Dinosaur National Monument

  Dinosaur National Monument is an enormous area, and I assumed that it was riddled with dinosaur sites.  As we drove all the way around the park, seeing notices that said, “No Dinosaurs Here,” I was becoming more and more skeptical.

 

When we finally got there, it was mind-blowing, awe-inspiring, with all the power of our Creator on display.  I am humbled also by the care and creativity of our scientists.

These are the actual bones, preserved in place.  Massive forces upended an ancient riverbed to almost 90 degrees.  One massive spinal section was visible at the top of a hill.  The man who discovered it  hesitated to be excited at first, because he thought those bones might be the only ones. Once he started the excavation, he dreamed of the day that the work would stop in the middle and the wall would be preserved for people to see.

That is exactly what happened.  Hundreds of skeletons have been meticulously excavated and hundreds more are still underneath.  The white area on the diagram above is a hilltop that has been completely removed.  The brown area is what is on display. You have seen the dinosaurs in the natural history museums and they are impressive.  The museum may even have had pictures of an excavation site like this.  The pictures had nowhere near the impact of the real thing. I know your mind is not blown by these pictures, so maybe someday, you will get to go. 

Yampa River, Notes on Camp life

The campsite we found by GPS accident was on the Yampa River.  The ranger said it is the last free-flowing river in Colorado.  The cottonwoods and aspens were all turning golden and the river had wide sandy beaches.

Some places are easier than others to camp.  This one was really easy.  We even had time to do laundry an take showers.

The beaches were full of animal tracks: soft tracks in sand, deep tracks in silty sludge, detailed tracks in dried clay.  Troy got a new book and wanted spend more time here.

These little flies were a nuisance.  They didn’t bite but got themselves stuck to anything with any hint of food.

Tristan brought mosquito nets that finally got put to use.  See that little white squirt bottle on the bench of the picnic table?  That is our portable bathroom.  Just add a shovel and paper is optional.  There was actually a pit toilet in a nice clean building at this site.  We picked up the habit of washing in the Middle East.  Every toilet had a hose with squirt nozzle attached.

While the adults filtered water and washed clothes, the boys splashed and ran and buried each other in the sand bank.  They tunneled into this steep bank, which is not a good idea as well as forbidden, but it was an awesome tunnel.  Troy has a special bag with nubbins inside for washing clothes.  He did all of his clothes, and I did my wool hiking pants.  The kids’ stuff had to wait a couple of days till we stayed at a hotel and had access to laundry.  The hotel was just because it was too late in the day to get to the next stop, not because we gave up and were sick of it.  It was best hot shower and continental breakfast ever!  Plus the kids had wi-fi the next morning for school.   That was in Rock Springs, Wyoming between Dinosaur National Park and the Shoshone National Forest.

Winston demonstrates the shower.  The black bag sits in the sun to warm up and then a foot pad inflates it.  Now the hose is pressurized to squirt water with mild pressure.  The only down side was that this site did not have potable water, and the river water was full of silt.  The first step to get rid of the silt is to fill gallon jugs and wait ten minutes for the silt to settle.  Then you run it through a filter that Troy bought at REI.  You would still have to boil it to drink it.  Filtering au natural would involve leaves and sand and pebbles and charcoal.  Sorry to disappoint you, but we are not that far into survivor mode.  Even with our cheats from REI and leisure time at the perfect campground, water still requires A LOT of work.  The kids’ clothes all got washed at the motel in Rock Springs.

Happy accidents

We have had several happy accidents with regards to campsites.  At Arches, we were planning to backpack, but the park ranger recommended that we not.  We learned from some cyclists that most parks have nice campgrounds for backpackers and cyclists, but Arches is small and does not.  So we made a mad dash for the trail we wanted to hike before dark.  When we got there, the official booked-six-months-in-advance campground did not say “Full.”  It turned out that they were working on the big site that is set aside for church groups and Scouts and whatnot, and so were allowing individuals to set up for one night at a time. That is where we met the cyclists, a couple on day 50 of 90 or so.  They saved up and quit their jobs and liked everything except wind.

After Arches, we set our GPS for Dinosaur National Monument, which is on the border of Colorado and Utah to the north.  We ended up on the far eastern Colorado end, where the road dead-ended.  There were no dinosaurs and no access to the rest of the park.

However, there was this beautiful campground that we had nearly to ourselves.  A ranger waded across the river and disappeared into the brush for a few hours.  When she came back, she said she was checking the fences and that this spot was popular in the spring for river rafters, but now it is too low.  She showed us where to go, 45 miles away, for the dinosaurs.

Right this minute, we are holed up in our tent in Wyoming, waiting for the rain to stop. September 28th.  I am not sure when I will be able to post this.  Last night was the lunar eclipse.  The moon looked like it was obscured by smoke, and the stars were spectacular.

Ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado

I wrote a post about the cliff dwellings but seem to have lost it.  Here are the pictures.

The best part was the hike to the petroglyphs.

The trail went up, down, over, under, and around.

This tree has to shimmy up the mountain, too. It grew straight out and then up.

We went up this ladder, cheering for all the scaredy cats.  The ranger said no one has ever NOT made it.

After the tour of the Balcony House, we had to shimmy out this hole.

Farm Hacks (win/win with Big Oil (my uncle is a genius))

Here is a post from Oklahoma, though we are actually in Rock Springs, Wyoming on the way to the Grand Tetons.  Grasslands are not photogenic, but the camera always comes out anyway to try (and fail) to capture their shimmering glory.  Lucky for you, I have another story to tell

We come to these ravines for the boys to play war games and climb the soft dirt walls.  You didn’t know that Oklahoma had rocky cliffs, did you?  It doesn’t.

Sliding down 30-foot dirt embankments sounds fun, at least if you are a school-aged boy.  However, you can see above how the wind is like a giant clawed hand digging towards good farm land.  Last time I saw it, erosion had ruined the road and was reaching towards the fence.  It seemed very dramatic to me, and made me feel small and powerless.

The boys have their shoulder-launched rockets ready to fire while Uncle Terry looks on.  This is also oil country, and the companies have to break up the concrete pads they pour and haul them out when they are done.  The red truck is parked on 500 semi-truck-loads of broken concrete and gravel fill.  The oil companies would have paid to dump it, but he let them do it for free because he wanted all he could get.

The winds are thwarted for now and here is last scrawny Indian paintbrush…

And a ravine at sunset. Terry also taught himself microbiology and bought a professional-quality microscope to document some problems with his wells.  He showed me photos of a tiny tracking chips shaped like arrowheads from the oil company and a glowing white bacteria.  It isn’t all win/win with big oil, but he is a genius.

The Grand Canyon

At Mesa Verde, we camped at the park, did laundry, and drove around with our iPads out looking for which campsites were in line with the wi-fi antenna.

We have not had that luxury anywhere else.

We visited the lodge for a ranger talk and sat on the terrace and enjoyed the view.

At the top of the nearest viewing point, the kids got abducted by aliens.

Not really.  The National Park campgrounds are mostly booked six months out, so we go into the National Forests.  Tristan has made himself a lean-to with a screen of aspen.  We would not be allowed to chop firewood and make useful things in the parks.

And school goes on, so here we are huddled around the campfire with iPads.

My pictures did not capture the vastness and grandeur.

The east rim at sunrise was quite chilly.  The elevation is above 8000 feet. We took some oatmeal and hiked down a bit.

Things warm up quickly when the sun comes up, from 38 to 72.  It was good practice for Wyoming and Montana yet to come.

The Human Child in it’s wild habitat

Even with a tele-photo lens, the action was still too fast to catch.

Here the kids have decided to make a raft.  The problem was getting the sticks across the river.  They tied a rope to the bridge above, where I am, and floated them across in bundles.  They made the raft, which promptly sank, according to Wyatt.

Ten years after the fires, there are still burned stumps, but things have grown back nicely.

Sam and Pearl’s tent, with the mobile tack shed in front for saddles and bridles.

Wyatt and Pearl, looking like a scene from Heidi.

First Days of Camping

 The Piedra River of the San Juan National Forest set the bar really high. The BEST thing about this site was the neighbors: outfitters who use horses to set up remote camps for hunters and then pack out their game. They had two kids, Sam and Pearl, 12 and 10. They played in the river, they played in a fort, they drank from the spring, they sat by the fire, then they did it all over again. They played hard and worked hard too. Those pictures are on the other camera. I had to use a tele-photo lens to keep up. 

I am already sad to think that the novelty will wear off. Wow!  That's an awesome fire!  And the fork and anchor did not hold the massive dutch oven, but the tripod did. 

That stump that Wyatt is sitting on was the perfect chopping block. That was a unique thing about this site. Note to Mom: that huge bag of green beans is in the dutch oven. The recipe said "best ever" and it really was. 

Our best moment of teamwork was putting up the tarp. 

What an amazing tarp!  It really does keep the rain off! It covers the tailgate where I was cooking. Pearl told stories about their colorful cook. "Cooks  don't like to get wet," she said knowingly. 

We are in Durango, Colorado, having a wi-fi break. Next wi-fi may be three stops away: Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then Moab, Utah for some minor truck repairs. 

Physical education on the road

In case you ever need to know how to do pull-ups with no bar, you throw a towel over a tree and try to hold on. This way of doing pull-ups has many benefits. Studies indicate that grip strength is a better indicator of cardiovascular health than blood pressure. In the doctor's office, they have you hold a band while a steadily increasing force pulls it away.  The force of gravity was more than sufficient. 

Another benefit is that it improves judo hand strength. And the obvious benefit is abs like Troy's. But my real point with this picture ...

Is that your your hands form into claws that you can't open without help. But not to worry, that wears off quickly. 

Farm Speak/ City Speak

Uncle Terry spends a lot of time apparently doing nothing.  When there was no water pressure, he leaned on the doorframe of the well house, chewing on a toothpick, for a very long time.  He told me later he was listening to the pump cycle and making various other observations to rule out the possible problems one by one.  His final conclusion was that he had to ‘pull the well’ to see if there was a hole in the tubing.  I understood those three words but had no idea what they meant.  The well is a hole in the ground with a spigot at the top and pump at the bottom with 200 feet of rubber bicycle tubing and wires in between.  The pump looks like a large coffee thermos.  You hook that spigot up the pickup with chain and pull the whole assembly out.

      I never thought that much about running water until I went to Haiti. My friend that I went with bought a pump for the family that she stays with.  Her bottom line for comfort was that there had to be running water.  The cistern ran out the day before we left while she was in the shower.  The pump would not come on to refill the cistern until the electricity came back on from 3-7 in the morning.  I guess the family knew how she felt about it because one of the girls ran to the roof to get her a bucket of shower water while the dad, Mario, ran to the corner to get fuel for the generator.

     When I first lived in Spain, water rationing meant that the water was turned off during the day.  Hotels had cisterns, but I didn’t. I was young and single, and  I swam and showered at the base, so I didn’t really care.  You get used to it and deal with it.

Terry has these giant tractor tires all over his property.  I supposed it was there to protect the water spigot by the post.

No.  He fills the tire with water and that is how he waters the cattle. Everyone else uses the fragile, rusty metal troughs.  More about that tomorrow.  He is not running cattle (more farm-speak) because the price of calves is really high right now.  He buys the calves from dairy cows, raises them on his pastureland and then sells them at two years.  He is a born farmer and loves his cattle and is really missing them.  Making sure they have water is a daily preoccupation when he has them.

   I told him I was going to post the pictures on pinterest and he would be famous…or at least would get lots of likes.  That was all city-speak to him, but he’s curious about everything and so I got to explain it to him.

Café-schooling

My mom said we have three choices for wi-fi: one is an internet café and the other two are patios at peoples’ houses.  She spent the week before we got here visiting all the possibilities to find the best.  What a great mom! 

Wired Café seems to have grown up and been added onto over the years. Three buildings that used to be a house and garage and shed are fitted together with decks, raised levels and gardens.

Someone still lives here and goes back and forth through the white door behind Troy.

One of two goldfish ponds is nestled up next to the house.

Another is out front with a little Japanese bridge.

We finish up with the internet stuff and go home to Rosa’s house.  Rosa is Mom’s long-time friend.  Her first husband was an artist and they built their adobe house and have added to it over the years.  He died and she remarried a man in the oil business.  He died too, and now she and Mom come in the summers.  When it is time to take a break from school work, we clear off the table behind the flower and reset it for lunch.

Meanwhile Mom is making something wonderful from all the gardens and farmer’s markets.  She also makes us scones every morning to take to Wired, because their food is not on par with the coffee and internet and ambiance.  Today the scones had white chocolate and candied ginger.  Every day the boys say, “These are the best yet!”

  Thanks for all the encouragement about my fantasies coming back to reality.  Troy and I had a heart to heart about being better teachers and not taking every balk as a challenge to my authority. Teaching them is a gift from God that we do in His service.