Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico

Saturday, Feb. 5
On our way to Canyonlands. The terrain is constantly changing from pancake layers of rock tinted deep red by iron oxidation to vertical and horizontally sliced cliffs that look like huge ochre-iced wedding cakes. The magnificent scenery is so constant it tires the eyes. Here there are time-frozen lumps of rock – there there are carefully carved arches in the sides of cliffs as if the sculptor just laid down his tools.
Monday, Feb. 7
The most frustrasting part of our travels is not RV problems (they’ve been minimal and mostly self-inflicted) or finding an RV park (they are plentiful for the most part). It is dealing with customer lack-of-service departments over the phone, which we must frequently do to resolve problems with banks, insurance companies, utilities, the Post Office, UPS or any other type of service provider. They are uniformly careless and uncaring, and the bigger the company, the worse they are. We’ve used up most of our cell phone minutes not chatting with family or friends, but listening to tinny recorded music on hold while waiting for the customer service rep to find out why our mail isn’t being forwarded, our medical insurance (for which we were paying $1,200 amonth until we switched) is shown as cancelled. . . . It is not the phone reps who are careless and uncaring – they must deal with annoyed and unhappy customers and typically do so with equanimity and grace; it is the companies themselves that seem unconcered that they are not delivering on the promised service, unconcerned that they give their front-line representatives little power to truly solve problems, unconcerned that they are losing customers and don’t know it.
Tuesday, Feb. 8
We are driving in the Jeep up a narrow winding road on a snow-topped mountain to reach Mesa Verde National Park. It is a series of cliff dwellings dating to 600 to 1300 A.D. , built by the ancestral pueblans (formerly referred to, politically incorrectly, as “Anasazi,” a Navajo (or Din-e) word meaning ancient enemies). The cliff dwellings are constructed of rocks, clay bricks and mortar, with plaster walls, some painted. But most amazing is their location – deep in a canyon, built under natural overhangs or alcoves in the cliff walls. Accessible only by hand and toe olds carved into the canyon walls with stone chisels, these dwellings are 4 stories high in some cases. Even a one-story structure is quite an achievement, with rooms of various sizes and uses separated by brick walls with small inverted-T shaped doors.
In a loop drive around Mesa Verde canyon, there are stopping points to see archaelogical ruins – well-preserved in some cases – and a viewpoint from which can be seen 5-6 residential and ceremonial dwellings in the cliff alcoves. Considering how quickly we in the Southwestern U.S. tear down buildings – and conversely, declare those barely 50 years old “historic sites,” the preservation of these ancient dwellings is remarkable.
As we are leaving the Mesa Verde visitor center, we encounter a small herd of 6 wild horses on the side of the road. The horses stand staring at us, not moving even when I get out of the jeep to take pic tures. We don’t know where they came from or why they are there, but apparently they are waiting for us to leave so they can cross the road, because as soon as we drive off, they amble across.

Feb. 9
To Silverton, to see my sister Laura and Jay, her son. As usual, the drive is a winding mountain road surrounded by snow-laden peaks. Silvertons sits in a cup at the base of several mountains. It’s a post-card-pretty town of about 350, with old weatherbeaten houses alternating with renovated (gentrified?) homes painted lavender, spring green, mustard yellow and farmhouse red. In Silverton, everyone knows everyone – as we alk down the snow-covered streets, Laura is greeted by everyone we pass. Most of them are loading or unloading skis, snowmobiles or climbing equipment from their vehicles – or look as if they just returned from skiing, snowshoeing or other outdoor activity. We spend the day talking with Laura and Jay, catching up on each other and family gossip. We finally see the Avalanche Coffeehouse, the little café Jay and Amy own and operate. IOt’s a tiny place with 3 or 4 tables, fresh-roasted organic coffee and fresh baked goods. Jay is an artist-photographer whose work hangs on the walls. He hasn’t been doing any art lately, focusing his time on the café and growing the 100-watt FM public radio station he started in Silverton. He admits that the station’s views lean to the left, an ideology that doesn’t sit well with Silverton’s conservative residents. Silverton is polarized, Jay says, between right and left, a microcosm of the U.S. today. I agree.
We go back to Laura’s house – a cozy, tiny but sprawling place against the base of a mountain. She’s in the process of building a room on her house – in fact, she’s almost done and is awaiting the electrical inspection so she can complete the work. When we get back from the café, the note she left for the inspector is gone, in its place the inspection approval. I am impressed that she has built the room on her own with no help – but it deosn’t surprise me that she is capable of it. I’ve always envied Laura – my year-younger sister – for her looks, confidence, artistic and creative ability, and her fearless willingness to conquer anything, whether it’s riding a motorcycle, building a house from homemade adobe bricks, or the grief of losing her husband of 30+ years when she was only 53. She is coping with bereavement privately and with grace.
Laura offers to make lunch – we expect sandwiches, instead she makes linguini with scallops and homemade (by a neighbor) sourdough bread. After lunch, she suggests a walk up the mountain behind her house. We have an easy but invigorating hourlong hike with her dog, Daisy, and our dog, Princess alternately teasing each other and running ahead playfully prancing in the powdery snow. It’s a beautiful sunlit day, pleasantly crisp and cold. The last 15 minutes of our trek are in late afternoon shadow and the air cools quickly. Princess starts to lift her paws frequently; the snow is turning to ice between her toes and Steve carries her a few hundred yards until her pads warm up.
When we arrive back at the house, it’s 5 p.m. We need to head down the mountain before darkness turns meltig snow on the road to ice. With thankyous and hugs, we say farewell and begin the 2-hour drive back to Cortez. When we are near Durango, I notice a deer starting to sprint from the meadow to the left of the road. I call out, “Steve! Stop – look!” and he slows down just in time to avoid hitting the deer as it lopes in front of the car. A few nights later, as we are heading back to Durango RV Park, a deer once again dashes across the road I front of our car – this time in darkness – and Steve once again has to brake quickly to keep from hitting it.
Feb. 10
We leave Cortez today, heading to Durango. We’ve chosen Durango by default – it’s raining everywhere we’re thinking of going: Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Santa Fe. It’s not forecast to rain in Durango, although it is overcast. We plan to kick around in downtown Durango and go skiing tomorrow. We discover that the RV park – the only one open in the winter – is actually 15 miles from town in the middle of hay faqrms and cattle ranches. The RV park owners apparently collect tractors and farm implements – the place is cluttered with equipment, most of which appears to be non-functioning. We joke that this is the “Durango RV Resort and Farm Implement Museum”. The owners’ background is interesting – he’s a country music songwriter whose works have been recorded by Willie Nelson and others; a Grand Old Opry performer and claims to have done John Travolta’s dancing in Urban Cowboy; she’s a swing dance teacher.
Feb. 11
We go skiing at Purgatory today. Late start – we don’t hit the slopes until 11 a.m. The sky is gloomy, but the skiing is great, although I start out rockily, reverting initially to my old tricks of lifting my ski when I turn. But I correct myself fairly quickly, and my skiing technique has improved considerably by the end of the day – that lesson I took in Tahoe has really helped. I am traversing the blue slopes with relative ease and feeling pretty confident as I schuss downhill. However, by 3 p.m. it’s gotten pretty cold and what was enjoyable is becoming work, and my fingers and toes are numb. At 3:30, we call it quits. Still, it was a good day – especially considering that our plans originally called for skipping Durango.
Feb. 12
Today is my birthday. Steve asks me what I want to do. “It’s your day . . . .” he intones his favorite phrase. “Go cross-country skiing, I reply. We find a place that rents skis and quipment; they suggest Chicken Creek as a place with well-maintained trails 20 miles away. In reality, it’s more than 30 miles, the last 6 or so on a rough dirt road. It takes awahile to find the trailhead, which is not well-marked,a nd since it’s been sprinkling most of the way, the snow is patchy and we fear there will be no good snow on the trail (or I fear this – Steve would be just as happy if there were no snow and we had to head back to town to some warm bar or coffee house!) But since we’ve driven this far, we are determined to put skis on and test the trail (or at least I am!) It takes us 30 minutes of driving down wrong turns before we find the trailhead. We put on shoes and with some difficulty get them attached to skis and set off. I pick up the kick-glide routine pretty quickly, but Steve is having trouble – he’s walking on his skis rather than sliding or gliding. Despite several attempts to coach him, it’s clear he’s going to walk this trail, not ski it. But he’s being a good sport about the exertion cross-country skiing takes (moreso with his technique!) and encourages me to ski on ahead – which I do, then wait for him to catch up.
It’s beautiful on the trail – the peace and tranquility surrounds us like soft cotton wool. There’s no sound but the plunking of poles in the snow and the schussing of skis over the slushy snow. We follow the trail for 2-plus hours, and near the end it starts to rain, then snow then rain again. And then we come to a fork in the trail – and no sign to indicate which way is the end of the trail. Since I’m leadig the way, I maqke a guess, based on whast I think are sounds of cars, and head ihn that dire4ctiohn. Not 50 yards ahead, fortunately, is the parking lot – a good thing since we’re both wet and cold.
Feb. 14
We leave Durango for Monument Valley. I drive part of the distance - the road is straight and flat, almost monotonously so. We pass through Kayenta and 30 minutes later we are parked in a campground tucked between tall red sandstone walls. It’s a breathtaking location and we have the whole place almost to ourselves – there’s only one other occupant, a small silver airstream trailer.
Feb. 15
I am reading Desert Solitude by Edward Abbey, the ultra-environmentalist/ecoterrorist. In the early '70s, he wrote about his year as a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah, before it gained paved roads and flush toilets and became a national park. He is against making places like Arches auto-accessible, saying that if people want to see it they can walk. As for children and the elderly? Kids can wait till they’re old enough to appreciate the park’s wilderness on foot, and the aged should have seen it when they were younger and more spry . . . Abbey makes some legitimate points about the need to get out of the car to appreciate wild places on foot – but he is arrogant and selfish in his attitude about civilization, culture and the trappings of both – he freely uses the benefits of civilization and industrialism (his 4-wheel drive Jeep, beer, ice, etc.) to reach the backcountry of Glen Canyon, Canyonlands and other desert places, but doesn’t want anyone else to have the right to enjoy those benefits, apparently.
Feb. 16
Page, Arizona. There are a few clouds in a Wedgewood blue sky, and we decide to take a chance that it’s not going to rain. We make plans to rent a boat on Lake Powell. It’s a 19-foot outboard with a plastic "zip lock" enclosure. We fill out the forms, get loaded up and instructed fairly quickly and by 10:30 a.m. we’re on the lake – apparently the only boat on the lake. The water level is down 139 feet due to the drought, and below the surface of the water in some places we can see the tops of cliffs and spires that were covered when the Dam filled the canyon. Construction of Glen Canyon Dam years ago roused the ire of environmentalists (including Edward Abbey) – and rightly so; Glen Canyon was (and is) a treasure. But I must admit I’m enjoying cruising the lake, which is smooth as glass and peaceful – except for the noise of our outboard engine.
About 12:30, we look for a place to dock and have lunch. We’re near Gunsight Canyon, where we’ve been told there are sandy beaches. Spying a likely looking cove, Steve heads the boat toward it while I’m on the prow looking out into the water for submerged buttes and rocks. Suddenly, just below the water, I see a stairstepped shelf of sandstone. “Stop the boat” I yell to Steve. He of course can’t hear what I’m saying but he hears the urgency in my voice and cuts the engine. We realize this likely looking cove isn’t going to work, and slowly back out into more open – and safe- water. The second area we select has the same problem – submerged rocky cliffs – and finally, we head toward what appears to be – and is – a sandy beach, putt-putting along at a snail’s pace while I crouch on the front of the boat scanning the water for enemies of the propeller.
Our choice is a good one; the beach is sandy and secluded, and after pulling the boat safely ashore, we walk in bare feet to an inlet with a gently sloping sandstone ridge perfect for a picnic. The sun is shining, the air is crisp and there is no sound save the occasional raucous cawing of the ubiquitous raven and the gentle slopping of the water on the beach. After eating our lunch, we walk up the hill a short way, and take a picture of ourselves sitting on a rock on the top of the hill, and then head back to our boat. We want time to tour Navajo Canyon, and it’s 1:30 already; the boat must be back by 4 p.m.
We exit Gunsight Canyon carefully and then pick up speed across the mirror-surfaced water. The sky is starting to cloud up and we’re expecting it to rain, but within 30 minutes the clouds are scudding across the sky and the sun is shining brilliantly once again. We cruise Navajo Canyon on glassy water, admiring the clefts, cracks and ridges in the canyon walls that create a tapestry of color.
Feb. 17
We leave Page – sunny and bright – for Flagstaff, 2 hours away. Pull into Black Bart’s, an RV park in east Flagstaff. It used to be a nice place, but no more. It is not well-maintained; there’s trash strewn around and potholes abound. But this time of year the choices are limited, so we’ll stay here. We spend the afternoon running errands – going to the bank, buying a wedding gift for Megan and Matthew and a birthday gift for Maggie, and discovering I’ve left my Minolta 35mm camera and lenses in the boat at Wahweap Marina. A phone call confirms it’s there and they promise to mail it to us right away.
Next day, we drive to the Grand Canyon in the Jeep. The sky is overcast and dreary; the ground is soggy from overnight rain. The forecast at GC is 60% chance of snow or rain, 40 degree high temperature. But we go anyway. On Highway 89, the sky changes minute by minute from clouds to sunshine and back to cloudy again. We are going to the Grand Canyon by way of the east entrance in order to see the Little Colorado River Gorge on the way. I saw it years ago when I was 17 and remember it still.
We stop at a scenic overlook and discover that it is the first of several viewpoints for the Gorge. It is a deep zigzag slice in the earth through which winds the Colorado River far below. The walls are sheer in places and stairstepped in others, made up of layer upon layer of rock, cemented together by water and minerals over millions of years. Ilook down into the gorge and see where a massive chunk of rock has fallen cleanly away fro the cliff face below. It took eons for the cracks to develop in the rock, but probably only minutes one quiet day for the rectangular chunk to begin its noisy drop into the canyon, crashing and exploding into pieces as it fell.
At the second viewpoint, which is unfenced, I walk down to a lower “step” in the cliff to get a better view, and Steve chides me like an overcautious parent. He gets very nervous when I walk any closer than 5 feet from the edge.
Feb. 25
To Nogales, Mexico with Merritt and Crystal, Steve’s brother and his wife. Nogales is as I remembered it – small, cluttered, evidence of poverty everywhere – the old women on the sidewalk, begging, the children hawking chicle. But it’s also a resourceful town – the pharmacies alternate with the curio shops on every street, pushing cheap Viagra, celebrex, antibiotics and other drugs sought by los americanos for their low prices and no need of a prescription. We have fun bargaining for silver jewelry, cheap blankets and handpainted pots, enjoy an inexpensive lunch of flautas and beer before heading back to Tucson at 2 p.m.
March 1
We leave at 11 a.m. for Kartchner Caverns near Benson, AZ. We have a 3:40 p.m. tour, the only time available. We arrive at the visitor center about 1 p.m. and after seeing the video on the caverns and the informational displays, we drive over to the RV park. I suggest a hike; there’s a short 2.5 mile loop trail near the visitor center which I think will take about an hour or less. The trail goes through scrubby, shrubby desert along a dry wash. On the trail, we hike at a moderate pace, thinking we have plenty of tijme before our tour. After 30 minutes, we come to a marker that reads 1.5 and I tell Steve that’s for hikers coming from the other direction. But we speed up a little, until we come to a marker reading 1.0. We still have a mile left, we realize, and it’s 3:20. We’d better hurry, I say to Steve, breaking into a jog. He starts to pick up speed – it’s more difficult for him on the rocky, uneven trail because his shoes have no tread. We come to another trail marker - .5 – and we’re feeling like the trail is lengthening the faster we go. Then I look up; there’s a wash with a bridge over it, and a people-mover traihn is leaving the visitor center and crossing the bridge. Uh-oh, there goes our tour, I tell Steve. They wouldn’t leave before 3:40, he insists. Nevertheless he points to the rocky incline leading up to the visitor center pathway and says, Let’s take a shortcut. We climb up the short hill, pushing aside shrubs and tree branches, and head for the doors, gasping and panting. There’s a ranger standing inside the doors; we ask him if the 3:40 tour has left. Eyeing our red faces, he tells us we have plenty of time and advises us to get a drink, use the facilities and take a few deep breaths. As it turns out, our tour doesn’t leave until after 4, so we did have plenty of time and our desert jog was needless (but enjoyable, in my opinion!).
Kartchner Cverns is indeed a jewel – a small but elegant cave of multicolored formations, clustered, rippling, dripping and oozing from ceiling, walls and floor. The air in the cave is warm and humid – startlingly so after the cool outdoors – and it is not allowed to escape; a series of doors encloses it and us. It is much smaller than Carlsbad Caverns (which we will tour in a few days) but much more colorful, and more pristine; lessons have been learned from Carlsbad about the unintended impact of humans on an enclosed environment, and much greater care is being taken with Kartchner to avoid or minimize it.
March 2
We leave Kartchner Caverns State Park early in the morning. Our next destination is several hundred miles away - Carlsbad Caverns. On the way, we stop at Guadalupe National Prk, but after a tour of the small but informative visitor center, we head out – time won’t permit an extended visit, since this is primarily a backcountry park, requiring time and shoe leather to view. Too bad – it looks interesting, a desert/mountain terrain that’s little known and little visited by tourists, for the very reason that it can’t be seen by automobile. I can just see the sneer on Edward Abbey’s face!
We arrive at White’s City, 7 miles from Carlsbad, at 5 p.m. and I take Princess for a walk, happily discovering a desert trail leading up a small hill near our campground. I’m happy, Princess is not – she doesn’t like desert wilderness,fearing the stickers and cactus needles that seem to jump from plant or soil to her paws.
The next day, we get up early and drive to Carlsbad Caverns. We opt for 2 self-guided tours – the Natural Entrance, which is a steep 800-foot descent into the cave, and the Big Room. We discover an other-worldly magical kingdom that looks as though it was created by Disney animators. Over thousands of years, the steady drip of water has formed stalactites and stalagmites and other formations suggesting the toothy grin of a tiger, fairy castles, sand dunes, folds of fabric, popcorn cluster – the imagination can go riotous thinking up scenarios for what the eyes behold. The caverns themselves are unimaginably huge, filled with craters and crevices, lethal looking daggers hanging from the ceiling and graceful columns rising from the floor. Some are 20, 30, 40 feet high or more, others are squat and fat; some are smooth and beg to be touched (but it’s sternly forbidden) while others are crusted with rock jewels. We spend 3 hours wandering down and through the Caverns and when we leave we both agree that it was far more stunning and entrancing than either of us expected.