UNTIL NEXT TIME - IN MY $3M MOBILE HOME

Until next time.  Don't know where, don't know when, but thanks for reading this autumn's blog.  

• Despite me spending hours of vacation time trying to compose a scintillating blog that would eventually go viral and bring in tons of advertising to make my fortune, the most popular item seems to have been the Schitt family story!  Says something about our friends!
• Did you spot Queen Victoria?  (Try Bryce pages)
• These are some of our wildlife encounters.  Spot the odd one out.

Thanks, as ever, to my driver and chief planner, Graham - another ace trip.  And to our three additional adventurers - Allan, Sue and Roy - not forgetting Kalani.

BUT NEXT TIME I AM TRAVELLING IN THIS - 

see here for details.  

Contributions to $3m fund gratefully accepted.

RIB ROY

We first met Roy and Kalani the dog, four years ago whilst visiting Allan and Sue in Washington DC, when we had a brilliant meal of the best ribs ever, with Roy barbecuing outside in well below freezing.  For ever after, he has been known to us as Rib Roy - can't think why.  He then moved and earlier this year invited us all over to his new house in Utah and organised our train trip in Durango, as part of our joint ten days together.  So, on our last night we had a repeat treat of ribs and more of his excellent wine from his excellent wine cellar.

Ribs 

These are some piccies of the preparation of the five star ribs.  Tried to do a collage but Mr. Google has his own ideas on the sort, whereas I took photos in chronological order but he muddled them all up.  So storyline below starting with the spice mix and finishing with the chewed remains!!!

And if you want a go yourself, the recipe is below.  Might want to reduce the fiery bits for a milder hit!   Make a quantity and freeze in portions.  See here
Enjoy.

House

Roy moved to Park City last year to his own designed house.  A marvel of electronic wizardry, verandas with mountain views, hot tub with fountains, gorgeous floors and finishes and the ultimate wine cellar.  In the photos, Graham is pondering which bottle to sample next!!

A beautiful home and we are so grateful to Roy for sharing it all with us - must have been a shock to the system to go from one man and his dog to 5 of us and Kalani.

Kalani

Kalani is Roy's long suffering dog during our days in National Parks, where she wasn't allowed.  But she was forever even tempered and up for a cuddle and some ball play.

She was a bit less stressed back home

You're going to make a great therapy dog going with Roy into care homes and helping sick people.  For more info on therapy dogs See here

Thanks again to both of you for your companionship.


One more post to go!!!

LAST STOP - ST GEORGE'S

So headed south from Roy's residence, after a farewell breakfast with the tour group and wave goodbye to Kalani.  Through massively expanding suburbs and on via desert and back to canyon country and St. George's for a day of R&R before the final push to Las Vegas (2hrs) and the flight home.  Couple of swims (air temp was thirty degrees warmer than at Roy's), good meals out, excellent Best Western motel, bit of shopping and a morning walking the town historic trail.

Pioneer Town

Another outpost of the Mormon push across the continent to escape prejudice and persecution in the East, setting up in the mid eighteen hundreds to develop a sizable tourist town now.  At least three times the size from when we last visited 22 yes ago.  Nice old buildings, interesting Court House and Pioneer museum staffed by enthusiastic volunteers with their own Mormon family stories to tell.

Bison

These bison are part of the worldwide phenomena of painted animals, people, etc.  Found in Salt Lake City and here - we had similar sheep all around the Lake District last year.

None as good as the Witherslack sheep trail!!!

Sculpture Trail

Talking of trails, there was a great new sculpture Trail all around the old part of town.

They were renovating the tabernacle and it seemed like a pretty good addition to the sculpture Trail.

TALE OF TWO CITIES

Stayed just outside Salt Lake City with Roy, and his dog Kalani, for three nights, after our group tour of the various National Parks.  He took us to see some of the local sights - culture, religion, skiing, history.  More on his fabulous house in the mountains in separate post.

Salt Lake City

 The tabernacle - not allowed in but we did see a model of the inside in the museum.  Several associates there extolling the benefits of the faith.





View through town into the desert beyond. 

 Very civilised and clean city centre - maybe we should promote the faith and the no alcohol aspect to some of our cities!

The Capitol for Utah (pretty similar in appearance to the one in Washington DC) was just open to anyone to wander in - no security, apart from one policeman reading his mobile.  Very impressive!!

Then on to the Beehive house where Brigham Young lived.  A pretty upmarket residence and got lots of bible quotes from the two sisters showing us around, plus a free offer of the Book of Mormon.  Think we might have been detained a little longer if we had accepted!

A few days later, several hundred miles south, in St. George's, we found his winter home - one of the first snowbirds!  Nice work if you can get it.

Park City

Roy lives a few miles from the big ski resort of Park City up in the mountains about half an hour from SLC.  Snow had arrived on the tops whilst he had been away with us, so he is looking forward to the season and getting back on his skis after a bad fall earlier in the year on the slopes.   We went to check out the ski jumps and area where the Winter Olympics had been held in 2002.  

This is me practicing for the next WOs (turn off the sound on both of these - still haven't found how to switch off on camera and can't edit it either)

And this is Graham on his snowboard!

Then a quick change out of our ski gear and into town

Nice main street and lots of pricey-for-ski-crowd shops and restaurants.  Great history museum on the mining to ski resort story.  Also section on the sizable Sundance film festival that comes to town each year. 

 Liked this old mining underground train that was used by early skiers to get to the slopes!!

Nearby was a great restaurant that Roy took us to.  Sample draft beers like this, so you could keep track of them on the menu chequerboard.

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

Guess what - lots of arches.  Beginning with the iconic Delicate Arch.

Managed to get it without anyone standing in the middle making love signs, or arms stretched out, or an unfit couple inching their way down, whilst the rest of us "serious" photographers curse and swear, waiting for them to disappear!

The park, like all the NPs we visited, was much more crowded than 22 years ago (no surprise), scenic turn offs and trailheads often full to bursting, and this is 2 or 3 weeks after Labor Day and back to school.  Fortunately, the temperature was much better than last time in July when we roasted in the nineties (have switched back to old style degrees whilst over here!).  Now it was a nice mid sixties.  Did some good short hikes and saw these along the way

FALLEN ARCHES

No, no - not those kind!

The above is Landscape Arch that lost a big chunk in 1991

This one lost some of its slabs in the 1940s

Several others have lost bits more recently including a total collapse of Wall Arch, that we saw on our last hot and sweaty visit, in 2008.  See here

Oops!!

MORE CANYON COUNTRY

Having spent several days in the green and pleasant lands of Colorado, the whole gang transferred back to red rock country in Moab.  The travel day was another great scenic drive with four seasons in a day.  Autumn colours,

 

Snowy peaks in the distance and snow/hail over the tops, rain and cloud just like mountain weather everywhere, sunshine again in deserty Moab and our new Airbnb.

CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Next day, off early again to take in Dead Horse State Park and another technological camera discovery - panorama mode!!

Love it!!  Collages, panoramas, food photos - moving quickly towards something called Instagram, when you can all follow every step I take, every day, every way - yawn, yawn.  

But please shoot me if I get a selfie stick - they are everywhere on this trip, poking their way into all the best shots.  Fortunately, they have banned drones, or they would be droning around everywhere too.  But it is tempting to send one down one of these out of view canyons - ah well, have to stick with panorama mode for time being.

Anyway, for movie buffs, this is near where Thelma and Louise went over the edge 

Sue and I are a bit padded out as it was pretty cold, and our fashion sense colour clash-wise isn't great, but hey, it's an iconic place.

So, onwards to the more-expansive-than-Grand-Canyon National Park, Canyonlands.  More pink and red rocks in more layers, and photos not giving any idea of the great expanse - so another panorama - yay!!

Lunch with a view and a half.

And finally, a nice arch.  

But lots more arches to come in next post - might get arched out.

CULTURE NOT CANYONS - MESA VERDE

(Going back in time for this post - a bit out of sync - but whatever!)

We spent 2 days on our own in this great National Park, whilst staying at a motel in Cortez, and then, armed with lots of information, we spent a busy 3rd day with Allan and Sue (at our fancy Airbnb) for their only day at MV.  Adding some info from the web to reduce my brain work and input what I can on the limited time we have for blogs and rest/recovery - on the tourist trail most days from 8 am or earlier until 6 pm, then meal in or out depending how tired we all are.

Mesa Verde

Created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52,485 acres (21,240 ha) near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. With more than 4,300 sites, including 600 cliff dwellings, it is the largest archaeological preserve in the U.S. Mesa Verde (Spanish for "green table") is best known for structures such as Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America.

Starting c. 7500 BCE, Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex. The variety of projectile points found in the region indicates they were influenced by surrounding areas, including the Great Basin, the San Juan Basin, and the Rio Grande Valley. Later, Archaic people established semi-permanent rockshelters in and around the mesa. By 1000 BCE, the Basketmaker culture emerged from the local Archaic population, and by 750 CE the Ancestral Puebloans had developed from the Basketmaker culture.

The Mesa Verdeans survived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming of crops such as corn, beans, and squash. They built the mesa's first pueblos sometime after 650, and by the end of the 12th century, they began to construct the massive cliff dwellings for which the park is best known. By 1285, following a period of social and environmental instability driven by a series of severe and prolonged droughts, they abandoned the area and moved south to locations in Arizona and New Mexico.

These are some of the amazing cliff dwellings around the park - mainly 13th century.

We got up close and personal by taking three ranger led tours around different villages.  We accessed them by a series of ladders and steps, but these were easy peasy compared to how the original inhabitants went up and down to their fields on the plateau above the village.  Handholds cut in the sandstone and see above photos for the rockfaces!!!

So, lots of history and culture of the Ancestral Puebleons - who used to be called Anasazi.

In contemporary times, the people and their archaeological culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term. Reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean "ancient enemies". Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term to be used.

More info here if interested.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans