Sun, Oct 7th - Jeeping in Moab, UT

This morning the group got together for breakfast in a bag. This is where you put your name on a freezer bag, fill it with all kinds of things like onions, peppers, cheese, green chilies and then you had 2 eggs. Close it up getting all of the air out and then squishing the bag to mix it all together. Then it is boiled in a pot for about 12 minutes! Waa laa, an omelet with no messy pans.

About 12 of us (Linda & Bill Johnson, Neil Elkins & Bob Foerster, John & Judy Wittenberg, Bill & Judy Wagner, Junior Betty Mertz and Chuck and I) got lunches packed and headed out for a day on a 4-wheel drive dirt road up in the mountains. What fun we had!

Okay, who do we look at with so many of the guys taking pictures!

Okay, now which jeep trail do I take--the high road, the low road or the middle one!!

Here's our view from Hurrah Pass, just under 5,000 feet altitude. We met several men on mountain bikes here and they took some pictures of the group on a couple camera--I haven't gotten a copy of those pictures yet.

We also met several folks on ATVs and some on dirt bikes:

Kelly and Terry, just your kind of terrain!

Sean, you would have fun here!

On our way back to the campground from our day of 4-wheeling, we saw this older, jacked up GMC Suburban on it's side on one of the 4-1/2 rated trails (5 being the toughest). We couldn't believe that people drove up there, especially in a top heavy vehicle. Down on the other side of the paved road where this vehicle would have landed if he had come over the side, there was a memorial for someone who died there!

This evening Neil and Marlene prepared a Fish Boil for dinner.

Sat, Oct 6th - Monument Valley to Moab, UT & Canyonlands by Night Tour

We traveled from Monument Valley to Moab, UT today. We left all that red blowing sand behind--except for what got on our vehicles and coaches! It was a gray, overcast day and we even ran into a little rain and snow.

This picture is of the La Sal mountain range, and Yes, that is snow on the top of the mountain on the left.

This is an interesting business as it was built in a "Hole in the Wall!"

But as we got closer to Moab, the sun came out and warmed things up some for our arrival in the Riverside Oasis campground. We are camped next to the Colorado River.

At about 5:45 we had a wonderful BBQ dinner with all the fixings and then went on a tour boat up the Colorado River for a Canyon Lands Night Sound & Light Show after dark. We weren't allowed to take any pictures as flash pictures would have spoiled the light show! But you can go to the website below to see what it was all about. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars and the Milky Way was so bright. I even saw one shooting star!


http://www.canyonlandsbynight.com/ Canyon Lands Night Sound & Light Show
http://www.riversideoasis.com/ Riverside Oasis Campground
http://www.moab-utah.com/photo/canyonlands/ Pictures

Fri, Oct 5th - Goosenecks State Reserve & Valley of the Gods

The Mertz, Tolsons, Wittenbergs and Wagners headed out today to Goosenecks State Reserve and then to Valley of the Gods hoping that it wouldn't be windy and blowing red sand around there as it was in the campground. To get there, we drove back out thru Monument Valley and Mexican Hat where we got the picture below.

Mexican Hat stone in the town of Medicine Hat.

Here's a picture of Goosenecks State Reserve looking down at the San Juan River

"Great Goosenecks of the San Juan River—Geologists consider this part of the river to be one of the finest examples of 'entrenched Meanders' anywhere in the world. The meandering pattern originated several million years ago when the river was flowing on a relatively flat plain, much as the present day Mississippi River. The San Juan became entrenched when the entire Colorado Plateau was slowly uplifted. Cutting downward, the river followed its initial pattern and thus created the canyon you now view. The process continues to this day as the San Juan River cuts ever deeper into prehistoric geological formations."

Below are some of the formations that we saw at Valley of the Gods. We couldn't figure out how some of the stone where still on top and hadn't fallen down. Maybe God was holding them there!

Beautiful blue sky again!

Valle's Pizza and Beer--where we met up with Bob and LaVerne Foerster and Neil and Marlene Elkins and we all sat outside and had our lunch of pizza and frozen lemonade. Off the porch, we saw this lizard scurrying around.

In the afternoon, the girls (Judy Wittenberg, Judy Wagner, Betty Mertz and I) went jewelry shopping "again" down at the Navajo Market--just a row of small buildings where the Native Americans sold their jewelry or pottery that they make. We bought several pieces of jewelry and enjoyed dickering for them. When I got back from shopping with the ladies, Chuck and I went up to the Goulding Trading Post where he bought a beautiful silver watch with turquoise stones on it very similar to the one below.

We had planned to have a chili supper, as several of the ladies had made some in their crock pots, BUT the wind and blowing red dirt and no indoor facility made us decide to postpone it until we get to Moab.

Thu, Oct 4th - Monument Valley Tour

Today many of us went on a Goulding's Tour of Monument Valley. Here are some pictures of our tour.

Our transportation.

This is a Native American making yarn from sheep's wool. Their houses are called a "Hogan" where the door always faces the east in order to greet the morning sun. It is octagon shaped inside and covered with the red powder like dirt mixed with water and sun baked in the sun, so that the outside makes it look round. Our Native American tour guide is in red. See picture below.

Here's a picture of an arch OR the "Sun's Eye" with eye lashes.

Now this is called "The Thumb" OR:

"John Wayne's Boot"

Here's a picture of some of the Petroglyphs that were etched in the stone using bighorn sheep antlers or antlers from other animals, like elk. If the Petroglyph had alot of animals, it meant that there were alot of that kind of animal in the area and it was good hunting.

"Ear of the Wind"

This is a picture of Russian Thistle or Tumbleweed. When we had a windy day, you could see this tumbleweed blowing around.

Along the tour, many stands were set up so we could shop for Native American jewelry at a very reasonable price!

This rock formation is called "The Three Sisters-Faith, Hope and Charity".

Here a horseman is posing for us. Doesn't this look just like a scene out of an old western? Many movies were made here in Monument Valley.

This is the tarantula that we saw!

Can't you just see a western being filmed here!

Here we are in front of the "Totem Pole" rock. They have used a helicopter to put vehicles on top of the totem pole rock for commercials.

Now isn't this just a beautiful picture of Monument Valley!

Wed, Oct 3rd –Torrey to Monument Valley, UT

Wow, what scenery we saw today on our drive over Hwys 24, 95 and 191 to Monument Valley. We drove thru the towns of Hanksville (where we had cell phone service for a short time) to Glen Canyon where we drove over the Dirty Devil and the Colorado Rivers, to Blanding, then south to Bluff, thru Medicine Hat (there is a rock that looks like a hat there--see tomorrows pics) into The Navaho Nation Indian Reservation in Monument Valley. This reservation is in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. They call this area "the four corners" and you can stand in one spot with your hands in two different states and your feet in the other two! After Happy Hour down at LaVerne and Bob's coach, 6 couples went up to the Lodge for dinner. Chuck tried their Navajo flat bread and a HOT green chili dish that was too hot for me! I had tacos on flat bread. Antacid here I come!

Here's another picture of that gray rock that looks like elephant hide!

Here's the Colorado River from my side window in the coach. Sometimes the light from Chuck's side window casts light onto my window and that is what happened here. We've seen a lot of this river, all the way from the Rocky Mountain National Park at its head waters down to Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam.

Here's the bridge over the Colorado River down in Glen Canyon. It's hard to capture the depth of some of these canyons in a picture because here the land looks kind of flat--but it's not!



I liked this picture because it reminded be of pieces of brown Play Doh stacked on top of one another.

This is close to Medicine Hat and looks like wind blown sand, but it's hard rock! This reminds me of those bottles that you can put different colors of sand in and make sand art.

This is the San Juan River and the bridge we crossed to go into the Navajo Reservation.

And here's our first view of Monument Valley where so many movies and commercials have been filmed, such as Forest Gump and John Wayne movies and the car commercial up on top of one of the small tall rocks.

Here's our view from Goulding's Campground. These rocks encircled our campsites. We are having 5:00 o'clock Happy Hour!

Here's the Bryan's and Wittenberg's coaches and our new Discovery flag.


http://www.gouldings.com/english/index.htm Gouldings Lodge and RV Park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley Monument Valley Info (great pictures here)

Tue, Oct 2nd – Backcounty Travels to Northern part of Capitol Reef Naional Park

Six couples in three vehicles drove miles and miles of backcountry unpaved roads to Cathedral Valley. This is in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Park and only accessible by this road. We rode with Junior and Betty Mertz in their jeep. Again the terrain was so diverse--beautiful aspen trees high up in the mountains in the Fishlake National Forest and then down into the Park valley of rock formations. We all had packed picnic lunches and we stopped and ate among the aspen trees. This trek was about 100 miles long--but we did make it back to the campground for happy hour--just a few minutes late!

There was one porta-potty up in the Fishlake National Forest that we stopped at and the Aspen trees there were beautiful in the COOL morning air.

Here we all (Wagners, Jim Madole, Wittenbergs, me, Mertz and new Discovery members, Linda & Bill Johnson) are looking down at the Cathedral Valley from up in the forest.

Here we are having lunch in a beautiful setting in the forest among the Aspen trees.

Driving down out of the forest area, we found this beautiful pond.

Here's the view we had of Cathedral Valley below.

And this is why they call it "Cathedral Valley!"

Here's Betty Mertz standing in front of the "Cathederals" next to their jeep.

Here we are taking a short trek in to see the Gypsum Sinkhole. Pictures just didn't show the depth of the sinkhole.

Grandkids and Nephew Mason:

Who is Kokopeli?





According to Hopi Indian legend, Kokopeli (the flute player and traveling prankster) was the symbol of happiness, joy, and fertility. He would visit villages playing his flute, carrying seeds in his backpack (the "hump" he is pictured as having). Everyone would sing and dance through the night. Then, while the people slept, Kokopeli would roam the corn fields, playing his flute. The next morning the people would awake to find the corn almost full grown and Kokopeli gone, and many of the young women of the village pregnant. One legend has it that he is responsible for the end of winter and the coming of spring. When, the story goes, Kokopeli comes playing his flute, the sun comes out, the snow melts, the green grass grows, the birds begin to sing, and all the animals gather around to hear his songs.

This design is on alot of shirts and jewelry here in Utah. And now you know what he looks like!

www.students.sbc.edu/hoover07/kokopellipictures.htm