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

3 DAYS IN PURGATORY AND OTHER HOT STORIES

Our next Airbnb

After a couple of days in a motel in Cortez (Mesa Verde NP - separate blog coming soon!) we drove a short way to Durango in Colorado, and met up with my cousin Allan, wife Sue and friend, Roy.  A great place

But not at all sure where they got this name from

Helluva place and a devil to find 😈.  

Shady Lady

Graham wanted to stop here, but I think he was a bit late in the day to meet Madam Fanny.

Our town

Should have stayed here.

Crummy court

Not up to Heversham's standards!

Chocolate Factory

Have blogged several times about our favourite choccy heaven in Australia, and this small one in Durango was pretty upmarket, but not at all sure about chocolate covered crisps (chips to you Americans.)

Story of Jack Schitt

Seen in window of shop in Durango

Translation - Many people are at a loss for a response when someone says "You don't know Jack Schitt." Now you can intellectually handle the situation. 

Jack is the son of Awe Schitt and O. Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O. Schitt, the owner of Needeep N. Schitt Inc. They had one son, Jack. In turn Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt, the deeply religious couple produced 6 children: Holie Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Giva Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins: Deap Schitt and Dip Schitt. Against her parents' objections, Deap Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school drop out. 

However, after being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later remarried Ted Sherlock and, because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. 

She was then known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock. Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt and they produced a son of nervous disposition, Chicken Schitt. Two other of the 6 children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, Were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony. 

The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens wedding. The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Hoarse. Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt. 

So now when someone says, "you don't know Jack Schitt," you can correct them.

STEAMING IN COLORADO

Our American fellow travellers had organised a day trip on the Durango & Silverton railway in south west Colorado, to coincide with the fall colours of the aspen trees.  They came down from Park City, near Salt Lake city, the day before, and we had a very early start to get our seats by 8.15 am.   Here we all are - Sue, Cousin Allan, Roy (their friend and now ours too.  Missing is Kalani, Roy's dog, who we had to leave behind in the house for a very long day.  Piccies to come)

The carriage we were in had a great dedicated hostess, free drinks all day (got back at 7 pm), freebies and wonderful views.  Fantastic old steam engine and great sunny day.  Two days later it was raining and cold with mountains in the clouds.  Phew!

Brilliant day out, with lunch stop in Silverton, an old mining town now dependent on three trainloads a day spending some money in their shops and cafes.

CANYON COUNTRY - CAPITOL REEF - 3

Three days in Capitol Reef, so three posts to cover it all - apologies if the canyons are getting a bit much - but it is all soooooo scenic that it's a photo-stop every few minutes, whether hiking or driving - quite exhausting for the camera person.

HARVEST HOMECOMING

So for some light relief, these are some piccies of the small harvest festival put on by the National Park.  Tents with locals demonstrating quilting, branding, apple pressing, rug making, stamping leather, smokehouse operating, set up of typical cowboy camp and a great country music band playing.  

Just a couple of local cowboys!!

And all just outside our favourite pie emporium!

After 2 days of fruit pie lunches, today we shared this cinnamon roll - as good as it looks.  In case you haven't discovered, you can enlarge any photo or collage by tapping it and expanding it.  The rolls look even better!!!  (The cowboys don't!)

MORE HIKES

Two main ones today - first up along river and overlook down to our old campsite in the orchards

Then after cinnamon roll lunch and Harvest excitement, up this side canyon, where we met our first Brit - amazing after two weeks (apart from drunken yobbos in Vegas) - they are either put off by exchange rate or Trump or both.

Brownie

Wasn't sure if this so-called brownie was something found by the wayside and from an indeterminate animal

Didn't taste great either!

Beavers

We saw this pear tree on the edge of the orchard on our first day, nearly gnawed through - 2 days later it was like this.  

And the Rangers pretty worried, as this is the first beaver problem they have had there, with a big orchard to go at.  Decisions will need to be made! 

But we picked up lots of nice pears for future consumption.  Allan and Sue may get to try them in a few days time when we meet up.

Busy day but great and the crowds of Bryce and Zion are conspicuous by their absence.

CANYON COUNTRY - CAPITOL REEF - 2

Grand Wash trail

This was closed the day before for flash floods, due to thunderstorms all afternoon, so we were some of the first hikers up the gorge.  Lots of red mud and gravel, so boots soon collected big dollops of clay (Lin - but not as bad as that mud bath of a field near Ulverston that we dragged you and Rob through!!).

A lot of the mud looked just like chocolate sauce (still dreaming of those choccy milkshakes), - a bit like walking through Willy Wonka land.

Great hike though and a long and interesting conversation with a geologist employed by the Govt and part dealing with climate change.  They had a 45 million dollar budget and the Trump proposal reduces it to zero, if it gets through.  Her Dept is busy redefining projects so that their titles do not mention "climate change", but the research can carry on under another name.

We're not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget

March 16, 2017

On a lighter note, the following extract is about the canyon:

Grand Wash was made famous by American outlaw Butch Cassidy, who reportedly had a hideout in this area (nearby Cassidy Archis named after him) 

Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker in 1866 to devout Mormon parents in Beaver, Utah. After several itinerant years in mining camps across the west, Parker pulled off his first bank robbery in 1889. He adopted the surname 'Cassidy' around this time from an elder small-time horse thief he admired in his youth, and as legend has it, the first name 'Butch' from a short stint in a Wyoming butcher shop. 

After spending 18 months in jail for stealing horses, we was released in 1895 and reunited with members of the Wild Bunch, a loose knit group of thieves who graduated to robbing banks and trains in the 1890s. The Wild Bunch found refuge in a maze of canyons across SE Utah, an area that came to be known as the Outlaw Trail.   

With pressure mounting from bounties and pursuit by the Pinkerton detectives, Cassidy fled the US sometime between 1901-1902 for South America. He reunited with his infamous partner Harry 'The Sundance Kid' Longabaugh in Argentina, where they invested in ranching operations while resuming a life of banditry. 

Details of his fate remain unclear, and stories range from a deadly shootout with Bolivian authorities to a quiet return to the US where he is rumored to have lived out his final years under an assumed name.

Scenic drive

A 10 mile drive through more spectacular scenery.

"Mormon pioneers took eight days in 1884 to clear the first road through the Gorge, and settlers had to remove heavy debris after every flash flood. Early travelers recorded their passage on the canyon walls at the Pioneer Register. The road was closed in 1962 when Utah Highway 24 was paved through the Fremont River corridor."

It was cloudy and threatening rain again on the drive, with remnants of the flash floods across the road in many places - was going to do it again next day to get better photos, but it clouded over again and we had had such a great day that we gave it a miss.  Something to come back for - CR rapidly gaining on Bryce as number one place in the world!

Laundry    

On way back home we dropped in at our old laundry place - always need to keep up with clean undies!  Something else that doesn't change!