bird with a broken leg in the garage. She put it in a crate, and I took it up to the wildlife center outside Espanola. They said it was an English Sparrow, and could probably survive fine with one leg. I felt a little silly bringing in a sparrow, but a woman right after me brought in a pigeon. Pam says people bring in mice. All are treated seriously. When I got home I looked for English Sparrow in the bird books, but none was listed. So I googled and learned that it is what the books call a house sparrow. A data sheet from the state of Florida explained that 6 pairs had been introduced to the U.S. in 1850, and they have done so well here that they can become pests. So it went on to provide methods to kill them. And here I was bringing one to the wildlife center to have its broken leg cured. Well, it's God's little creature, too. [It's been suggested to me that the sparrow would make a good breakfast for the raptors at the wildlife center.]

After the wildlife center, I drove to Santa Cruz, which is right above Española, and found the old plaza I had looked for on Monday. Santa Cruz de la Cañada church was built in 1730!

Lots of delicious chile dinners. Hard to pick, but I think La Choza is my favorite for now. Tia Sophia's buys local honey and the current crop is unbelievably flavorful and good.

Visited St. Mark's on the Mesa in Albuquerque, which is where my grandmother's ashes reside. It was her parents whose grave I visited in Fostoria, Ohio. I'm feeling very connected with the lines of genetics and history.

Hasta luego.

Land of Enchantment

Monday broke Santa Fe beautiful, the sky blue, blue, the temperature perfect. Pam, Anne and I decided to visit Bandelier National Monument. We first went to Bishops Lodge for a chile brunch, sitting on the patio, watching the cottonwood leaves flutter green in the gentle breeze against the clear blue sky.

Bandelier is in a canyon of the Jemez (HEY-mehz) Mountains. The Jemez are the remnants of a HUGE volcano that blew eons ago –- the eruption was 600 times greater than that of Mount St. Helens in 1980, with ash flung as far as Nebraska and Iowa. Closer to home, ash settled out in thick layers that compressed into tuff –- a soft, easily sculpted stone. Eons of erosion have left fingers of tuff separated by steep canyons.
In one such canyon –- Frijoles (free-HO-lays) Canyon -- the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indian enlarged wind-eroded caves in the tuff walls and built additional rooms against the canyon wall using tuff bricks. In the bottom of the canyon, they built a circular pueblo with kivas in the center plaza. The ruins of all this can now be explored, including climbs up wooden ladders into claustrophobic cave rooms whose ceilings are darkened with the soot of ancient fires. The bottom of the canyon away from the stream was desert with fields of Indian blanket –- a beautiful daisy-like flower that has an outer ring of yellow and a center of red. Along the Frijoles stream was a forest of Ponderosa pines (with bark that smells like vanilla), blooming New Mexico locust, gamble oak, and a variety of wildflowers. It was very hot in the sun, and cool and luscious in the shade.

On the way back, we stopped at the Overlook at White Rock (a bedroom community for Los Alamos – the atomic city). Glorious views down into the Rio Grande canyon, across to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, north to the mysterious Black Mesa, and south to the Sandia Mountains. Anne saw a canyon wren; we all saw violet-green swallows swooping along the basalt cliff. On the way home, we stopped in Española for dinner at El Paragua. I had the Mexican combination with carne adovada, tamale, taco, and enchilada. Each bite was a taste of heaven. I then tried and failed to find the historic plaza, but in the process drove us through a lot of Española you would never guess exists from the highway.

Tuesday, Anne and I joined her friend Ron for breakfast at Tia Sophia’s (huevos rancheros, red, yum), then met up with Mary Lou to visit the Cathedral, the Alan Hauser sculpture garden (the face atop the highest sculpture looks like Wallace, as in Wallace and Grommet), Loretto Chapel (with the mysterious spiral staircase that shouldn’t be standing, built by an unknown carpenter with few tools and unknown wood), Señor Murphy’s Candy (addictively good piñon caramels), Packard’s (fine Indian jewelry, blankets, Kachinas, fetishes, etc.), the Indian jewelry displays under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, and the Georgia O’Keefe museum. It was well past lunch time, so we ate at the delightful garden of the St. Francis Hotel –- believe it or not, salads instead of green chile –- then drove along some of Santa Fe’s quaintest streets –- Canyon Road, Upper Canyon Road, Cerro Gordo, Alameda, Acequia Madre, Palace. Mary Lou went home, Anne and I went home and changed, and Pam, Anne and I went to the Cantina at Casa Sena for dinner. Ron was playing piano, as he has for years, and the servers periodically would stop waiting to sing show tunes. Having been raised on show tunes, this was an establishment I spent many evenings in when I lived in Santa Fe.

Wednesday we puttered around the house for the morning. Pam has made her backyard a paradise for birds –- 5 bird baths, numerous bird feeders, a large Russian olive excellent for perching and singing, a cherry tree laden with fruit that the birds find delicious. Santa Fe has few local species, but, as Pam explained, it is on the flyway of a major migratory route –- down the Rocky Mountains, right at the Santa Fe River, left at the Rio Grande. Pam is very close to the Santa Fe River, so gets all sorts of birds visiting her bird spa. That morning and over the course of the week we saw 3 kinds of dove, black-headed grosbeaks, canyon towhees, Bullock’s orioles, mountain chickadees, lots of finches, sparrows, and robins, and probably several other species I’m forgetting.

In the afternoon, Anne and I drove to Ghost Ranch. On the way we went into Abiquiu to see the house where Georgia O’Keefe lived, and down to the Rio Chama below Abiquiu Dam, which was high with a strong current of cold water. At Ghost Ranch we took the Chimney Rock hike, which leads to the top of one of the beautiful mesas that surround Ghost Ranch. The brochure said it would take 1-1/2 to 2 hours, but it took us 3, because we stopped so often to look at birds and the view. At one point, we paralleled an absolutely vertical cliff across a ravine. We saw a raven soar along the cliff, then land on a tiny ledge near the top and feed a chick. There were 4 black chicks, looking very grown, jockeying for space on the tiny ledge that barely accommodated them. First time out, it will be fly or die for those chicks. We later saw both parents holding majestic vigil at points above the nest.

The views from the top were just profoundly splendid. To get a wan sense of it, go to Google images and type in Ghost Ranch and then Google again adding the word Pedernal (name of a distinctive mountain on the horizon south of Ghost Ranch, painted many times by Georgia O’Keefe). But it is impossible to convey the feeling of the vastness, of the incredible scenery every direction you look, of the stretch in your soul exerted by the constantly shifting light and the huge sky and the billowing clouds and the deep, deep silence. We walked down as the sun sank, which of course turned the red and gold cliffs redder and more golden, and the blue steak of Abiquiu Reservoir bluer. A huge cumulous cloud above a mesa was white at the top, pink in the middle, and gray at the bottom. A rainbow hooked another cloud to a mesa top. Many cottontails were out munching on grass, and several more birds slowed our progress back to the car. I feared we had fed our souls at the expense of our bodies, but we reached Abiquiu Inn just before its closing at 9 pm. Excellent green chile enchilada. Tourist tip: the Inn has a wonderful gift shop.

Thursday was uncharacteristically cloudy, so we stayed in town. Lunch with Mary Lou at the Museum Hill restaurant, which has a stunning view across Santa Fe and the Rio Grande Valley to the Jemez Mountains. A tour of one of my alma maters, St. John’s College. Some more driving around the narrow streets endlessly lined with beautiful adobe homes. Lattes at the Santa Fe Bakery so we could use their WiFi to view some emails with graphics too large for Pam’s dial-up computer. Dinner with Mary Lou and her friend Diane on the patio at La Choza –- one of my favorite New Mexican food restaurants (out of about 20 favorites, ;) ). Red chile enchiladas. Yum. Beautiful sunset.

Friday we drove to Taos on the high road. We ate lunch at Rancho de Chimayo, which serves delicious New Mexican cuisine in an historic hacienda (ranch house). We then backtracked a little to Sanctuario de Chimayo, a beautiful chapel which is the object of an annual pilgrimage at Easter, with the faithful walking from as far away as El Paso. Next to the main sanctuary is a small narrow room, at the end of which is a tiny room with a hole in the floor. The hole is filled with holy dirt, which people rub on themselves for healing. The narrow room is full of pictures and statues of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and saints brought by pilgrims, and has a collection of crutches left by the healed.

Then the mountain drive through a number of small, centuries-old villages –- Truchas, Las Trampas, Ojo Sarco, Peñasco, etc. The architecture is distinctive –- adobe walls, but pitched and often gabled galvanized tin roofs to let the winter snows slide off (versus the flat roofs common in Santa Fe and elsewhere).

In Taos we walked around the plaza, dropping a few dollars into the economy and admiring the astonishingly beautiful and astonishingly expensive western clothing, made in Texas, doubtless to be purchased by Texans. We then went to Taos Pueblo, acknowledged to be 1000 years old, bought some fruit pies, were amused by the very dirty dogs sprawled unmoving any old place, looked at some drums and jewelry. We stopped for fry bread and salads at the pueblo café –- delicious –- then drove to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and walked across its span and back. The bridge shook each time a truck roared by. 650 feet below was the Rio Grande. The gorge is a training-wheel version of the Grand Canyon, with spectacular views along the gorge and to the Sangre de Cristos in the east. We then drove home back through Taos (stop for coffee at a hole-in-the-wall cafe that had no sleeves for the hot cups as an environmental statement: "Saving the planet one sleeve at a time") and down the beautiful Rio Grande canyon, with one stop to admire the breathtaking view of the Rio Grande rift, and another to go down to the river and put our feet in it.

Saturday sadly required me to drive Anne to the airport and say goodbye. I then drove through the revitalized and tourist-friendly Albuquerque downtown, and stopped awhile at Old Town. Something pulled me to visit the Patio Market, where I hadn’t been in decades, even when I lived in Albuquerque, but which was a must-see when I was little. To my amazement, the piñata shop –- an endless source of delight when I was young (visions of sugar plums danced in their heads) –- was still there. There was some kind of festival on the plaza, with a Mariachi band playing on the bandstand. Classic. I then drove through the North Valley, a relatively lush neighborhood of horse ranches, cottonwood trees, and alfalfa fields irrigated from the Rio Grande, then went east to a Northeast Heights neighborhood to have dinner with friends from DC who had moved to Albuquerque a couple years ago. It was odd to be in my home town, interacting with people with whom the common memories were all in DC, but was a delightful evening. A nice cap to a week of enchantment with Anne.

End of the Santa Fe Trail

Dear Fellow Travelers,

Apologies for the dearth of entries recently. As stated in the last post, I've been having too much fun in Santa Fe to write. And then I needed a vacation from vacation. But here we go again.

As you will recall from our last episode, Annventurer had just made it to Tucumcari NM. Sunday morning, after blogging, I took Route 104 from Tucumcari to Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada). I'm fairly certain I had never been on the first half of that route. I had the idea that it would be similar to the Texas panhandle -- endless miles of flat terrain covered sparsely by desert grasses, but instead it was similar to other colorful, scenic areas of NM -- escarpments, junipers, tiny Hispanic villages of adobe buildings, gates for roads into ranches, the occasional corral, the occasional classic Northern New Mexico church -- a rectangle of adobe with a pitched galvanized tin roof and a little white wooden cupola, often sitting seemingly in the middle of nowhere. At the bottom of the impressive red Canadian Escarpment a sign announced Corazon Ranch, and I suddenly flashed on a fun and romantic weekend there with friends when I was in college (the ranch belonged to the relative of one of them). The road climbed steeply up the Canadian Escarpment, and then the land was fairly flat and sparsely covered with desert grasses, but on the Western horizon were the Sangre de Cristos -- the tail end of the Rocky Mountains. Las Vegas is on the eastern side of them, Santa Fe on the western side.

I went into Las Vegas to look for a bathroom and a Coke or coffee. Las Vegas is an old railroad town that is an odd blend of northern New Mexico adobe architecture and Victorian architecture similar to what I had driven through in Ohio and Indiana. It has not (yet) been "discovered" (thank God), although it is home to New Mexico Highlands University and the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West. I went first to the Visitor Center, housed in the old train depot; it was closed. I then tried for coffee at the historic El Fidel hotel; the coffee shop/bakery was closed. I noticed that all the antique and curio shops were closed -- in fact, the town was pretty much shut down. OK, it was a Sunday, but it was the Sunday of Memorial Weekend -- the weekend when every God-fearing American is on Holiday and ready to put down cold cash for cute, silly, or inventive unnecessary objects and to buy brunch, lunch, fancy coffees, dinner and lots of other things that will boost the economy. Perhaps the attitude to be inferred helps explain why Las Vegas has not been discovered (and why I might want to live there).

On through Glorieta Pass via I-25, which was much more curvy and steeply graded than I had recalled. I believe I-25 through that section follows the Old Santa Fe Trail, around the south end of the Sangre de Cristos. I took the first exit into Santa Fe, following the Old Pecos Highway until it merged with the Old Santa Fe Trail, then following the Old Santa Fe Trail to its end at the Plaza. Went to Pam's house, unloaded the car, and went to Maria's for blue corn enchiladas with green chile. Then took Pam home, picked up Mary Lou, and drove to Albuquerque the back way, along the Turquoise Trail. This passes the state penitentiary, with it pens of buffalo, passes the little town of Cerrillos, which may have been the setting for a Western you've seen, and then passes through Madrid (slow to 20 mph). Madrid (pronounced MAH-drid) was a coal mining town. When I was a child, it was a ghost town, the wooden miner's cabins losing their paint and their integrity, weathering and listing more each year. Then, in the '70's, Madrid was discovered by the hippies. They began buying the cabins, shoring them up, and started small craft shops (remember macrame?). The town is now a bustling artist community, with only one or two collapsing cabins left -- all others restored, built out and brightly painted. The thing that has preserved Madrid from being taken over by Money in the fashion of Santa Fe is that it has terrible water. See http://www.turquoisetrail.org/madrid.htm for more info on the town.

The Turquoise Trail then goes south through a couple other tiny, ancient towns, eventually joins the road that goes to the ski area and Sandia Crest, and continues on the backside of the Sandias to I-40, where you take a right turn to go into Albuquerque. At the newly rebuilt Big Eye (intersection of I-40 and I-25), we went south on I-25 to the airport and picked up Anne. I then drove Anne and Mary Lou past my childhood homes and went by the law school, which has acquired a huge new wing since I studied there. We then went to The Range Cafe in Bernalillo (ber-na-LEE-yo) for dinner. Albuquerque, which comprises about 1/3 of New Mexico's population, is the county seat for Bernalillo County. The little town of Bernalillo, just north of Albuquerque, is the county seat for Sandoval County. Go figure. The Range became an institution after I left NM. It moved to its current location after the original location burned down. There was a cartoon in the restaurant that showed two cowboys looking at the smoldering ruins, with one saying, "I think I heard a discouraging word." I had the green chile enchilada and steak combo. Yum.

On up to Santa Fe on I-25. It was dark, so not a lot to see, especially since the stretch between Bernalillo and Santa Fe is all Indian reservation with almost no development, except for a few new casinos by the road. But due to the vast emptiness, there are places where you can have a perspective of two ribbons of light that are miles long -- a white ribbon of headlights going south and a red ribbon of tail lights going north. About halfway there, you climb La Bajada hill (which is actually an escarpment), and then suddenly see the lights of Santa Fe in the distance. We drove there, dropped off Mary Lou, went to Pam's, and collapsed into bed.

Under Construction

I'm in Santa Fe, having too much fun to attend to this blog. Brief synopsis: Bandelier National Monument; Georgia O'Keefe Museum; looking at Indian jewelry under the portal of the Palace of the Governors; drive up Canyon Road and wandering through narrow dirt streets lined with adobe houses; hike to Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch, being utterly awed at the 360 degree view of astonishing beauty; lots of green chile meals.

Check back in a few days for details. --A