October 21, 2010

Thursday 21~~~~~Today is the day I am going to meet my best friend from high school Kimball, South Dakota. When I went to my 50th class reunion back home in Kimball in June, I talked to Cory Thomas, my friends sister and I learned that my friend Tiny lives in Bullhead City, Arizona. We go to Laughlin, Nevada twice a year, staying in the RV park that is just across the River from Bullhead City. I called Tiny on the way to Laughlin and we set up a day to get together we got here. With all the weight I put on, I had a terrible time this morning finding something that would hide some of the pounds. I knew Tiny was in great shape because she golfs, bowls, and plays tennis and doesn't like to bake pies and cakes to eat like I do. LOL I arrived at our meeting place ahead of Tiny and I looked all over for her, thinking I might not know what she looks like!!! Then I heard her voice coming from behind me----Hi Sherrie!!!!! It was just like we had never been apart a day since high school, we were seated at a small quiet table, we ordered coffee and we started talking, we both had ate breakfast so we each ordered a cinnamon roll. We really got the giggles when the waitress brought us our rolls, they were the size of a dinner plate and smothered in yummy frosting, each roll would easily feed 4 people. We had our waitress take our picture together and all the waitress's knew it was 25 years or more since we had been together and they insisted we weren't any bother staying so long, they just kept refilling our cups. We both brought pictures to show each other our beautiful families we are both so proud of. I really enjoyed the pictures of Tiny's girls and grandchildren and all of Tiny's siblings and one of her father when he was quite old. Tiny was so shocked to learn I had 11 grandchildren and 4 of Kents. I showed her a picture of our wedding with all our 7 kids and 15 grandchildren and Tiny went into a fit of giggles. We both laughed and giggled so much over all of our-------do you remember---- do you remember, the time just flew. About 2 1/2 hours later, we knew we had to leave so they could use our table, the noon rush was coming in. Today was one of the happiest days and when we parted, we exchanged hugs and email address's and promised each other we will do this again in 6 months or when ever we come through here. I called Tiny just a few minutes ago to ask her what College team her grandson is quarterback for because the Ducks are playing UCLA tonight and I didn't remember what team he played on. (U of Calif. Davis) We were laughing and talking a mile a minute again. I already look forward to our next trip to Laughlin, Nevada. Kent and I are leaving here in the morning heading for Mesquite, Nevada to see our friend Gary who lives there.

October 15, 16, 2010

Friday 15~~~~~~Today we have a short trip about 200 miles to Laughlin, Nevada. We started at an elevation of 7,000 + feet and ended up at 500 feet. That means we got good mileage as we weren't climbing hills most of the way. We will also be back in an altitude that we are used to so we won't be out of breath when we do any little exercise. The Riverside RV Park is where we stay in when we are in this area and we will be staying for a week, they have a good weekly rate. They give us free buffet tickets which Kent likes and Sharon thinks about her weight. We like the park and the site that we always request. The site has a great view of the town and at night all the Casinos are lit up in which we can see them out the back window. We have an added feature tomorrow night, Micheal Bolton is going to be playing in the amphitheater just down the hill from our spot. The parks sites are on tiers and the amphitheater is just 3 tiers down the hill. We probably won't be able to see him but we will sure be able to hear him.
Our friends Cindy and Howie are at a RV rally in town and are staying at a RV Park across the river, they called and told us they had a space open next to them but we had already made reservations. Hopefully we will get together after we are settled.The weather here is 94 degrees and we love it. Of course we wouldn't if we didn't have air conditioning. Sharon called her girl friend Tiny(Blasius) from high school in Kimball, South Dakota who lives here is Bullhead City, just across the river, they are getting together to catch up on old times. Tonight we went to the Casino where we both spent our $20 we took along to spend and we were heading towards the door when Sharon spotted a $20 bill laying in the middle of the aisle with no one around. She came home with her $20 and I came home with empty pockets. LOL Saturday 16~~~~What a great day, we didn't have to get up and drive somewhere, we could drink coffee and watch TV in our PJ's. Sharon worked on the blog, and Kent did the laundry. It really got hot here early, Sharon went to Mass at the Riverside casino at 4:00PM and we went out for dinner afterwards and then we headed home to watch TV and to listen to the Michael Bolton concert outside of our trailer. It is so loud, I am glad we are this far away, it is perfect listen to from our place.

October 14, 2010

Thursday 14~~~~On our way to Flagstaff, AZ where we will be spending 2 nights, we stopped at the Montezuma National park We go to as many Parks as we come across, kind of the purpose of traveling the United States because that is where the history all began. Of course we always love to add another stamp for our Nat. Park Passport book. (picture of Kent) We filled one book , I put two stamps on each page instead of one and I covered all the pages of the book with white adhesive paper to gain ten or more pages, so now we have another one to fill. Those of you who travel might think about getting one of these books, Every Nat. Park has a validations stamp with the name of the park and the date. Every year since 1987 they have made picture stamps to put in your book by the validation when you go to the park. We look forward to the new pages coming out every year to see what parks we have been to have earned the honor or what ever to get it on a picture stamp. We always get a validation if it isn't a picture stamp park, and when they are one we have the stamp. We were lucky and we bought all the stamps from the first set on, we really enjoy our little books, it is like going down memory lane of each trip and I like projects. When we enter a state, I look on the map and high light all the National parks and write stamp on the map if it is a stamp one and we will drive out of our way for one, but if there too far, we have it marked for another trip. Kent drives and I keep busy doing this stuff plus reading to him. We have a "Frontier Woman" book about their hardships traveling west. Kent likes their stories and how far they traveled each day and their hardships as we travel in our updated covered wagon. (please note the old picture is a picture of a picture of the castle. I don't know if it still stands off the road or what, but i will read on it and add more information.) I think I have seen too many ruins this week to remember.

October 13, 2010

Wednesday 13~~Heading to Flagstaff, Arizona. We stopped at the four corners of the US and that was neat. It was getting late in the day and we had one more park we wanted to see while we are in the area. The sign at the entrance of the park says no long trailers or motor homes over 30 feet. We didn't understand why it would say that we we drove in a long ways before coming to a large pull over spot. We thought we must be close to the park by now, so we took off walking to find the park. We came to a viewing area and kept on walking, cars passing us. We finally arrived at the Park office that had all kinds of RV parking space. We found out from the ranger the sign must be for the campground not the park. DUH!!!!! Maybe we should learn to read signs better, the video on the Navaho Indians was fantastic and as you can see from the pictures, I don't know how people lived on such barren land and no water. We bought a bottled water and the walk back wasn't bad, we need the exercise. The one picture is of the different types of pottery they make.

October 12, 2010

Tuesday 12~~~~Today we packed a picnic lunch and we drove to the "Mesa Verde National Park" where we took a guided tour led by a park ranger to see the cliff dwellings perched high on rocky ledges. About 1400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the four corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then in the late 1200's, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away. Ever since local cowboys first reported the cliff dwellings in the 1880's, archaeologists have sought to understand these people's lives. Even with decades of excavation, analysis; scientific knowledge remains sketchy. We will never know the whole story: they left no written records and much that was important to their lives has perished. Pueblo ans tossed their trash close by_scraps of food, broken pottery, anything not wanted went down the slope in front of there homes. Much of what we know about daily life here comes from these garbage heaps. Archaeologists have called these people Anasazi, from a Navajo word sometimes translated as "the ancient foreigners." We now call them Ancestral Pueblo ans, reflecting their modern descendants. In the Classic Period at Mesa Verde from 1100 to 1300, several generations probably lived together as a household. Each family occupied several rooms and built additional rooms as it grew, several related families constituted a clan and each clan would have its own Kiva and rights to its own agricultural plots. Kiva a Hopi word for ceremonial room__underground chambers that may be compared to later churches. Kiva's were also gathering places for luck with hunting or places to weave. (picture) The short brick post along the sides of the wall are where they lay the beams that eventually support the roof. Kivas are entered from the top and down a ladder inside. On the Mesa tops, the Mesa Verde people grew crops of squash, corn and beans which were their main staples. They supplemented their crops by gathering wild plants and hunting deer, squirrels, rabbits and other game. The only domestic animals were dogs and turkeys, they used the turkey feathers for many things, clothes and weaving their ropes and the bones for tools. They worked the soil with digging sticks and often built dams along draws to catch and hold rain and snow, the soil was fertile about the same as today, they cut juniper and pinyon for building materials and firewood. Their dwellings are built beneath the overhanging cliffs, these over hangs are huge and would cover several hundred people. Their basic construction was sandstone that they shaped into rectangular blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. The mortar between the blocks was a mixture of dirt and water. Living rooms averaged about six feet by eight feet, space enough for two or three persons. Isolated rooms in the rear and on the upper levels were generally used for storing crops. One of the videos we watched said some of the corn was several years old, nothing was wasted. These Pueblo ans spent most of their time getting food, even in their best years, farming was their main work. (Note the land above the cliff houses, that is where they grew their crops.They wove handsomely decorated baskets of many sizes and shapes and they used them for carrying water, storing grain, and even for cooking. They waterproofed baskets by lining them with pitch and cooked in them by dropping heated stones into the water. The finest baskets made at Mesa Verde were created before the people learned how to make pottery. After the introduction of pottery about 550, basketry declined. Woman were probably the potters, designs were tended to be personal and local and most likely were passed down from mother to daughter.
Kent signed us up for a 12:00 PM tour and he signed himself up for 2:00 PM tour. I didn't think I wanted to do the second one as it had a lot of climbing of ladder climbing to the different levels as the first one was enough for me with my asthma. We chose to tour the Cliff Palace and the Balcony House, they are open seasonally and were two of the popular ones the park ranger recommended. We had a female Ranger take us on our tour and she didn't do a very good job, we could hear the lady ranger ahead of us talking to her tour group and she never stopped talking, telling them all about the houses and crops and lives of the Indians. Our lady hardly told us anything, she was more worried about all of us staying in line like we were little first graders on a field trip. We learned a lot from the wonderful movies they always show.The second tour Kent took, had a male guide and he did a great job, Kent came back all out of breath, huffing and puffing. He said he was glad I didn't go on that tour. This place is so awesome, I recommend everyone should see it. To finish off this story, I have to write about Kent and going to dinner and watch the baseball game at some friend of ours here in the desert. They served the most delicious ham & bean soup I have ever ate. I commented how good it was and they proceeded to tell us that it was called Anasazi bean soup: the story behind these beans is they were found in the ruins of the Anasazi Cliff dwellers in a bag. Some of them were planted and harvested and now they can be bought under the name Anasazi from the Indian tribe. I don't know how true the story is about the beans being found all these years later, but I am going to buy some before we head home.

October 11, 2010

Monday 11~~~~Another busy day going to National Parks and seeing the beauty of Colorado. Today we went to "Hovenweep," which is the Ute/Paiute name for "deserted valley." The canyon and mesa county north of the San Juan river holds many archeological sites where ancestors of today's Pueblo Indian Tribes lived. Round, square,and D-shaped towers grouped at canyon heads mark once thriving communities. No one has lived in them for over 7oo years, but they are still inspiring to the many visitors who come to Hovenweep. These stone structures were built atop isolated boulders, not practical sites for safety and access. Most are associated with springs and seeps near canyon heads. The water was extremely valuable to the desert-dwelling agriculturalists. By 1200 the population had grown dramatically and much of the tree cover had been removed, perhaps this and the drought is the reason for the sudden departure of the Pueblo people in the 1200's . Despite seven centuries of weathering, many large structures and tall towers still stand as tributes to their builders. These structures were found by W.D. Huntington as he led an 1854 Mormon Expedition into Southeastern Utah. In 1923 President WG Harding proclaimed Hovenweep a national monument. It is hard to believe the age of these beautiful ruins that are still standing so majestic against the sage and blue skies.

October 10, 2010

Sunday 10~~~We drove to Aztec, New Mexico this morning about 35 miles from Durango, Colorado where we are staying. We went to Mass and went out for lunch before touring the Aztec Ruins National Monument. This was the first houses of stone we have seen and been able to go through, so we were pretty excited to go through these ruins. Numerous and varied structures of the Ancestral Pueblo people are preserved at this Intriguing World Heritage Site. Recent evidence suggests that the settlement was planned sometime in the late 1000's and the community's design remained intact until the group moved away two centuries later. The enormous West Ruin, a pueblo of 400 rooms is open to the public through an 800-yard self guided trail. There is a reconstructed Kiva that is one of the walks high lights. The Kiva's are large round buildings used for community meeting places and for religious rituals. They are built deep in the ground and they have a rounded roof on them built with very large posts, smaller trees and then muddied over with clay. You enter the Kiva's through the roof and down into the Kiva by a tall ladder. These are HUGE!!!! One of them we went through, was so big, it would hold 500 or more people. ( picture of Kent in a large room) (the picture before it is the upper level of the Kiva with its altar) you use ladders to climb down to the main Kiva Some villages had 6 to 20 Kiva's each holding about 75 people. The homes are built with the same construction of the Kiva's, many rooms connected to each other with a door one one wall and across from it a door leading to the next room. It goes on forever, there wasn't a lot of privacy for anyone with the path going rite through your home. (picture) The doors are quite short and they are built across for ventilation, as are the small openings up high for smoke and fresh air. The roof is like the Kiva's built with small branches and large beams. (picture) They are very warm in cold weather and cool in the summer. I think they are made all connected for protection from enemies. They had areas for the dried corn and beans that were main staples for their cooking. They had several years of dried foods on hand at all times. The first picture on this blog is a Kiva without its roof, the four brick supports around the circle is where the large beams are laid around the wall going higher and higher until a roof is made and finished with clay and straw. They enter the kiva from the top with ladders and a ladder inside to climb down. Probably more protection. Note the pretty pottery they make.

October 8, 2010

Friday 8~~~~~We drove from Montrose to Durango today, it was only 75 miles, but it took us 3 hours to get there. We never packed a lunch for this trip, because we thought it would be such a short drive. There were four mountain passes from Montrose (elevation 5806) first pass was 10,700 then 11075 feet then 10,899 feet and last 10,640 . Two of the mountain passes had a speed of 25 miles per hour with the corners at 15 miles per hour. I was sure we were going to have to use one of those run-a-way ramps they have for the truckers, it made me so nervous, I just stuck my nose in my book and read. Kent said when we got to Durango he doesn't care if we never see another mountain pass, he was exhausted to say the least. Saturday 9~~~~~Today we rode on a historic coal-fired, steam-powered locomotive on the same tracks miners, settlers and cowboys of the old west took more than a century ago from Durango to Silverton, Colorado. The train winds through the beautiful canyons in the remote wilderness of the 2 million-acre San Juan National Forest using the same track that was used 128 years ago. The unique and historic railroad equipment. paired with the breathtaking scenery has attracted many film crews to this area. I will name a few of them: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, James Stewart, John Wayne Henry Fonda John Denver James Garner and President Gerald Ford and President Wm H Taft, plus several more. It was a nine hour train ride, 3 1/2 hour ride to Silverton with a 2 hour lay over and a 3 1/2 hour ride back home to Durango. The train stopped to fill the water tank coming and going on the trip. There was sure a lot of steam in the air from the train and the beautiful sound of the whistle when it was blow ed was so awesome. We packed our lunch for the train ride and when we arrived in Silverton and all those people got off heading to the fast food places and restaurants, we were glad we had our healthy lunch with us in our back pack. We sat on a bench watching the activity of the train and people getting off as we ate our lunch, next we headed to the shops to see the buys of the day. I bought a pretty turquoise cross necklace from one of the stores that had a 50% sale. The train ride was very nice, we could leave our seats to ride in the open car part of the way and go to the club car for drinks and snacks, we enjoyed visiting with those around us also. Of course I had a book along that I spent some time reading. We arrived back in Durango about 6:30 PM. and we were ready to relax is a more comfortable chair the rest of the evening. The train ride is one of the top 10 most scenic train rides in the world and we were glad we took advantage of going on it.

October 7, 2010

Thursday 7~~~~We left Colorado Springs this morning headed to Montrose, Colorado. It was about a 296 mile drive to our campground. I packed us our usual lunch and we stopped and ate it before we arrived at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This area has yielded over 50,000 museum specimens from fossils of over 1700 species; 1500 insects, 150 plants and one of the world's only known fossil records of the tsetse fly, now found only in equatorial Africa. Here no big bones stick out of the ground, but delicate fossil insect wings and finely veined leaves lurk beneath your feet petrified in the paper thin shale. Fossil insect sites are far more rare than fossil plant sites which adds to the global significance of the Florissant Fossil Beds. We hiked in to see these beds because we were told there was a Park Ranger excavating in the area and we thought that would be interesting. We found the ranger, but he wasn't excavating, he was in the spot where they do excavating, but as he explained they don't excavate where the public is, because they wouldn't get anything done with all the people and questions and keeping an eye on them to keep them out of their work area. That made sense to us, so we looked at his specimens he had in glass cases and we listened to some of his story and we left him telling the crowd more about the specimens and how they find them. I think I like the big rocks and cliffs a lot better than insects in boxes. You don't think of Redwood trees growing in Colorado; Simular redwoods now grow only in a thin belt on the California and Oregon coasts but exist here as fossil stumps, many still beneath the valley floor. We took a picture of one of the larger petrified redwood stumps in the park. They hav graveled paths you walk on and they encourage you to sty on them because the fields are full of these fossils and you would disturb or ruin them if you didn't know what you were looking for.

October 6, 2010

Wednesday 6~~~~~We are still in Colorado springs, Colorado and we went to the "Cowboy Hall of Fame" this afternoon after Kent did the laundry and I cleaned house real good. It is amazing how much cleaning it takes, from the road dust that manages to come in while we travel and of course Pepsi always sheds, I like to keep things vacuumed good. As a kid, my dad loved rodeo's and we went to a lot of them, back in those days, we could go out to where the Brahma bulls and bucking horses to be rode were penned up and all the livestock for the different events. I remember my dad taking us girls to watch the clowns (Days of 76 rodeo) put on their makeup before the rodeo started, back where the chutes were and all the hub bub was before a rodeo gets started. This was in Deadwood, South Dakota. I still have that love for rodeos, I keep my boots in the camper in case we get near a rodeo. The "Cowboy Hall of Fame" was very interesting, and I thought they really honored Casey Tibbs the way he deserves to be honored. (pictures of Casey young and older) I don't keep up on who the National Champions are anymore, but I sure knew all the old ones in the show cases and pictures. I guess I am telling my age now aren't I???? Kent took a few pictures of me outside with all the statues, they are beautiful and they really catch the real action of the cowboy and his horse.