Roadtrip 2000
Driving to Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and points between
Eventually I'll put witty text under each pic. Until then, you get
to see most of 'em naked.
We also have a lot of pictures which we took with "traditional film" that
I might scan and add to the collection, too.
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Some flowers at a rest stop in Idaho.
Too pretty to not take a shot of...
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Stopping for gas in Provo. |
We drove all day and reached Price, Utah, very late in the evening.
It was about 18 hours straight driving time, about 15 of
it with me in front of the wheel. It was surprisingly easy. We
finally stopped in Price and found a hotel and steak house, and the restaurant
had a cool train setup near our table. Oh, and we were surrounded
by many dead animal heads hanging on the logcabin walls. Very
rustic.
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In the nightstand in Price, of course.
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On our way down toward Moab... |
After getting set up in the hotel, one of the first stops
(other than food) |
Lunch in the Sliprock Cafe...
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The first of many, many petroglyph pictures I was to take during
the vacation. Moab is a great
area for them, and we found bunches of them on
the sides of the road, even. |
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The view of the Colorado River across the way from the
clifside petroglyphs.
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This was a view from many of the sites in Canyonlands.
A beautiful area! |
And then in Arches National Monument...
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The surface of a rock in Arches.
(I know, I know. I'm weird.)
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Some of the varied terrain in Arches... |
My honey...
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Some of the petroglyphs in Arches, nearby the Wolfe Ranch.
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More Arches... |
More driving around the
Moab area, finding more petroglyphs off the side of the
road. |
I started seeing patterns in the gyphs... see those deer-track
type of markings? Those appear at other sites, too.
Nobody really knows why the natives created petroglyphs or what they
meant. There's a lot of speculations, but that's all it
ever really can be unless we invent a time machine.
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Mike waiting patiently in the truck while I take
yet more pictures of petroglyphs... |
This one I spotted while we were driving by... and of
course we had to drive back and find it.
Just sitting there on the side of the road. Amazing.
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The Bible from the next hotel, in Moab...
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This is a tourist store called "Hole n' the Wall."
And that's what it is... a store built into the cliff-face. |
Carving on the side of the store...
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Inside of the store. It's here that we found our
"house bear" that I'll have to tell you about sometime. |
We were there pretty early, and they'd set out the
nectar for the hummingbirds. You can only see one in this
pic (and I was lucky to get it in the
frame!) but there were about 20 of them zooming around the feeder.
Did you know that their wings sound like
thrumming rubberbands? It was amazing, having
them zoom all around me.
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It's a family-owned store, and they live there in another portion
of the cliff. |
An arch, somewhere... *laugh* You lose track after a while! |
Talk about amazing... this is just a portion of "Newspaper Rock," a
fabulous petroglyph site near Canyonlands. |
It's a huge rockface...
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...here's more... |
...and more... |
...and yet more. |
They used every surface they could find nearby.
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This was on the side of the road a ways down
from Newspaper Rock. Some of the best antelope
petroglyphs we saw the entire trip. |
And further down the road. |
And again.
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Up close and personal. |
Another ways down the road, I found these. No animal or human
pics, but patterns intead. Maybe different people had their
own patterns to leave behind at sites, so others
would know they were there?
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A close-up of one of the patterns. |
Do I get tired of taking pics of glyphs?
No. |
We stopped for MRE lunches at a place out in the middle of
nowhere called Hamburger Rock. It was on a 4-wheeling
trail that we were travelling, trying to find
some ruins - which we never did locate, but we did some
fun 4-wheeling! |
Mike taking in the view. |
On the way toward Mesa Verde we followed a
sign for the Lowry Ruins, and found a neat site with
very few people nearby. It was a 20-mile gravel and
dirt road drive there, and only one other
car joined us. Which was fine with us.
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It was a nice site, a well-preserved pueblo.
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In case you're wondering, the site guide instructed us to climb up
the wooden ladder, so no, we weren't cheating by climing around
up there!
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A nice, large kiva.
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Some of the stones in the walls, but not very many,
had carvings on them...
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This large one was sitting in one of the kiva walls.
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