First published 13 August, 2008

Headin’ out of Flagstaff early in the morning, the San Francisco Peaks stand behind the trees and meadows. The grass alongside the road was bright with sunflowers and indian paintbrush.

 

 

 

 

 

The day is clear, the road not so much. It’s not as bad as LA during rush hour, but I’ve got a lot of pictures with the butt end of a truck in them.

The road starts down the long slope to Seligman, with enthusiastic sunflowers to wave as we go by.

 

I took this picture to capture the winding road. I didn’t realize until later, I had a picture that showed the blaze of vivid mustard on both sides of the road.

 

Imagine both sides of the road awash in golden blooms. The Yellow Brick Road was never so golden. And edged in ever present sunflowers.

Six percent grade, headed down out of the mountains. Road is steep, the view is magnificent. I remember driving this grade last week, tucked in behind a trucker, strobe flashes of lightning showing the mountains around me, the downpour trying to wash us all off the road. This is easier, but… that was exciting!

West of Flagstaff, long sections of Route 66 no longer exist as a separate road. Segments may exist as dirt roads on private property, or simply a wide stripe through the trees. The bare green stripes to the right of the road may be all that’s left of Route 66 in this place.

 

Sometimes, road crews just cut on through, adapting the land to our needs.

 

 

And sometimes, we gotta go around.
Or both at once.

 

I’ve taken a lot of pictures of mountains, clouds, sky, but I never get over my delight and joy at the layers of colors and textures each vista presents.

 

 

Sometimes looking like cardboard cutouts or painted backdrops for a play.

 

Crossing the Colorado in to California, the pictures are full of railing and railroad bridge.

 

The view back across the valley shows the Colorado River and the green of the agriculture that its water generates.

 

Stopping in Needles for gas, a stack of casualties of the road. And stacked neatly behind, their ever ready replacements.

 

 

Heading into the Mojave, the joshua trees are in bloom.

 

Driving thru the Mojave, sometimes the only sign of man’s impact is the double ribbon of the interstate sliding into the hazy distance, punctuated by signs, rest stops, and very small towns.

 

This dry lake brings to mind the words of the song “Horse With No Name” about a river that’s dead. Rivers in deserts are never dead, only dormant. If you can see the riverbed, it’s been scoured clean by flashflood, and kept alive by the sporadic rainfall. This lakebed still lives, probably flourishing when the snow melts.

When you think of desert, often low rolling sand dunes come to mind. The Mojave has long rolling hills of rock and sparse scrub. The Mojave has some fascinating geology: lava flows, and mountains with a split personality. Some of the mountains look like they’re shadowed. They’re not. And, of course, the many layers of landscape I love, with the mountains seemingly floating in the distance.

Sometimes the road gets a bit crowded. I have more faith in the common sense of long haul truckers than I do many others on the road, but even so…

 

 

It’s a leetle tight in here.

 

 

These power transmission lines look like they bring power in from Hoover Dam. They’re coming from the right direction.

Coming to the end of Interstate 40, at Interstate 15, into Barstow, and then back into LA.

Heading south in I-15, these are the backsides of the mountains that ring the LA basin. I suppose I should have taken more pics as we went thru LA. Maybe the mountains from the other side. But I’ve seen the mountains, and the traffic. If you want to come visit, I’ll give you a tour. Right now, I’m taking a nap. It’s been a long trip.

First published August 12, 2008

The day started in Santa Fe, with one lone cloud hanging out over the mountains on the east.

 

 

 

There was a great deal of construction down the center of I-25.

Having gone thru far too much road construction everywhere, it took a while to realize it wasn’t road improvement, they were building rail down the center. And of course, the one lone cloud.

Coming back into Albuquerque, early in the day, I couldn’t get any decent shots of the color of the land. But Albuquerque itself believes in color,
(junction of I-25 and I-40, every piece had this brilliant blue stripe)

 
and shapes.

 
Sometimes Route 66 would be parallel to I-40, sometimes wandering off over the landscape to pop up somewhere else.
 

This old steel-truss bridge was in unbelievably good shape. Unfortunately, it was not wide enough for more than one car to cross at a time.

And was replaced with a wider, but boring new section, before being completely replaced by Interstate 40 over there.

 

 

New Mexico-Arizona Border: In sunshine this time

Coming up on the amazing border geology again, this time with the company of a freight train.

Looking down tracks has as compelling a view as highways stretching into the distance. “Follow…follow…”

 
Viewing the cliffs in the sun this time, with all their glorious colors on display. And some of the lava fields.

Being the one driving while crossing out of New Mexico, I had this… This amazing piece of landscape in the rear view mirror.

Every time I looked back, I felt my brain stop working, just wanting to stare at the cliffs. This is not a good thing to do while driving, and I felt very relieved when I finally crossed over a hill and could no longer see it.

However, somebody was determined to stun my brain.

Having missed the Painted Desert on the way out, we picked it up on the way back.

Nothing prepared me for the problem of running out of adjectives.

I had an idea what was coming. But can you imaging the expressions on the faces of the first explorers who had never seen this land before, traveling across country that looked like this:

 

And getting this!
How do you prepare for running out of adjectives? Glorious. Awesome. Unbelievable. Stunning. I think I was seriously stuck on stunned.
Followed closely by *gasp*
A lot of rock formations show their layers on a slant, as the earth twists and deforms to create mountains. The amazing Chinle Formation runs the gamut from reds to grays, all in relatively horizontal stripes.

 
When I got to the “Blue Mesa,” I realized my adjective generator had completely broken down. I was pretty much left with stunned.

 

There is water in this desert.

 

Newspaper Rock: Petroglyphs. They show up better if you click the image to get the larger version.

 

When this wash was first discovered, it full of petrified wood. It was carried away by the truck-load, blasted for the amethysts and quartz within, vanished to be used for doorstops. It is estimated that one ton of petrified wood is stolen from the Petrified Forest every year, even though there are legitimate places to buy it outside the National Park. At one time, this was was full. Now, this is all that remains here.

 
There are still scattered pockets of petrified wood throughout the park and around the museum. On some pieces, you can still see the grain of the wood. And life will find toe-holds in any pocket that will hold dirt.

 
And after that, all that’s left is dusk over the Colorado Plateau, and on into Flagstaff for the night.

First published August 11, 2008

Leaving Denver, headed back to LA. The clouds play with light and shadow on the mountains, sometimes making a grass covered mountain side shine like green velvet. The green of the trees, the blues of the mountains, the light and shadow of the clouds, almost looks unreal. I told myself I wouldn’t take so many pictures on the way home, as the road was the same road, the grass the same grass. Except this grass looks like velvet. And some of the vistas just takes my breath away. In Colorado, the green trees along a river stand out much more against the yellows of the prairie grasses.

One of the more interesting sites is the plane on the ground, on or near the Air Force Academy.

 

I now have a reason to go back to Colorado. A place now on my to-see list, “Garden Of The Gods”.

 

A siding of box cars. They were there on our way to Denver. They were there on our way back. Just sittin’ there, waiting for someone to need them.

 

Lovely old building in Trinidad, Colorado. I couldn’t get a good shot of anything else, as there were signs, trees, trucks, the usual interference. There also weren’t any convenient parking spots to pull over and snap pics. Ah well.

Construction on every road, everywhere we went. I stopped avoiding taking pictures of it, because I would miss taking shots like this. Do click on it and see the larger shot.
 

 

The road ahead, winding or straight, calls us on.

 

As the day got later, it became more difficult to take pictures into the west. The clouds, mountains and green green grass delight the eye, even with the sundogs.

 

 

And I finally got some antelope!
 

 

As night falls, the rolling hills turn to dark green velvet slopes.

 

Clouds still lit by the sun over shadowed hills.

 

 

And a sunset Hollywood couldn’t have done better.

First published 8/6/2008

Another day, another road. Heading out of Santa Fe, we encountered more Adobification, seen at the beginning of yesterday’s report. Even the nice houses looked tacky after all that “adobe.”

As we headed north thru the Rockies, we drove under blue, blue skies with cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds along the mountain tops.

As the road came down onto the high plains, odd bits of rock stuck up like thumbs thru the soil.

 

High plains in New Mexico stretched away into the distance, edged with mountains at first, then just flowing away to the horizon.

The road ahead beckons, empty, clean. This is a different form of road hypnotism. Become lost in this road and you may never return. Each mile of road leads to the next, the far horizon is your only destination.

As the road tops a hill, grazing herds of cattle, horses, and antelope can be seen. Yes, antelope. They came in to and out of view so quickly, I could not photograph them.

The clouds and the sun cause shadows to dance across the land, changing the shape of the land and the color of the grass in passing. The colors of the grass change from golds and greens, to shades of green, and back again, as the road flows over the prairie.

It may be easier to transport wood to the prairies, but there are still reminders that wood is a precious commodity. These power poles are not much higher than the fence posts.

The borders between states seem to be quite dramatic markers. Between Arizona and New Mexico, the spectacular cliffs. The northern border of New Mexico with Colorado has some marvelous mountains. Above the mountains, the cumulus clouds gather, shading and sometimes raining on the ground below. Always a delight. The Colorado side shows some mine tailings there on the left. And shows Mother Nature starting her cover of green in the pockets of soil.

 

The prairie on the Colorado side seems drier. The land is covered in golden grass as far as the eye can see.

 

 

Cumulonimbus gather on the mountains, rain and lightning dance in the distance.

In a few of the low places, a carved wash will appear, attesting to the occasional ferocity of thunderstorms in the mountains.

 

And then you get the odd lenticular cloud formation. ET anyone?

 

 

As in New Mexico, the odd thumb of rock still appears.

 

 

The clouds and sun dance again, changing to brown the golden hue of the grass.

 

The house on the hill commands the heights, and is master of all it surveys. The view must be marvelous.

 

After all that space and grass, we arrive in Denver to catch rush hour…and Mile High Stadium. Go Broncos!

First published 8/5/2008

Many years ago, my mother described the freeway system in Salt Lake City as having been designed by a drunken snake. Downtown Santa Fe used the same snake and added a sadist.

My needs were simple. I wanted to see the Loretto Chapel, the one with the miraculous spiral staircase. Maps were unfolded, instructions were requested of local hotel staff, and off we started.

And discovered you can’t get there from here.

Roads in the heart of downtown Santa Fe are, of course, leftovers from horse and buggy days. And from the days when laying out streets in straight lines was a thing for the future. They were narrow and often one-way. And not quite the way the map showed them to be. Due to road construction, and due to the fact the central plaza was blocked to auto traffic, we meandered all over the place, frequently totally clueless as to where we were in relation to where we wanted to be. “The map says we want to turn left here.” “Wait, we can’t turn left here.” “Well, then, turn right.” “Turning right… oh, the road’s blocked down there, now we have to turn left.” And now we’re headed in the totally opposite direction. We did get to see the Santa Fe River several times, as we criss-crossed the downtown area.

Jim can’t read really small print, and the street map was in really, really small print to be able to fit it all in. I finally found a free public parking lot, the sign of which told me that I would be given a ticket if I didn’t get a parking pass from the attendant. There was no attendant. I parked anyway. I read the map. One of the blessings(?) of being dreadfully near-sighted is I can read really fine print. I found where we were, where we wanted to go, the streets to get there, and started off. Silly me, I didn’t verify the names of some of the other streets.

Out of the parking lot, still with no attendant, left onto Paseo de Peralta. Right on Washington, which according to the map turned in to Santa Fe Trail.

I found upon reaching the point where Washington should become Santa Fe Trail that a building now occupied the space, requiring a left turn because the right turn was blocked to thru traffic. Now, I’m “off the map” again. Left, right, blocked, left, left only because it’s a one-way street, right, past a wonderful unreachable multi-story parking lot because the entrance was on a one-way street with traffic against me, with the other end of the street somewhere around a bend, around in circles (Paseo de Peralta makes a big horseshoe shape around downtown), and back to that very same parking lot.

By this point, however, I knew how far it was to walk to the Loretto Chapel. So off we went, on foot. I found several things on foot, one of which was Santa Fe Trail, the right turn off Washington that was blocked to street traffic. The other end of the street to the wonderful parking structure was a narrow, one-way road with a street name different than the one the parking structure was on. Since you couldn’t see the parking structure from the point of entry onto the road, and the road changed names at the bend, finding that parking structure required a native guide.

Santa Fe is suffering from a “beautification” project that said every building on a major street has to look like a pueblo. Gas stations, cheap eateries, even a no-tell motel. Housing tracts, hospitals, the fire station. The McDonald’s!! Downtown not only was suffering from this disease, but was suffering this disease in the exact same “adobe” brown color. There were a few buildings built in an “Old West” style that had so far escaped adobification. But the rest, OY!

And I used to like pueblos.

Loretto Chapel

Some of the claims made for the staircase have been disproven by Snopes. It’s still an amazing structure, and amazingly beautiful. I’m one of those people that likes to know how things are built, so knowing this doesn’t destroy any of my sensawonda. What’s also amazing is that almost all the pictures I took came out blurred. I can take decent shots from a moving car, but not here. Here are a couple that came out ok, as well as one of the front of the chapel.

Start Of The Day

The day started out beautifully, heading east out of Gallup. Clouds chasing each other across the sky, rain in the distance.

 

 

Or not so distant.

 

In typical desert rainstorm fashion, it rained for about fifteen minutes, trying mightily to wash all these pesky cars off the road.

 

The shadows of the clouds allowed the brilliant color of the cliffs to stand out even more. Topping a rise, the mountains rise blue in the distance. Up close, the color of the land glows red thru the green of the grass. Every so often, the earth’s volcanic nature rises above the soil, leaving narrow tongues of broken lava littering the landscape. Sweeping vistas are broken up by buttes scattered in the distance. And up close.

Albuquerque

When I first saw Albuquerque, thirty years ago, I came in by Greyhound bus at sunset. The red of the mountains behind the bowl of the city framed Albuquerque in a ring of brilliant flame. For this trip, the flames live in my memory. Albuquerque lives at the base of the far mountains.

 

Downtown Albuquerque. If you look really closely, you can see the red of the hills behind. I see the color best with my heart, with my eyes closed.

 

Road North

 

I drove from Albuqueque to Santa Fe, so there aren’t so many pictures. The landscape was filled with hills and the long road ahead.

 

 
Coming in to Santa Fe, tucked into a bowl in the mountains, the city looked deceptively lovely. The fiendish desire to turn it into a modern pueblo village was not evident until much later. After realizing that I-25 went past the city, not thru it, we backtracked thru town to find our hotel. Then off all innocent and unknowing, to fight our way thru downtown Santa Fe.

An oft repeated phrase during this trip: “It is an adventure!”