siga siga

Day 37

Tuesday 31st July

We leave on the side roads - destination Bryce Canyon if we can make it. Climbing again along a small river we travel through farmland and subtly shaded canyons and then softer hills reaching high on either side, tracks leading to hidden gold mines. A steady day of travel made uncomfortable by my back and Lisa’s returning altitude sickness. 5-6000 feet seems to be the trigger point. We finally make it to the outskirts of Bryce and begin to climb up to 8000 feet through the splendid Red Canyon, the red so intense that it hurts the eyes. We turned into the park (finally making a profit on our year’s national park pass) and settle at a good campsite among the pines, next to a south african older couple who are ravelling the globe in an unusual rig of his (Jan’s) own design. It has a Landrover body, a Chevy engine, East german axles and a Toyota transmission plus complicated additions padlocked in odd places. This vehicle has circumnavigated Australia, South America and Africa and travelled through eastern Europe and Mongolia before it arrived in the US. Only 17 ft long but more fully equipped than we are. We drive up the road to overlook multiple rock pinnacles at 9000 feet and marvel at a giant spectacle of intricate sandstone sculptures lit by the dying sun.

Day 36

Monday 30th July

To Moab for a slap-up feed at breakfast and a visit to the post office to discover that airmail prices have skyrocketed. Clerk suggests sending money instead of gifts. We enter the National Park and climb out towards the well documented red rock formations and arches. Everchanging shadows and goblin faces everywhere and a steady stream of cars and RV’s. Too much pain to walk out at the end of the road but we see awe inspiring wind sculptures from the camper. Lisa ministers to an Australian adventurer on the GreenTortoise adventure bus whose leg and backside are swollen from spider bites. Leaving Moab we try to reach the motorway by the picturesque route along the Colorado river but signs say a bridge is down so we backtrack and head upwards along a major road. Its very bare country and becomes more desolate as we reach the main east-west highway. This is the lowest route west but even so we climb for miles at under 30 mph and Lisa starts to hurt. Staggering views unfold around us as we cross the great reef - a vast mountain ridge which bars our way. More climbing and more stupendous panoramas until we eventually begin the long but speedy decline to Salinas. Over 100 miles through heat and dust without ant services whatsoever. We check into a motel for the night so we can have a bath and a poor mexican meal. Not much here bar gas stations, base hotels and hookers.

Day 35

Sunday 29th July

After much cursing and loss of skin we get the belts off but it takes much longer abuse to replace them. The job is simple but the engine is cleverly designed so tools can’t fit. By midday we are done and leave for Moab - a long drive ahead. Came across a wonderful field littered with ancient car wrecks.


Uneventful good weather drive to the Utah border and the green plain landscape doesnt change very much. Then we crest a rise and the desert is ahead with huge outlandish crags dropped into the open space. Lisa feels the height and I feel the heat. We stop by a huge dome halfway to Moab to rest my back and marvel.




At Mesa Verde we had met a snowbird who recommended a primitive campsite on Goose Island just past Moab on the Colorado river. We found a spot right by the water with a huge red cliff towering over us on the other side of the river.



Another great sunset stretches a moving tableau of faces on the cliff wall. Slightly confused by a late night echoing megaphone boat trip passing by, reminiscent of Apocalypse Now.

Day 34

Saturday 28th July

We now have a fanbelt and a jeep so we pstpone fixing the camper and drive up the hairpin road to the top of Mesa Verde and an ancient indian settlement. Lisa cuts me an illegal stick so I can walk and unbend and we queue impatiently in the heat for tickets to the ancient dwelling sites as the weather worsens. The views on the way up are long range and highly detailed.

We are very high and Lisa’s heart is hurting so we are a pair of cripples wandering through a fantastic outdoor museum. The indians who built these villages into the cliffs eventually moved out to settle lands throughout the southwest. Their descendants ‘exchanged’ the Mesa Verde for other lands 100 years ago, shortly after the dwellings were discovered by a settler looking for his cow.

Weather turns foul as we leave and a rockslide closes the road, stranding us in our discomfort for an hour. I return the jeep to Cortez and the weather clears enough to give us a lovely cliff sunset.
 

We finally prepare our citizenship applications and go online to find the combined fee goes up another $550 on Monday and there is nowhere to get a postmark tomorrow. Feeling the feds sneer, I seethe.

Day 33

Friday 27th July

Watched osprey nesting on poles at the lake. On through Apache lands, west and then north towards Colorado. Indian lands always seem impoverished. Bad roads, poor housing, low reservoir. Into the National Forest the tarmac becomes smooth and the land tailored again.

Leaving the trees behind the landscape changes to chunky semi-desert hills and gullies as we drive north past Navajo Lake reservoir. Very hot and dusty road. Then we climb into Colorado and the scenery turns green and lush again.

Bypass Durango, a mountainside city, and climb higher westward at 25 mph. We stop at the root of the Mesa Verde, a huge mountain stub in the sky, to hear bad noises from the engine. The fan belt is a thread so we hobble into a closeby RV park to consider options. Nobody within 100 miles is interested in fixing it but Budget send a half price jeep so I drive into the next town, Cortez, in the fading light, to buy a replacement belt and supplies. I cook a foul and forgettable meal and we retire.

Day 32

Thurs 26th July

Rose early to trawl the pool with a fishing net before the punters arrived but gave up before long. Spent a lazy morning covering ourselves in mud and baking in the sun, playing at being truly ancient people.

Packed up to leave and found the black water dump site was foot sloshingly full. Back on the road after a short discussion with the manager about sewage which scored us a couple of free passes. Our destination is the Ghost Ranch in the heart of O’Keefe land. Rather than backtrack down the main road we took a short cut through a mountain pass. A looming storm broke on our mountain and sent flash floods down rivulets and streams all around us, overflowing and blocking the road behind us as we drove. We trucked on to higher ground but even at the summits water was sluicing across the road. The drive became intense as the rain fell in sheets but we came across a small village with the road ahead flooded and waited out the storm.

Slept a little and replenished or goods at an eclectic country store. We came out onto the main road to the Ghost Ranch and the landscape grew huge, plains sweeping ahead to vast surreal cliffs.

Up a dirt track to the one-time dude ranch and present-day Presbyterian retreat in glorious technicolour cowboy scenery.

Back on the main road we drove for miles between wonderfully shaped and coloured cliffs and, as the sun set, approached Heron Lake where we stopped at the lakeside for the night and scavenged a brush and driftwood fire.

Day 31

Wed 25th July

Had Rumsfeld’s house across the valley pointed out to us. Left Taos for the spa at Ojo Caliente, an astonishing drive down the Rio Grande through a landscape of delicate hues which rarely settle on a shade. The sky is vivid blue with crisp white clouds to our right and a deep grey to the left blending with the mountain - riven by a distant lightning strike. Deeper in the valley the road becomes narrow and faster with sudden curves marked by prettily decorated dedicated crucifixes.

We stop for lunch in a layby and sit in the desert sand imagining the time of Georgia O’Keefe.

Arrived at the spa and found an RV site. Water and electricity but no internet signal and one overflowing portobog. We checked out the hot springs and luxuriated between the soda, iron and arsenic baths and watched lizards hide. It was late in the day and the weather too cold to dry out the mudbath.

Just at closing time Lisa lost a glasses lens in the iron pool. I borrowed a torch hoping to catch a reflection in the murky depths but there was gravel underfoot and I had no luck. The portojohn was still too evil to use.

Day 30

Tues 24th July

Intend to leave today. There is a hot spring and mineral spa within an hour or two which has RV camping and it sounds good for my back. In the morning, as a present, Angie turned my simple idea into a finished work by printing it full size on canvas. Concept to finished work in 24 hrs. I am amazed and delighted.

New Mexican lethargy and complicated arrangements on indian time keep us from leaving until its late in the afternoon so we put off leaving until tomorrow.

Angie has been amazingly generous and unselfish to us. We would have been stuck in an RV park without her. There has been a general openness and trust among people here that we haven’t experienced for a while from strangers.

Day 29

Mon 23rd July

Lay around in the camper toying with an idea involving rulers then realised I had the equipment to make it real so using the camera and photoshop I actually made some art albeit still just an idea since I couldnt see it fullsize or offscreen.

Back improving every day so felt able to lie around in the house investigating the cartoon network with River and discovering an odd show about Meat.

Day 28

Sun 22nd July

Felt a little better so as an experiment tried driving Angie’s Jeep into the town with River . I expected an East Coast Sunday shopping experience but found closed shops and limited supplies. Did buy a cheap car radio so we could have ipod music in the car.  Met sympathy and kindness as I drove my shopping cart like a bag lady, but the pain had returned, so I realised we’d have to stay another day.

  Retired often to the camper to go horizontal.