New squeeky for Katie

Arches on the way back home

Well, we came home after only three weeks on the road. Everything in front of us was closed. RV parks in the Florida Keys, all RV parks in Moab, all restaurants in New Orleans and the Keys, D.C. museums, all botanical gardens, and on and on. So....what's the point of travelling only to stay in the RV all the time.

It took us 1,200 miles to get back. Four RV parks, one a night. One outside of Price, Utah was nice enough to let us spend the night, even though they'd been told to shut down to all outsiders. Long travel days.

But, we stopped off at Arches National Park outside of Moab and it was, not only open and free, no one was there! We had practically the entire park to ourselves. Kim took about 460 photos! Thank goodness for digital cameras. This is our fourth visit here....never gets old.

We dropped the truck, left the coach in the parking lot and went to see the park.

You can see our coach waaaaay down there in the parking lot.

I'll just post some of the magnificent rock formations we saw...

Closeup

This one is called "The Three Judges".

These are the "Petrified Sand Dunes". They were covered over with sand from the NW over 200 Million years ago, then it all eroded away to leave miles and miles of these dunes.

Good photo with the La Sal Mountains (Salt) in the background and a couple of arches on the far left.

One of the big attractions here...Balanced Rock

Usually you cannot get into the parking lot or on the trail....too many people. Today, no one!

Arches National Park has the densest concentration of natural stone arches in the world. There are over 2,000 documented arches in the park, ranging from sliver-thin cracks to spans greater than 300 feet (97 m). How do they form? See answer at the very end.

So....a few of them...

North and South Window Arches

You can see the scale of how immense the arch is when you see the tiny, tiny people at the base.

Anyway, we got to see the park just in time because I read that, as of the 28th of March...just yesterday, they closed the park entirely.

We're safe and sound back home and are keeping our distance from everyone. Speaking of that, when we were in Carlsbad, New Mexico, I went to the grocery store and it was mobbed! The clerk told me it's that way all the time. Carlsbad is right where all the oil and natural gas fields are located so the town is a 24/7 place. No one seemed that concern about any virus. Oh, I wore latex gloves into the store. No fooling around with this stuff at our age.

Once this crisis all passes...and it will....we'll head back out. In the meantime, we'll probably take 1-2 day trips with our kayak to the local lakes and paddle around.

I'll post some magnificent sunrise and sunset shots some other time.

steve/kim/katie

Katie found a spot to relax on the new kayak

How did so many arches form?

First, you need the right kinds of rock.

Sandstone is made of grains of sand cemented together by minerals, but not all sandstone is the same. The Entrada Sandstone was once a massive desert, full of shifting dunes of fine-grained sand. The grains are nearly spherical so, when packed together, they formed a rock that is very porous (full of tiny spaces).

In contrast, the Carmel layer just beneath the Entrada contains a mix of sand and clay. Clay particles are much smaller than sand grains; a lot of them can pack together and fill in gaps between the sand grains, making the rock denser and less porous than a purer sandstone.

Crack it into parallel lines.

Deep beneath the surface lies a thick layer of salts. Squeezed by the tons of rock above it, the salt flowed and bulged upward, creating long domes. The rock layers covering these domes were forced to crack, like the surface of freshly-baked bread, into a series of more-or-less parallel lines.

Next, add the right amount of rain.

On average, the park receives 8-10 inches (18-23 cm) of precipitation a year. That might not sound like much, but it's enough to keep the engines of erosion working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Drops of rainwater soak into the porous Entrada sandstone easily and then slowly dissolve the calcite bonding the sand together – in other words, rotting the rock from the inside out. Water puddles just above the denser Carmel layer where it erodes a cavity, like food trapped between your teeth. In winter, water trapped between the two layers expands when it freezes and pries the rock apart.

If the park received too much precipitation, the sandstone could erode so quickly that arches might not have time to form. If it never rained here, the engines of erosion would stop.

Make sure your rocks don't rock & roll.

Luckily, earthquakes are rare in this area. If the ground shook often, these massive outdoor rock sculptures would splinter and collapse. The fact that over 2,000 still stand, waiting for visitors to discover them, tells us this area has been rather geologically stable for at least 50,000 years.

Lastly, pick the right time to visit. (You did.)

The rock layers visible in the park today were once buried by over a mile of other rock that had to erode first to expose what lied beneath. Visitors one million years ago might have seen an endless flat plain dotted with vegetation. Imagine a visit 100,000 years in the future, when the Entrada and Carmel layers have fully worn away. What new rock shapes might you discover then?

Go back home? Or continue?

Man o man....what a convoluted situation we are all in. All this concern about the virus is making life a bit more challenging. We're in New Mexico wondering if we want to continue our trip through the summer or back home and hunker down until there's some relief.

I went to the grocery store the other day in a town of 30,000 people and the shelves that held water, TP, paper towels and pasta(?) completely empty. Do folks think that there will never be TP made again? And don't they have water in their homes? Crazy business.

The other day, we hiked about 2 miles out and back to see the inside of one of the largest volcanos n Northern New Mexico, Bandera Crater.

Our hike-out-and back to the edge of the volcano

We stayed near the yellow at the top. All the rest are the lava flows from this volcano.

Bandera Crater is the largest volcanic cinder cone in the region. It erupted around 10,000 years ago. There were two stages of the eruption: first the cinder cone developed, then a massive lava flow broke out this side. The molten lava reached temperatures above 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Bandera's lava flow is nearly 23 miles long. At the end of the eruption, the lava suddenly fell back down the main vent making the bottom of the cone deeper than the outside lava flow. This crater is nearly 1200 feet wide at the top and roughly 750 deep.

The elevation at the look out point is 8122. The elevation at the rim is 8372. Over time, erosion and gravity take their toll on the crater and it is slowly filling up as cinders and rocks fall down into it. This makes for a very fragile environment.

Over time, erosion and gravity take their toll on the crater and it is slowly filling up as cinders and rocks fall down into it. This makes for a very fragile environment.

Katie LOVES hiking...."Come on...are you coming?"

After much discussion, and watching the news, we're going to keep going and just be careful. Most of the next week will be either overnight-only stays or someplace where we won't have to mingle with anyone. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, things will take a turn for the better and we'll be okay with this plan. In the meantime, we wash our hands constantly, put sanitizer on them, and keep away from most gatherings.

Unfortunately, our trip includes New Orleans, Carlsbad Caverns, Washington D.C., Atlanta (to visit our son), etc. So, we're not sure what will even be open.

Keep safe.

Steve/Kim/Katie

Getting "Stuck" in Las Vegas

Okay, so the title isn't that great but it's appropriate. Check it out.

You don't want to stumble into this one!

We really like cactus plants....something about them that is so unique...and there are so many varieties. Not sure you people on the east coast have ever seen them :)

Look how protective the thorns are for this plant.

Nicely laid out gardens with spacing between each one. In the desert, they're not always so spread out.

You got to love the symmetry of the thorns...so evenly spaced and each one similar to each other.

This is one of our favorites...Barrel Cactus.

Ice plant

Look....this flower is coming right out of the cactus! Tortoises love to eat them.

Some other flowers snuck in ! So pretty.

These guys look like a pack....

...that are all huddled together for protection.

We saw this Gopher Plant in different stages of blooming.

For you Latin lovers....

Loved the fragrance of the Purple Sage throughout the park.

Purple Sage

Here's a cute one for you....Pork and Beans.

Pork and Beans

Here are a number of photos from the Mountain Laurel (Mescal) tree. Wonderful colors. And it produces a mescalbean all over the tree.

The common name mescalbean has caused a lot of confusion with mescal, an alcoholic drink distilled from the baked and fermented hearts of agave. The best known type of mescal is tequila, which is made from cultivated "blue agave". By contrast, mescalbean is the seed of the mountain laurel, a small tree in the legume or bean family.

The tree produces a tough woody bean pod that houses bright red, hard, seeds commonly referred to as mescalbeans. Mescalbeans are poisonous, yet they were used by native socities for ritual purposes, because of its powerful psychoactive properties. The bright red beans were also used for ornamentation.

And finally, one HUGE cactus. (See the people in the lower left for scale.)

Oh, and just to prove we're in Vegas...check out this old photo of a floating craps game!

Very nice gardens. Of course, nothing is really in bloom yet but the cactus (cactii?) were well worth the trip.

See you next time! Oh, we also post periodically on Twitter @lastricks

Steve/Kim/Katie

...and one more....

...don't wake me yet...I'm napping.

On our way again !

Trip to get to Wells was gorgeous. High desert and snow still on the Nevada mountains. Lots and lots of acres of sage...as far as you can see.

Nice view of the snow-covered hills from our RV park.

Went to a Burger King for the first time years....got a fish sandwich, which The Wife loved and I got a Double Whopper...not bad. But, we won't do Burger King for a while.

Got some fuel at Flying J. I really don't know how they can ever get truck stops clean....gas, oil, grease all over. I wear gloves to touch anything!

We stayed at ANGEL LAKE RV

Nice enough place for an overnight. Host was helpful and friendly. They had just opened for the season a few days earlier, but the park looks fine. We were only the 1^st person today with 4 others long-term. About 40+ spots in all. Large gravel throughout. Pull-throughs were a bit short but wide “streets” made it okay. Very easy to find, right on the highway but the noise is minimal. Did not use sewer or water or showers. Bathrooms are clean but no locks on them from the outside. Did not use laundry. All the major truck stops are next exit which is nice. Lighting at night is great. WIFI is fabulous!....fast! We’d stay here again.

Nice to be on the road again and in our cozy coach.

Park is all empty after winter....just opened.

Next up was Alamo, NV about 286 miles south.

Mount Rushmore 2019 visit

This is our second time here to Mount Rushmore.....always wanted to go here. All that's there is the four faces on the mountain but that is more than enough!

The Visitor's Center is terrific....showing how it was made, personal accounts from the workers and tools and instruments that carved the rock. And the Gift Shop was about the largest I've ever seen. Everything-Mount Rushmore!

Really, I could not take my eyes off the faces. They're absolutely amazing! Creative, life-like, huge, compelling....and on and on.

Some close-ups...

Washington

Lincoln

Jefferson was originally going to be to the right of Washington. You can see the carvings where they took him off. Turns out that he was going to be too small to view so, after 18 months of work, they took him off and moved him to Washington's left side, where he is now located.

Jefferson

There was a path that went as close underneath as allowed to get these views. Notice the pupils...more on this down below.

Teddy Roosevelt

Notice the horizontal line on Lincoln's nose? On his right side of his nose is a sensor to monitor that crack to see if it enlarges or moves at all. There are 6 more sensors placed but I never found any of them.

The way the sculptor used that extruding part to give the eyes a three-dimensional look was very creative.

Some original rock at the base showing the holes that were drilled to place the explosives.

Original tailings from the rock. They had to use explosives to get down to the granite layer in order to do the sculpting as the top layer was too crumbly.

View of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor.

Borghum also did the North Carolina statue at Gettysburg.

They would drill these holes to remove large sections of rock.

A Dallet hand facer and bumping bits were used to smooth the rock in the final stages.

Drilling the holes to remove large pieces of stone.

Lincoln in progress

One of the original ideas of the presidents. All of the body would've been sculpted instead of just the heads.

The BEFORE of the rock face.

Facts About Mount Rushmore

• The four presidents carved in the mountain are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
• Thomas Jefferson was originally started on George Washington's right. However, after 18 months they realized that it was not working. Jefferson's face was dynamited off and carved on the other side.
• It took 14 years to complete Mount Rushmore.
• No one died while building Mount Rushmore.
• The sculpture cost $989,992.32 to build.
• There is a cave behind the carving called the "Hall of Records." It was intended to house the story of Mount Rushmore but was never completed due to lack of funding.

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/monuments/a/mount-rushmore.htm

Why these four?

George Washington, (1st president) led the colonists in the American Revolutionary War to win independence from Great Britain. He was the father of the new country and laid the foundation of American democracy. Because of his importance, Washington is the most prominent figure on the mountain. (1732-1799)

Thomas Jefferson, (3rd president) he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, a document which inspires democracies around the world. He also purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 which doubled the size of our country, adding all or part of fifteen present-day states. (1743-1826)

Theodore Roosevelt, (26th president) provided leadership when America experienced rapid economic growth as it entered the 20th Century. He was instrumental in negotiating the construction of the Panama Canal, linking the east and the west. He was known as the "trust buster" for his work to end large corporate monopolies and ensure the rights of the common working man. (1858-1919) 

Abraham Lincoln, (16th president) held the nation together during its greatest trial, the Civil War. Lincoln believed his most sacred duty was the preservation of the union. It was his firm conviction that slavery must be abolished. (1809-1865).

http://www.nps.gov/moru/historyculture/why-these-four.htm

The AFTER.

AFTER. 

After seeing this place on postcards, movies (North by Northwest), magazines, TV, etc. It was unreal to be right there viewing it but it was magnificent ! We just sat and stared at it. Great stop!



oh...and a Katie photo....after working on a jigsaw puzzle....