On the Road Again...

On the Road Again….

 

 

After a nice long visit in Abbotsford with friends and family, (here’s a picture of Mom and Wilma on the Green Machine out at the farm…fun!) we drove further south to Coolee City to see Tom’s brother, Stan, then to see kids in Spokane and Boise.  It was so much fun to see our Grandkids and spend a bit of time with them.  Oso had his knee surgery in Boise and seems to be doing well…he really likes his new home in the fifth wheel, and especially loves laying in front of the fireplace on the rug Tom made.

The weather was turning cold quickly though and we decided to head south as soon as we could.  We drove from Boise to Ely, Nevada.  We settled into an RV park that night and the next day went to Garnet Hill...(thinking of you, Aunt Garnie!)…it’s an awesome place just outside of Ely where you can wander through the hills digging for garnets.  They seem to be everywhere.    Tom chipped away at some of the big rocks and we managed to collect a few lovely samples.  The garnets are not “jewelry grade” but are simply big red crystals.  They were made over hundreds, maybe thousands of years after volcanic lava slowly cooled.  The bubbles trapped in the lava are where the garnets were eventually formed.  Such an interesting process.  The garnets are dark red and very pretty. 

We spent another night in Ely and then drove south east along Highway 50...there is a saying that Highway 50 is the most lonely highway in the world…I believe it!  There is a whole lot of nothing out there!  I did notice though, that there were many, many small cone shaped “hills” out in the desert…we stopped at one point and I went to look at one of them and found they were ant hills…my gosh there must be a lot of ants in this area because there are hundreds of ant hills.  Other than that there was sage brush, a few corners in the road, a few hills and not much else…eventually we arrived in Moab, Utah and found a nice RV park and settled in.  It is surprisingly cold and windy here…freezing at night…better get going south pretty soon. 

Today we went to see Arches National Park.  It was…I don’t even have words for it…amazing, incredible, awesome…yes, all that and more.  The landscape is so different than what we are used to in the Northwest.  Red Rocks and stone pillars everywhere you look.  We stopped at the visitor’s center and bought a few post cards then headed out into the park.  The first place we stopped at had a sign that talked about how the rocks were formed…there seems to be three layers formed over millions of years.  The first layer looks like huge bricks at the bottom of the rock structure…the second layer is hard slick rock…the third is a gravelly top layer.  These layers are hundreds of feet thick, but show quite readily in the rock structures.  Maybe you can see them easier in the pictures than I can describe them.

We hiked out to several of the actual arches…the first were awesome enough, but the mile and a half hike up to the “Delicate Arch” was the most awesome.  It was a steep enough hike that I thought twice about whether I could do it but then decided that we’d come this far to  see it and what a shame it would be to miss it.  That and the older man walking with a cane in front of us persuaded me that I could definitely make the hike.  Anyway, it was awesome…since there are few trees around, the path is marked with cairns…these are just piles of rocks that mark the way.  The scenery is so spectacular…so different than what we are used to.  I can’t say enough about it….maybe the pictures will say the words that I can’t find.

The weather, as mentioned before is cold…freezing tonight and snow forecast in the next couple of days so it’s time to head south.  We were going to try to head east toward Florida, but Tom’s feet are so cold that he wants to get somewhere warm and stay there.  I think we’ll head down along the Arizona/New Mexico border and see where we end up.  There’s plenty to see down around the Silver City area of New Mexico (cliff dwellings, pueblos, petroglyphs, etc.) and along the way we’ll go through interesting spots like Zuni, where the native pottery is amazing.  In many of the pull-offs along the highway the Indian people have set up places to sell jewelry and pottery…some really nice stuff, though you need to be picky if you want something unique.  Once we’ve seen what we want to in New Mexico we’ll likely head down to Tucson and spend a month or so in a place we’ve stayed before just south of there.  It will be nice to settle for a while and  maybe get some painting done.   I’ll keep you posted as often as possible.