Nothing changes. 
Each day the same. 
Then one day you notice:  things have changed.

Wow, it's been a long time since we got together. I'll try to do better about posting. Here's an account of a trip I took the first weekend in May, 2011.

May 5

Jo and her friend Val are making an overnight trip to Phoenix, so I decide to pack up the truck and take a little trip to southern Nevada. I want to return to that remote place with strange rock formations, Little Finland, and, since Valley of Fire State Park is on the way, I want to stop there also. There is a campground at Valley of FIre. I called and asked the ranger if the campground was filling up this time of year, and he said that I probably could find a space if I arrived early. So I plan to leave early tomorrow. The trip should take about 11 or 12 hours. I get everything packed except for last-minute items and set the alarm for 5:00 am.

May 6

I'm out the door at 5:30 and, by 6, headed west on I-40 out of Albuquerque. Traffic is light this time of day, and I have the radio going for the feel-good atmosphere that music brings.

The main line of the BNSF railway parallels I-40 here, and several times an hour I see a 100-plus car combination headed east, flatbed cars double stacked with shipping containers or carrying ready-to-roll 53 foot semi trailers. As a teenager, I had a summer job unloading trucks and freight cars, so I have an idea just how much stuff you can put into one of those. It's impressive to see all of these goods heading east in a constant 24-7 stream from the ports of California into the American heartland. They started their journey in the factories of China, Japan, and other Asian nations, and are destined for Walmart, Target, and just about any mall store you could name. From there they go into our homes and offices, quality goods at low prices.

It occurs to me that this vast river of goods generates another huge but invisible river, a tide of US dollars flowing backwards to the west, into those Asian countries. Our balance of trade deficit runs about a billion and a half dollars a day. That's about one and a quarter million dollars every minute flying by my truck window and into the Bank of China's accounts. The Asians take the profits from this windfall and buy US Treasury Bonds, funneling the dollars back into the US, where through government spending they filter back down to you and me, which we use to go out and buy more Asian goods. Nice trick, huh? It helps Asia keep their people employed, it helps us purchase cheap and plentiful goods, and it helps our country finance and maintain its national debt. What's not to like about that? The dark side is that for many reasons this can't go on forever, and when it ends there will be misery and pain as the world adjusts to a new reality.

But for today, the party goes on.

I make it to Flagstaff in a little over five hours, to Kingman in seven. There I leave the Interstate for the drive up to the state line at Hoover Dam. Now that the new bridge is open there, it's a clear shot into Nevada. The first casino, the Hacienda, comes into view after a couple of miles. The big sign out front advertises Shrimp Cocktail for 99 cents. I'm not sure if this should be taken as enticement or warning. At any rate, I continue on.

Three miles into Nevada, I turn right onto Lakeshore Drive and head down to Lake Mead. This back road to Valley of FIre, which is about 50 miles away, keeps me from having to go through Las Vegas. Shortly I encounter a toll booth with a ranger, who says it will cost ten dollars to continue. This is a National Recreation Area. I say that I am just passing through and no recreation will be involved, and he says in that case it will be ten dollars. As I am fumbling with my wallet, he asks how old I am. When I tell him I man 69, he asks if I have a national parks Golden Age Passport. I show him mine, and he waves me through. This is a beautiful, scenic drive, and I stop a couple of places to take some photos.

I arrive at Valley of FIre State Park around 2:30 in the afternoon, ten hours after I left home. (I gained an hour by crossing time zones.) It costs ten dollars to enter and another ten to camp. I proceed to the campground, where there are lots of spaces. I find one across the road from the bathrooms (which have hot showers!) and put out a table and some jugs of water so latecomers will know that the site has been taken. Just as I finish filling out the deposit envelope, a man comes by in a truck and says that he will take it. I assume that he is a park ranger but later I wonder about that. I guess he really was.

Since I don't have a lot of time to explore, I bought an e-guide from the excellent German photographers, Isabel and Steffen Synnatschke. They know more about photographing the American Southwest than just about anybody. The guide comes with directions, GPS coordinates, and time-of-day information for photographing some of the lesser-known formations in the park.

First on my list is Windstone Arch, photographed by and on the cover of David Muench's  book Windstone. This is a small arch in a cave. The whole thing is only about two feet high and just a few feet long. I find the dirt loop road and proceed, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding my GPS unit. The coordinates aren't making sense, so I decide to go find something easier to locate and see if the guide's coordinates match mine.

I head up the aptly-named Scenic Drive to the end and then back to the last pull-out where I follow the directions to Fire Canyon Arch, which I find right where they said it would be. Unfortunately, the lighting is wrong for a good shot. Next I walk a few hundred yards down to Crazy Hill, where I get a pretty good shot of the palette of colors that seem to ring the hill. Then I return to the truck and walk down the road a few hundred yards, then leave the road and descend a steep hill to the east and find the Fire Wave a quarter of a mile away, again exactly where the guide put it. I set up and wait for sunset. My patience is rewarded with a fine shot here.

Then it's back to the campground. Along the way I try the dirt loop road again, looking for Windstone Arch. I realize that I have started at the wrong end of the road. Driving to the other end, the GPS coordinates look good and I get out and walk around a bit. The GPS will only get you to within 10 or 20 feet of a location. In this case, because the formation is so small and is inside a group of rocks with lots of caves, it took me a few more minutes, but after a while I found it. It was too dark to photograph, so I drove back to my campsite and retired for the night.

May 7

The alarm goes off before sunrise and I get up, splash some water on my face, quaff my Starbucks Doubleshot, and head out. Back at Windstone Arch I take some shots with the early light filtering in. There are many interesting formations in this area, and having a day or two to explore would probably be productive. But it's time for me to leave, so I take a quick trip back up Scenic Loop and shoot some of the colorful rocks. Then I return to the campsite, take a hot shower, pack up, and, driving west to I-15, leave for Little Finland.

The exit from I-15 north is at mile 112, but I continue on for ten more miles to get to the McDonald's in Mesquite. I want to use the Wi-Fi to check in. The distance from Mesquite to Little Finland is about 50 miles, and it takes at least an hour and a half. I drive back to exit 112, head east for a mile, cross the Virgin River, and then turned south on New Gold Butte Road. This road is paved for the first 20 miles, but the quality is not good and the road is not graded for fast travel. At Whitney Pockets, a pretty place with some nice rock formations, the pavement turns left but the road to Little Finland continues straight along well-graded dirt road. Just there, where I leave the pavement, I am surprised to come upon a caravan of 4WD vehicles, perhaps 20 of them lined up and ready to charge Weekend Warrior-style into the backcountry. I pass them all, grateful that I don't have to follow them down the next five miles of dirt road.

The sign for Devil's Throat marks the place to leave the dirt road and onto a double-track jeep trail that makes you glad you have a high-clearance vehicle. Devil's Throat is a huge sinkhole with a chain link fence around it, about a quarter of a mile down this double-track. But if you get there, you went too far. About a hundred yards before Devil's Throat, another double-track turns north and the going gets easier for a while. After about a mile it descends into a dry wash. Going up the dry wash, you pass a corral. Two miles further, the trail does a U-turn to the right and heads back up another wash. After 1.7 miles, the trail ends and you are there!

Nobody seems to know how this place got its name. It seems to have been discovered or at least made publicly known by the Synnatschkes. Little Finland sits on a rock shelf about 25 feet above the creek bed where I have parked. The area is about half a mile long, north to south, and a quarter of a mile wide.

To get up on the shelf, one can either walk up the stream bed, which gradually rises to the shelf, for a few hundred feet; or there is a steep climb up a 45 degree slope right there at the parking area. I usually elect the steep climb. This wouldn't be remarkable for a younger person with a normal sense of balance, but for me it is a challenge and I am always grateful when I make it without slipping or skinning a knee or elbow. I find the climb down to be somewhat more unnerving than the upward climb because you can't see the foot placements.

So I take my camera bag and tripod and am off to shoot some pictures. Little Finland is primarily a late-afternoon location. Hills to the east block the rising sun. At other times during the day, the rocks appear more brown than red, and the shadows on a sunny day make shooting unproductive. Along the way I make three shaky videos.

It is mid-day and warming up. The temperature will eventually top out at 97 degrees. After exploring for a while, I return and sit in my folding chair in the shade of the truck. Around 5 pm, a black Toyota Tundra pulls up and a fellow gets out and asks me if I will be spending the night. He says that they are going to park on a hill about a mile to the north and shoot some time-lapse astrophotography, using remote-controlled, motorized cameras on rails. He says that the moon will set around 10 pm and the milky way will rise shortly afterward. I was planning to shoot some night photography stills using my flash and a flashlight, coupled with a long exposure to get the stars. I tell him my plan and that I will try not to interfere with their work. He says that they will work around me, and leaves. I later learn that this was Tom Lowe, an amazing time-lapse videographer. You can see one of his productions here.

Near sunset, I climb up again and shoot the rocks in the red glow. I can see the astrophotographers, so that means that they can see me. I try to stay out of direct line-of-sight. I get a few good shots of textures in the rock and find a small formation that reminds me of Atlas, the Greek Titan holding up the Universe on his shoulders. After sunset, I wait around for the stars to come out. Eventually I get tired of waiting and head back to the truck. When I get home, I use Photoshop to make a picture like one that I was hoping to get in the dark.

May 8

Up again before dawn, I climb up for one more chance to get some good shots. The astro guys are still there as the sun rises. There are a few low clouds in the west, but they never get much coloration. After shooting for an hour, I pack it up and head the truck out. About 12 hours later, I reach Albuquerque. It's Mother's Day so I stop at Walgreens and find a card and some candy for Jo.

All told, it was a pretty good trip. The odometer says I went 1,500 miles.

Bisti Alternate Entrance by snowpeak at Garmin Connect - Details

This is my GPS track for a trek in the Bisti north. Entrance point is on the left.

GPS coords:

Turtle, near the little curlique that drops down in the middle.

36 deg 16' 38.73" N
108 deg 14' 23.28"W

Wings, near where the right and left wings come together.

36 deg 16' 43.03" N
108 deg 14' 14.49" W

Sometimes, out on the road near the beginning of a journey, I experience a pleasant feeling of lightness, of peace in the gut, a feeling that something good is about to happen. The pressure of packing, of running around and having to remember what to take, glancing at the clock continually, is past. Now everything has been done, and the journey is underway -- new vistas to see, new places to explore.

This was how I felt on Wednesday, September 22, headed west on I-40, my Tundra's engine purring with contentment. Almost 100,000 miles and it runs like new, my home away from home, though there would be no camping on this trip. I was heading to Flagstaff to pick up Jim and Walter for a four-day trip through northern Arizona and New Mexico. Into Arizona, I encountered several heavy rain squalls. This was potentially bad news. Although it was supposed to clear overnight, I was worried about flooding and road conditions in the canyons we wanted to visit.

I reached Flagstaff with a couple of hours to spare, so I turned south on I-17 and headed for Sedona. I wanted to check out Cathedral Rock, a formation I want to photograph some day. I found the trailhead but didn't stop because I didn't have time to go far and there was a $5.00 parking fee. So I turned around there and retraced my path to the Flagstaff airport. The plane arrived on time and, in spite of several transfers, so did Jim, Walter, and their luggage.

We loaded up the truck and headed north to Tuba City, where we would meet Federica and her nephew Francesco, visiting from Italy. Federica likes to travel and take photos, and she has been to the southwestern U. S. many times. Jim met her on flickr, and she became my friend also through mutual admiration of our photos on that site. We were due to meet them at the Quality Inn Navajo Nation at 8:30 that evening. The three of us stopped once along the way to photograph a majestic sunset.

A word about time: Arizona doesn't recognize daylight savings time, so the state, which is synced timewise with New Mexico during the winter, goes with California time the rest of the year. So I had duly set my watch back an hour once I crossed into Arizona. What I had forgotten was that the Navajo Nation in Arizona does honor DST, so while my watch was now correct for Arizona, it was an hour behind Navajo time. And since Tuba City is on Navajo land, that made things confusing. Especially when I called the front desk later to arrange for a wakeup call.

We arrived at the motel pretty much on time and found our Italian friends in the motel restaurant. Federica gave us nice photo books about her region of Italy. We discussed what we would do the next day. We considered getting up early to drive out to Ha Ho No Geh canyon for the sunrise, but Federica, who had been on the road for ten days already, decided not to go with us.

I asked the front desk for a 4 am wake-up call but later (thankfully) realized that this would really be 3 am Arizona time and rescheduled the call for 5 am Navajo time. Confused yet???

The three of us left Tuba City in the dark for the hour-long ride to the canyon, which is one of several loosely referred to as "Coal Mine Canyon". The ride turned out to be more like half an hour. Ha Ho No Geh is, to me, the most beautiful place we visited. The canyon walls are striped with bands of red and black, and there are rock formations of several shades and textures. We set up and shot the sunrise and moonset. Then we returned to Tuba City for breakfast, where we linked up with Federica and Francesco. We stopped at Subway to get some sandwiches for the cooler. Then they followed us in their AWD rental SUV out to the turnoff to Blue Canyon, just past mile 355 on highway 264. The 13 miles of dirt road were dry and easy-going. This road, BIA 7, goes from the 264 turnoff through Blue Canyon to Tonalea. Blue canyon is about midway along the road. I was familiar with the road up to the canyon but had never been much farther.

As we approached the canyon, the road descended at a steep angle to the bottom. When we reached the Moenkopi Wash, at the bottom, my heart sank. The wash, which usually is dry or only has a trickle, was running fast with water about 30 feet wide and two feet deep. Occasionally a pulse that lasted a few seconds would come down the wash, and the water would momentarily get faster and deeper. We were only half a mile away from our destination, but I wasn't about to try to cross this. Federica suggested that we walk across. As we were all shaking our heads and mumbling "Not a good idea", she grabbed her trekking poles and walked across. Then she walked back. Still we were unwilling. The mud in these washes is quite slippery, and if you fall, you won't be able to get up because there's nothing to grab onto. So you could be swept away and end up with broken bones or worse, depending on what lay around the bend.

After a few minutes of indecision, we decided to retrace our path and drive up to Tonalea, and try the approach from the north. Federica led us back to the pavement, driving about twice as fast down the dirt road as we did going in. When we reached the pavement, she stopped. I pulled up, rolled down the window, and shouted "You drive like an Italian!" Then I led as we drove back to Tuba CIty, gassed up, and went on up US 160 to Tonalea.

Having looked at the map, I thought that it might be hard to find the road from Tonalea, because there are numerous short, interconnecting roads that make it hard to know where to turn. We used Walter's and Francesco's GPS maps but still, after about an hour's drive to get to Tonalea, it took us another hour to find the road. After that, there was one dicey place but we made it across and finally reached Blue Canyon.

We spent several hours taking pictures. Federica wanted to leave around 5 pm because she was due in Las Vegas the next night. We drove back to be sure that they got over the dicey place and bade them farewell; then the three of us returned to the canyon to shoot the sunset and get some star shots using the light of the full moon for illumination. On the way back to Tuba City, I got something in my eye and had to remove one of my contacts, so Jim drove the last 20 miles for us.

The next morning we checked out of the motel and headed for the Bisti, in New Mexico, south of Farmington. We were going to stop for a few minutes at Coal Mine Canyon but I forgot, and by the time Walter reminded me, it was too far to turn around. It took us most of the day to get to the Bisti. We drove east on 264 to Window Rock, then Gallup, I-40 to Thoreau, and 371 through Crownpoint to the Point of Interest sign around mile 75. There we turned right and went south on a dirt road for about four miles. Just after leaving the pavement, there is a big sign saying "No Bisti Access", but we know better!

Bisti can conveniently be divided into northern and southern parts. Although it is all the same place, a series of hills and gullies makes it hard to take a north-south route. (The De-Na-Zhin part of Bisti is about fifteen miles away from the main part, and that's not the part I'm writing about here.) Our plan was to drive directly to the north entrance and walk in for some sunset shots, then go to Farmington for the night and return the next day to do the south part.

As we prepared to hike in, I put fresh batteries in my GPS unit. We would be out there after dark and it is easy to get lost. Then we stepped over a low place in the fence and walked east for a mile or two to the stone wings formation. After taking some pictures there, with the sun sinking in the west, we decided to find the turtles formation for some sunset and moonrise shots. Just then, my GPS gave a low battery warning. Apparently the batteries I had inserted had been in the truck too long and were not as fresh as I had thought. At this point, it seemed best to head back to the truck while there was still daylight. So we did that and took the 40 minute drive to Farmington and the Quality Courts motel.

We decided to rise early and get back to Bisti early, around sunrise. McDonald's opens at 5 am so we decided to be there to pick up breakfast and eat it along the way. We drove back down 371 to the "real" Bisti entrance, near mile 69. From the parking lot, we hiked east for almost two miles to the small stone arch and the cracked eggs formations. After spending some time there, we went back to the southwest to see some hoodoos. Then we went back to the arch and eggs area for some more shots. I wanted to get the moon setting in the arch, but Jim said that the moon wouldn't look very good that low in the sky. He was right. So I photoshopped it later.

Then, around midday, we hiked back to the truck and drove back to Thoreau, then to Albuquerque, arriving home in Placitas late in the afternoon. Jo had some home-cooked chicken vegetable soup for us. That night we sat around working on our pictures and putting some on flickr. Early the next morning, I took Jim and Walter to the airport for their return trip to South Carolina.

Saturday night the air conditioner broke. On a weekend of course. The truck was already packed, of course. Sunday morning I called the weekend emergency service number. The technician told me that he would come out for $250 but if it needed a part he couldn't fix it because the parts department was closed for the weekend. I told him no thanks. Jo, bless her heart, said she would deal with it and told me to go.

Down SR550 through Cuba and Bloomfield, then on US64 through Farmington and Shiprock, I reached Arizona in four hours. Then it was north on US191 through Bluff, Blanding, and Monticello, to Moab. Past Moab, I took Utah highway 313 into the Islands in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park, finally arriving at the the Willow Flat campground after eight hours of driving. It had been unexpectedly cloudy all day with intermittent rain. It looked like it might rain some more, so I hastily put up the big tent. (I sleep in the truck and the tent is my living room.)

Just before entering the park, I saw fields of sunflowers, yellow out to the horizon. I drove back to shoot them. Then I went to Mesa Arch, which is about two miles from the campground. I had shot this before, with Jim and Walter. It is usually a sunrise show but I wanted to see if the almost full moon would make a nice evening shot. It didn't appear promising, so I drove out to Green River Overlook, also near the campground, for sunset/moonrise. The canyon air was quite hazy the whole time I was there, so I tried to take advantage of that by attempting to capture the streaming shadows that occurred when the sun was low in the sky. When darkness came, I drove back to the campground.

The next day, Monday, August 23, I rose at 5:45 and drove over to Mesa Arch for the sunrise. Usually there's a crowd there, but on that morning there was only one couple, from Albuquerque as it turns out. I spent about an hour shooting what I thought would be disappointing shots, but they turned out fairly well. Then I drove back and took some more shots of the sunflowers and headed into Moab for a wireless connection at McDonald's. On the way back I took the Shafer trail road down into the canyon. It was slow going down this winding, bumpy jeep road. Near the bottom I came to a washed out place and decided to turn around.

That afternoon I hiked up the short trail to Upheaval Dome. It didn't look promising for photos, so I got back in the truck and drove over to Dead Horse Point State Park for the sunset/moonrise. I got some decent shots there and tried my hand at star shots after the sun had set, with moonlight providing the illumination in the canyon.

On Tuesday I got up again at 5:45. There were already five cars in the Mesa Arch parking lot, so I just kept on going out to Grand View Point for the sunrise/moonset.

That afternoon I drove out to Arches National Park and did some hiking. First I went up the trail to Double O arch, a round trip of 5.4 miles with several side trips to other arches. Then I took a nap in the truck until about 6 o'clock, when I started up the trail to Delicate Arch. This 1.5 mile trail is steep in places -- the elevation gain is almost 500 feet -- and I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top. There was a crowd of abut 100 people waiting for sunset. People would take turns standing under the arch getting their pictures taken, much to the consternation of the photographers wanting to get a clean shot of the arch. As sunset approached, someone shouted "Give the photographers five minutes!" and the arch was people-free until after sunset. So it worked out just fine.

I don't understand why people want pictures of themselves. I just don't get it. Earlier in the day, at Navajo Arch, there was a couple sitting under the arch when I got there. The man offered to take a picture of me under the arch. I said, not very tactfully, that I didn't want a picture of me under the arch -- I wanted a picture of the arch itself. So they left and I took the shot.

The next morning I packed up all my stuff and headed home, arriving back in Placitas around 5:30 to a nice, cool, air-conditioned home.

TIP: If you're out in the middle of nowhere and need a wireless connection, find a bus. I was outside the visitor center at Arches and turned on the laptop, thinking the the visitor center might have a wireless network. To my surprise, I found a ********* network that let me connect. I noticed the bus about 50 feet away. (I don't put the name here because I don't want to hear from their lawyers, but it's a major bus line.) So I was browsing away when, right in mid-surf, the bus drove away. Connectus interruptus!

In keeping with my current whimsical bent, I propose the question: Why are clouds so fluffy on the top and flat on the bottom?



Answer:

The fluffy part on top is due to the sun shining down from above, heating the top of the cloud. This causes the air to expand as it heats. This less-dense air pushes up against the colder air on top, causing turbulent mixing as it rises.

The flat part on the bottom is harder to explain. My best guess is that the interface where the temperature decreases below the dew point and causes water vapor to condense in the air (thus forming the cloud) is a horizontal layer because the temperature and pressure gradients are vertical. (Pressure and temperature both decrease as you go higher.) Since the gradients are more or less vertical, surfaces of constant temperature and pressure must be more or less horizontal. So this horizontal layer continually generates new cloud as the air rises through it.

Or, maybe it's just an optical illusion and the lower surface isn't as flat as it appears.

Epiphany at WalMart: They are selling eight-packs of Fruit of the Looms for $6.99. For way less than the cost of a Starbucks I can wear brand new underwear every day!

Art and Joe, two guys from the camera club, and I set out last Saturday for a photo trip. It was Art's idea to go to Toroweap and hike down to Lava Falls. Then Joe joined the group and suggested that we go to White Pocket. Art wanted to shoot some rafts going down Lava Falls because he was going on a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon this week. Eventually we decided that we would go to Toroweap, then  on to White Pocket. We would help Art get back for his rafting trip after one night at White Pocket, and Joe and I would return for another night or two.

So we set out on Saturday morning, my truck carrying Joe, me, and all our stuff, with Art in his truck. We were headed to Marble Canyon, which is near Lee's Ferry, where the rafts put in to the river. We had reservations at the Marble Canyon Lodge. We had plenty of time so we decided to head for the north rim before checking in at the lodge. We got to Port Royal in time for the sunset. There was some haze in the canyon, which provided nice streaks in the sunlight as it filtered around the rocks. Then it was on to Marble Canyon for the night.

The next morning we started out for Toroweap. Past Fredonia, we headed south down 61 miles of dirt road that got progressively more bumpy as we went. We arrived at Toroweap in the afternoon and set up for afternoon and sunset shots. We had decided that the hike down to Lave Falls wouldn't be advisable due the heat and difficulty of the trail. Then we set up camp, Art and I sleeping in our trucks and Joe in his tent. We were up at about 4:30 to shoot the sunrise, then we packed up and left for White Pocket.

Retracing our path, we turned north on House Rock Road about 30 miles west of Marble Canyon. After a few miles on this well-maintained dirt road, we turned east on Corral Valley Road and then north to Poverty Flat. At this point the road becomes a sandy double track where four-wheel drive is required. At Poverty Flat we turned and went generally northeast along an even more difficult road, which eventually ended at the White Pocket parking area. It was truly the end of the road. Nobody else was there. It was hot.

We did some hiking around the area and took some sunset shots, then we camped as before. Before sunrise we awoke and went out for sunrise shots. Then we decided to walk around a bit. We had to take Art back to Marble canyon for his rafting trip later in the day, but there was no hurry.

So I set out on my own, hiking generally northward and then to the west. I was making a loop around the two big mesas in a counterclockwise fashion. I kept seeing interesting features just a little bit farther away. Soon I realized that I had been out for two hours and turned to go back. My water was running out and I knew that the guys would soon be worried about me. So I turned south with the idea of eventually going east to complete the loop.

I turned back east with about a mile to go (I had my GPS with me) and came up to a cliff. It turns out that I had turned a few hundred yards too soon. As I wandered around looking for a way down I started to get very tired. Finally I found a place where I could slide down. Then I had to climb up a sand dune that was almost at the angle of repose. Due to the steepness and slipping of the sand, the only way I could make progress was to crawl. I was getting seriously spastic and began to wonder if I would need help.

Just after I got to the top of the dune, with half a mile to go, I heard the guys calling for me. Soon I spotted them. I got some water from Art and trudged back to the trucks, where I devoured two cold apples from the cooler, had some sports gel that Art offered, and drank an Ensure and about half a gallon of water. I also took two salt pills. Then we packed up the trucks and left.

Joe and I decided that we had had enough fun and it was time to go home. I got some hand cramps as we drove out, probably due to an electrolyte imbalance.

We left Art at Marble Canyon, and Joe and I drove my truck back home. I arrived around midnight.

To get a glimpse into my life, consider this list, in no particular order, of the periodicals I get:

  The Atlantic
  Scientific American
  Science News
  American Scientist
  National Geographic
  Outside
  Backpacker
  Wired
  Running Times
  TrailRunner
  QST
  Ultrarunning
  Consumer Reports

Also I get The Wall Street Journal online and, until they quit delivering it out here, Investor's Business Daily. I buy Outdoor Photographer and other photography magazines at the local Barnes and Noble, as well as occasional magazines covering Photoshop. 

Online I read the comic strip XKCD and The Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, and the Motley Fool Mechanical Investing Board. Occasionally I will browse The New York Times web page.
Daily I (vainly) look at my flickr page to see who's been there as well as my photo site and this blog.

All of this probably gives you as much insight into who I am as anything else I could write. Lately I find myself not getting through the science publications but anticipating the outdoor and photography mags. And I always read The Atlantic from cover to cover as soon as it arrives.

The sunblock could have stayed home. And, for the most part, the cell phone too. But the poncho sure came in handy. This is the Olympic Peninsula, home of the fabled Sasquatch, about as far west as you can go in the Continental U.S.. Out here the word "Sunny" has a whole different meaning. If it isn't raining or raining hard, it's sunny. I wonder what they call it when you can actually see the sun. Maybe it hasn't happened yet.

Jo and I flew to Portland, OR, and drove out to the beach at Seaside, where we spent two nights. Then we drove back to Astoria, where we met her cousin Rosemary and husband Dale. They took us to the Columbia River Maritime Museum and then out to supper. Later we drove out to the south jetty at the mouth of the Columbia for sunset. There was a wooden platform from which you could see the waves crashing on the west wall of the jetty. After Rosemary and Dale left, I walked north a few hundred yards and climbed up the rocks to stand on top of the jetty in order to get some better shots. I found a nice flat dry rock to stand on right above the crashing waves, reasoning that I would be safe since the rock was dry. Busily taking photos, I didn't notice the large wave approaching until the spray had climbed over my head. At the last second I took a shot as the water hit me. Yep, the sea is still salty. I wiped off the camera and took a few more pics before retreating.

I took Jo to a shopping center near the hotel where she would meet her sister Carol and set off on my own, bound for Moclips, WA, on the coast. State Road 109 takes you out from Aberdeen. I checked into Rm 109 at the Ocean Crest Motel, a place the Internet hasn't found yet. I got back into the Jeep and continued north on 109 for a few more miles. The road ends at Taholah, on the south end of the Quinault Indian Reservation.

The next morning I drove back to US 101 and headed north for the rain forest. After turning inland to skirt the reservation, 101 heads back to the coast, which is part of the Olympic National Park and thus not heavily populated. The shore is studded with cliffs and big rocks out in the surf. I stopped a few places for short walks on the strand.

After a few miles, 101 heads back inland. Eventually I reached the turnoff, Upper Hoh Road, that heads east for about 15 miles. I stopped at the Hard Rain Cafe for a grilled cheese and ham sandwich. The parking lot at the rain forest visitor center had lots of vehicles. I put on my gore-tex and then the poncho, using a gore-tex hat to cover the camera, and took off on the trails around the center. After about a hundred feet I didn't see many people. The rain was intermittent. The sun actually came out for a few seconds once or twice. Here's a typical picture I took.

Late in the afternoon I drove back to 101 and up to the town of Forks, where I had a chocolate shake at JT's Sweet Stuffs.

On the way back to Moclips I stopped at Ruby Beach. I walked south along the shore for about a mile to where a rock juts out to meet the surf. Wanting to see what was on the other side, I waited until a lull in the tide and tried to walk around the rock. Just as I got out to the point, a big wave came along and knocked me off my feet. I banged both knees on a submerged rock but managed to keep the camera dry. Having had enough adventure, I turned back. As I approached the big rocks near the parking area, the sun was setting and I got this shot, perhaps the best capture on the trip. It was not until I got back to Moclips that I saw the two people on the rock.

Sometimes you find the picture. Sometimes it finds you.

The sign said "Gusty winds may exist". Ontology on the freeway. I am riding the wind with the Valkyries, Wagner in the CD, exuberant and alive today. Hiyohoto!

This trip will take me to Coal Mine Canyon and back to Blue Canyon. I try a different route, exiting I-40 at Gallup and heading north on US 491. Suddenly the right-of-way is filled with people trying to hitch a ride, waving money as enticement. Individuals, old couples, a string of 20 or 30 spaced out along the highway. I have no room; the truck is packed.

After a few miles I turn west at Yah-ta-hey and head toward Window Rock, home of the Navajo Nation, on SR 264. This road will take me all the way to Tuba City, AZ, where I am supposed to meet Lucy, who works at the Cameron Visitor Center. It is closed today, on a weekend, but Lucy has offered to meet me in Tuba City with my permit for Coal Mine Canyon.

But first I stop at the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa and check in at the motel. It is 65 more miles to Tuba City. I am early because I forgot that Arizona doesn't participate in DST. As I enter Tuba City, I call Lucy on the cell phone. No answer. So I stop at McDonald's and try to space out my chicken nuggets to pass the time. After about an hour and no Lucy, I reluctantly start the twenty mile drive back to Coal Mine Canyon. I have decided that I will take a chance and at least drive up to the rim if possible. I will mail the permit fee to Lucy when I get back home. Just after turning off the pavement, my cell phone rings. It is Lucy, who apologizes that she was working in the yard and missed my calls. She offers to drive out to my location with the permit. After we hang up, I realize that "my location" is a somewhat vague term. I try calling her back but get no answer. I start driving around looking for a good place to wait. There is a big windmill and I stop there for a few minutes. Then I get anxious and decide to drive back toward Tuba City until I get a good phone signal. After a few miles I decide that this isn't the best plan, so I turn around and head back to the windmill. Just before I get there, I see a pickup truck ahead of me on the narrow double-track. I pull up behind, and there is Lucy with her daughter. I hand over the money to Lucy, trying to express my heartfelt gratitude for her effort, and then they drive off.

The sky is overcast and the light soft, not the best for highlighting the intricate structures in the canyon, but I take some shots anyway. Then I drive back east a few miles along 264 to another narrow road that I had noticed. There are several canyons here that feed into a branch of the Moenkopi Wash, and technically I'm not sure if this is still Coal Mine Canyon. But the views are great. You can see the seam of coal about three feet wide just at the top level of the rim. There are pink bands and ghostly white spires. After the sun set, I drove back to the motel in the dark listening to Garrison Keillor on Arizona Public Radio.

The next morning, I headed back west on 264 but turned off before reaching Coal Mine Canyon onto an unmarked dirt road. A bit over 13 miles later, the road descends into Blue Canyon. After crossing the Moenkopi Wash, I find tire tracks leading off to the east and follow them for a couple of miles until they end at another wash. This is truly the End of the Road (TM). I dismount and walk for a couple of miles. Then it's back to the truck, retracing my drive to the dirt road where most of the photo-worthy locations are. After about an hour of snapping photos, I decide to drive back to Coal Mine Canyon for the sunset.

But I go all the way to Tuba City first to fill up the truck. I had half a tank, but gas stations can be 100 miles apart out here, and I feel better with a full tank. Then it's back down the dirt road and waiting for the sunset. It was worth the wait. I got this shot.

I spent most of the drive back to the motel in silence, happy that I had seen these sights and taken some good pictures. When I got the permit from Lucy, I asked her whether there were any more nice places that I could visit for photographs. She thought for a moment and said, "It's all beautiful."

Rhinegold.

Leaving Albuquerque, I imagine my Tundra as a white corpuscle washed out of the heart, moving westward along the artery of I-40. Past Grants, Gallup, branching at Holbrook. Onward I go on a narrower road to Show Low, across Salt River, Globe, Superior. Then another turn onto a dirt road, slowing down through this constricted passage. And another turn, then a path. Finally, my favorite place again -- the End of the Road. Another road, another place. Flowers in the desert, cacti, sun setting behind jagged peaks. Full moon. Beauty all around. Peace has no name, joy no boundary. But I know them both.

Earlier this week I went back to the Bisti for an overnight trip. Armed with detailed maps from brother Jim, I was hopeful that I could find some of the rock formations that I missed last time. The maps had GPS coordinates for some of the places. I also wanted to be there for sunset and sunrise the next day, so I left around noon for the trip up US 550 to the turnoff at the Huerfano Trading Post. The dirt road was in good shape. This road has many side roads branching off, and the signage could be better. Even though I had taken this route just a few days ago, I missed a turn and drove about ten extra miles.

When I got to the Bisti parking lot, there was a German woman just leaving. She was the only person I would see out there. She told me about the "alternate" entrance, which requires taking another road. I told her that I was coming back in the morning and would try it. Actually, the "alternate" parking area was waypointed in my GPS unit. I had found it on Jim's maps, which (coincidentally?) came from Germany.

So, around 4 pm I set out for the "cracked eggs". Sunset would be around 7:20, so I had lots of time. It was a cool but pleasant day and not very muddy. I was carrying my photo equipment in a new backpack that I bought from Calumet. Along with snacks, water, and other stuff I guess it weighed about 30 pounds. (Fowler's Law states that your age plus the amount you can carry equals 100.) I covered the mile and a half to the cracked eggs in about an hour. I took a few shots and then wandered around the area, walking up several canyons and taking some pics, waiting for the sun to set.

After sunset the light got very soft and I got what I came for. Soon it was getting dark and I decided to head back. I had my GPS and could follow my track back to the truck. But it was then that I noticed that (a) I had tracking turned off, and (b) I hadn't waypointed the place where I parked the truck. But I did have some other places marked on the GPS. And I knew that if I headed west I would eventually reach the dirt road.

(I have just read Atul Gawande's new book, The Checklist Manifesto, and this is an excellent example of where one would have been appropriate.)

So I set out. It was a new moon, and I could see the barest crescent against the western horizon. And then it got dark. Very dark. I did have a small flashlight, but the going was slow. The topography of the Bisti is basically flat by topo map standards, where the contour interval is 40 feet. But there are lots of little gullies in the six inch to ten foot range. And there are areas with numerous steep hills up to maybe 50 feet high. These hills are intermingled with many sinuous washes. Once you get into a wash, you never know if you will reach a dead end and have to backtrack. It's bad enough in the daylight. But persistence paid off in this instance, and I got back to the truck without serious injury.

I drove on to Farmington and got a room at the Quality Inn. Setting my alarm for 5 am, I dozed off.

I left at 5:30 the next morning and drove down SR 371 looking for the turnoff to the "alternate parking" area. Soon after turning onto this dirt road, there in the darkness was a big sign that said "No Bisti Access". But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, I had the place waypointed. Turning on the GPS, I watched as I drove on. And found it at the very end of the road.

I stepped over the fence and, in the darkness, turned on the GPS tracking.

Having a position on your GPS and actually finding the place are two different things. I wandered up and down several gullies that were too shallow to show up on the topo map but too steep to climb. Eventually I came to a nice place and got out the camera for a sunrise pic. Then I wandered around for a few hours and eventually found all of the places I had marked. Then I headed back to the truck and returned to Farmington just before noon.

On the way out, I saw a cow skull with a black hat hanging on a fence post.

Sixty years ago, when I was a boy, I would go to the Saturday matinee at the theater where, for 10 cents, you could see a cartoon followed by the next installment of a never-ending serial, where the hero was always left hanging off a cliff by his fingers, and then a cowboy feature movie. The Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers would often chase the desperadoes into the Badlands, a fantastic and fearful place of rock spires and ledges where a cowboy could get lost forever. Last week I went there.

To quote from the BLM Web site, "The 38,305-acre Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a remote desolate area of steeply eroded badlands which offers some of the most unusual scenery found in the Four Corners region." This area is located in the northwest part of New Mexico, about 30 miles south of Farmington. From Placitas, the quickest way there is to take US 550 northwest for about 140 miles, turning left onto a dirt road at the Huerfano Trading Post. This is not far from Chaco Canyon, so I was a little concerned about the condition of the road (See "Slide Trip", two posts below.), but the road wasn't bad. This is oil and gas country and the first few miles were shared with trucks of various sizes going to or from the rigs. 

After about ten miles, there is a signed turnout for the De-Na-Zin part of Bisti. I parked the truck there and headed north on a foot trail that descended into a wash after about a quarter of a mile. There was some water in the wash, but it was frozen and the footing wasn't bad. I followed the wash westward for a mile or two and then turned around. By the time I got back, the ice was melting and there were some soft places, so my shoes got a little muddy -- but it wasn't bad.

Back in the truck, I continued west down the dirt road for another ten miles until it intersected SR 371 out of Farmington. I turned north and drove about seven miles to the signed turnoff for the Bisti, east down a dirt road for a couple of miles, and then north on Indian Service Route 7000 for a mile to the signed parking area.

I had read up on the place before going and knew that there were no formal trails, but there were supposed to be "social trails" made by previous hikers that you could follow. All I saw was lots of deer tracks going every which way. So I struck out in a generally southeast direction. I walked around more or less aimlessly for about four hours, taking some pictures that you can see on flickr. From looking at others' photos, there were several formations that I wanted to see, but I couldn't find them. (I now have an annotated map, thanks to Brother Jim, so when I return I should have better luck.) Nevertheless, the place was a wonderland of strange rock formations, petrified wood, hills, and gullies.

After about four hours of wandering around, I returned to the truck and drove home. I took a different way back, going south on SR 371 to Thoreau and then east on I-40 to Albuquerque.

If you go to the Bisti, I highly recommend having a GPS devce. It's real easy to get lost out there among the desperadoes!

Whenever somebody asks me whom I am pulling for in the Super Bowl, I usually mumble something about not knowing who's playing. I do enjoy watching the amazing display of athletic skill, willpower, and strength, and the commercials are always worth the anticipation, but I have no team allegiance. I suspect that if the finances were right, most of the athletes would switch teams in a heartbeat. This is, after all, their job. But in spite of such cynicism, I do have a favorite. Every year I pull for the pre-game flyover!

Probably over a decade ago, I was watching a pre-game Superbowl telecast as, during the National Anthem, the camera panned up to the sky and followed the incoming jets as they grew from mere dots on the horizon to seeming to fill the sky above the stadium as the last words of the anthem subsided. Boom! I have written about this moment before. It was a thrilling, chilling feeling suddenly to realize the sheer amount of work and split-second timing that went into this precise and therefore perfect moment, which came and passed so swiftly.

This year I was a bit disappointed. The jets seemed to be a couple of seconds late and looked tiny in the sky. Probably they didn't want to scare anybody on the ground by flying them lower. And when the Star Spangled Banner is sung a capella, as it was this year, it makes it hard on the director to know minutes in advance just when the climactic moment will occur.

Speaking of directors, I would be content just to watch the director work, perhaps in a box in the corner of the screen. In my imagination he is a fat man with a five-day beard sitting in a dark trailer in front of about 30 monitors carrying live feeds from the stadium cameras plus all of the replay feeds and analysis graphics. For four hours he sits there and says things like "Ready 3, ready six, go 5, and ... 6, and ... 1"; bam, bam, bam! All the while the announcers are speaking into one of his ears and the special effects people are speaking to each other in his other ear. And out of all this chaos comes a continuous stream that appears seamless and unremarkable.

I admire anything that is the best in the world. Quarterback, safe cracker, NASCAR pit crew, it doesn't matter.

Brilliant in their singular beauty, steering this instant, beating back the blandness of mediocrity, balanced on the knife edge of the spectacular moment -- the geek in me salutes them all!

Yesterday I filled up the truck and set out on the 140 mile trip to Chaco Canyon (OK, Chaco Culture National Historical Park). I was on schedule to get there before noon. But the last 13 miles are unpaved, and it was a long slog on slick mud. On the last hill, a truck was blocking the road and I waited for 20 minutes while the driver installed his tire chains. (Got to get me some of them.) At the Park entrance, the road becomes paved again, which is probably why the natives chose to live there :-).

There was nice blue sky with interesting clouds to the south, but overcast weather was moving in from the northwest. I did get a few nice shots, though, which you can see on flickr. I left around 3:00 for the drive back and, you guessed it, just before getting back to the pavement, I came up behind another stuck semi. This one took 30 minutes to get going. One impatient pickup driver tried to go around and he got stuck, so they had to pull him out too. Probably wasn't the smartest thing to be out there.

But it was fun!

Jim came out last week and we took a drive down to White Sands National Monument. We spent two nights in nearby Alamogordo, driving the 15 miles out to the monument for sunrise and sunset shots. We got some good pictures. You can see some of mine on flickr. Then we drove up to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to photograph the geese and cranes. We had a wonderful sunset on Saturday night, but the sunrise on Sunday occurred in the clouds and was a disappointment.

Overall, though, we were very pleased with the pictures we got. It was nice to see little brother again and spend some time with him.

Last week Jo and I drove to the Phoenix area to visit the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. We stayed in nearby Fountain Hills. The reason for the visit was that Jo's recent bone density tests had left her with some unanswered questions, and she found the answers from local doctors to be insufficient. So we took the 500-mile drive and spent six days on the trip. Jo had an initial appointment with an endocrinologist on Monday and after that she scheduled two followup appointments, on Tuesday with a nutritionist and on Thursday with a dermatologist.

Our experience there was unprecedented for a visit to a medical facility. Without exception, interactions with the staff were pleasant, focused, and timely. If you have an appointment at 9, you will be seen at 9 -- no waiting for 45 minutes to see the nurse and then an hour for the doctor to arrive! The efficiency there was astonishing, and it was not gained at the expense of the relationship with the patient. There was no rushed feeling whatsoever. The examining rooms were pleasantly decorated. All records are kept electronically, so there was no shuffling through a stack of paperwork to find some data.

It was all just very pleasant. The waiting areas were large and well lit by outside sunlight. The chairs were comfortable. Artwork was well presented and contributed to the calm atmosphere. It reminded me of the reading room in a large library. On the C level there is a Starbucks and a grand piano for live music, which was preformed expertly by volunteers. Outside there is a nature trail. Oh, and we never had to hunt for a parking space!

I could hang out there.

And Jo got her questions answered.

I just don't have any words ...

This is another in my series of reports from the mall. I was headed over to the Century Rio 24 to watch Avatar in xD but when I got there the ticket agent said that the next run was just in 3D, not xD. The next xD time for today turned out to be inconvenient, so I went to the Coronado Mall instead.

It was an experience like being underwater. Small schools of people, mostly ones and twos, slid lazily by with apparently nowhere to go and nothing to do, like me. The place was almost empty. Both of the anchor stores, the ones at each end, are still empty. Most of the others had no customers. A forlorn puppy in the front window at Lucky Paws set the tone.

I stopped at the Tropicana store for an Island Mango Sunrise Smoothie, which tasted better than it looked, just barely. The clerk remarked that since school started the business was slim to none. Many of the kiosks down the middle of the promenade were either empty or without customers. The clerk in the otherwise empty Bath and Body Works occupied herself by pushing buttons on her phone or DS or whatever it was. A pretty, young (yes, I know that's redundant) woman stood at the Brookstone store entrance, doing splits to demonstrate some exercise gear. Aside from me, nobody appeared to notice. Clerks in most stores had the thousand-yard stare as they stood by racks and behind counters, as motionless as the mannequins in the windows.

The desultory air persisted everywhere. I counted about forty stores with no customers, and most of the rest had just one or two. At least there was no waiting line in Barnes and Noble, where I bought two maps of Phoenix and two books of short stories (Alice Munro and John Grisham) to occupy my time while waiting for Jo to get her bones checked at the Mayo Clinic next week. It will be warmer there. Maybe the heat will bring some animation to the mall crowds.

Avatar tomorrow!

I wonder how many people are at the library today.

Happy new year! It seems like that y2k thing just happened, and here we are ten years later. I wonder if I will be around for the next ten.

Want to know how long you will live? There's an app for that. I took the test and it says that I'm good to 92. Then there are the social security actuarial tables, which predict my departure at 82. According to these charts, I've already made it past a quarter of my fellow Americans who were born in 1942. Momma died when she was 77 but would have lived longer had she not smoked. Daddy died at 86. Granny Matheson made it almost to 100.

Since I'm just 67 now, by any of these measures I should be here to see 2020 come in. But maybe just barely. Of course, this is all statistical and says nothing directly about the possibility that I will choke on a chocolate eclair tomorrow or have a stroke before I finish this sennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

... just kidding.

I really can't think of any great unanticipated surprises from the past decade. I guess the recent financial fiasco comes closest, but so far it hasn't had much effect on us. We get older and the usual infirmities of age are settling in, but that is to be expected. All told, we have been in a period of stasis as the cruise ship we are on takes us slowly but steadily to our Final Destination.

Still, it is prudent (and fun) to predict the future. Will the Great Depression of 2013-14 really happen? Was it the unfortunate nuclear event of 2015 that brought us out of it? Is augmented reality really worth the expense and temporary inconvenience of an eyeball transplant? Will President Palin win a second term? So many questions remain unresolved here on the eve of the year 2020. The age reversal treatment seems to be kicking in. Think I'll submit an application for the Leadville 100 next year.

A few weeks ago I joined the Enchanted Lens Camera Club, in Albuquerque. I want to get some critical views on my photos, and the club has monthly assignments where you go and take a picture with a given theme and then submit it for judging. Next month's theme is "Cemeteries and Churchyards".

There is an old cemetery on the southwest side of the intersection of I-25 and US550, which I have seen for many years as I drive by. (You can see it, tombstones and all, on Google Earth.) The other day I stopped and took a stroll among the tombstones with my camera. Here's one shot I took.

When I saw the pinwheel I thought of prayer wheels, which are little devices that spin in the wind. Tibetan Buddhists believe that each rotation of the wheel sends a prayer to heaven. I wondered if whoever put this pinwheel there intended it to be such. Then I read the inscription on the tombstone. It made me wonder who Inez B. Pepez was and how she came to die at age 22 or 23, in 1943.

How is it that someone still comes to tend her grave after two thirds of a century? To be loved and remembered that long, her resting place kept clean and free of weeds, must say something about the kind of life she lived.

For myself, I have never cared much about being remembered after I die. I would like to believe that I will be missed for a while by at least a few people. But I am OK with the idea that a century after I go, no one will have much of a memory about my life and death.

Even the lives of those who become world figures and are written up in the history books eventually become just a name, a few words learned in school. On the time scale of the Universe, they too will pass away and be forgotten.

I believe that what we do can change the future in subtle or great ways, unknown and sometimes unintended effects rippling down through time, mixing with the actions of others to create the future. As General Maximus said in the movie Gladiator, "What we do today will echo through eternity."

But like a tiny ripple in the ocean, my deeds in this life will mix with the actions of others and finally will be absorbed among the great waves of reality. There, but forgotten. Perhaps a small breath of air to keep a prayer wheel spinning.

(and other things I don't understand).

The commercial currently airing for Dodge pickup trucks uses the above title three times in 30 seconds. I have no idea what it means. It must mean something to most of their target audience or they wouldn't have used it. Surely they do demographics and run private tests before airing their commercials to the public.

Sigh.

I think one of the underacknowledged terrors of growing old, but a very real one, is the fear of becoming irrelevant. Physical infirmity is another. I saw my dad, a proud and independent man, become progressively and frustratingly unable to care for himself. So I anticipate for myself a similar end of life. But only in the past few days have I begun to realize another hard outcome -- that of becoming, not infirm, but irrelevant to the lives of those whom I care about. To them I am increasingly not in the room.

And it's my fault, if fault is to be sought out. Most of the American Music Awards show last night on TV either didn't appeal to me or was downright repulsive. Yet I have to admit that this must be the kind of entertainment that most of us prefer, else why would they show it? I think I understood and could sympathize with the generation that came after me, and with the one after that. But what's happening nowadays has left me behind. I no longer relate.

My name is granddad. My tank is empty.

Jo and I took Steve Wynn up on his offer to stay at the Encore Las Vegas for three nights for the price of one. Probably two nights for the price of one would have been about right. We did see the Blue Man Group show at the Venetian and learned a lot about musical uses for PVC pipe and how not to eat Twinkies and Cap'n Crunch cereal.

I don't know what it is that I like so much about Las Vegas. It has more Rolex stores per mile than any other place. Also lots of Louis Vuitton stores, whoever he is. And a Ferrari dealership about a quarter mile away from the Lamborghini store, both in casinos. People willingly go there to give away their money, which is what makes it all possible. The fireworks, fountains, exotic animals, stretch limos of all kinds, very high-end shopping -- although you have to admire somebody who can get ten grand for a pair of shoes -- one huge gambling palace after another, hawkers asking if we are in town for the night, bright lights and loud sounds all around -- what is the attraction for a person who feels most at home in the Utah backcountry miles away from anywhere?

I think it must be the sheer novelty of it all that makes my brain hum.

Go out in the bright morning sun, when most of the crowd is still sleeping off the improprieties of the night before, and smell the cool desert air, hearing the cricket in the topiary and knowing that there is hope even in this place, especially in this place, where you can change your life by letting it all ride on red.

Here's a copy of my post to a new photo set on flickr:

This trip was spur-of-the-moment. I left home on Monday, Nov. 2 and spent the night in Bluff, UT, at the Kokopelli Inn. I came back home the next day.

I always visit the Comb Ridge Coffee House whenever I get the chance. I arrived in Bluff around 11 am and stopped there for a bagel and cherry smoothie. The folks there are vegans.

Some customers come from far away.

I took my bagel and smoothie to go. I wanted to get to Fallen Roof Ruin while the sun was high. It was a cloudless day.

Driving east on US163, I passed Valley of the Gods to the north and then turned north on SR261. After eight miles, this road becomes unpaved for about three miles as it ascends the Moki Dugway. It goes right up the side of a cliff and from the bottom, as you approach, there appears to be no way that this can happen!

About nine miles past the top of the cliff, you turn right on Cigarette Springs Road and proceed 3.4 miles down this well-graded but narrow dirt road to an unmarked parking area. From there it's a 1.5 mile hike down into Road Canyon. There are no signs but the trail is cairned. Unfortunately there are other crisscrossing trails that are also cairned. So having a good map and written directions is recommended.

Fallen Roof Ruin is located high up on the canyon wall. It's about a 200 foot climb up steep slick rock to the entrance. It was around 1:30 pm when I got there. I spent about an hour taking pictures before heading back to the truck.

I drove around looking for a good place to get some full moon shots at sunset. I kept driving as the sun got lower and lower. I ended up at Monument Valley.

Back in Bluff, I spent a restless night at the Kokopelli. The temperature in the room oscillated between way too hot and way too cold. Before hitting the sack I checked the moon setting time to see if it would be worth getting up early and driving over to Valley of the Gods (15 minutes away) to get some more shots of the moon. The site I checked on the Internet has the moon setting a few minutes before sunrise, so I decided to sleep in. Imagine my surprise when I went out at 7:30 the next morning, and there was the moon a few degrees above the horizon!

So anyway I had breakfast and set out for House on Fire ruin.

Located near mile marker 102 on SR95, the south fork of Mule Canyon has many ruins. House on Fire ruin is about a mile and a quarter up the canyon along an easy trail. I got there around 10 am.

After spending about an hour at House on Fire Ruin, I went east on SR95 for about 10 miles to the Butler Canyon Ruins, where I walked the half mile out to the overlook and took some pictures.

Then it was back to the Comb Ridge Coffee House in Bluff for another bagel and smoothie. They had just made a beautiful cherry cake that I tried to photograph without much luck.

At noon I headed home, arriving at 5:30, about 35 and a half hours after departing.

This morning I got up at 5:30 and drove to Utah to take some pictures. I am spending the night in Bluff and plan to return home tomorrow. Today I hiked out to a place called Fallen Roof Ruin and got some nice shots I hope. Then I drove down to Monument Valley for some full moon sunset shots. Tomorrow I will go to Fire House Ruin before starting home.

When I get home I will submit a better accounting of this trip. Typing on this netbook over the motel's Internet connection is difficult.

This morning I typed a reply to a comment on one of my flickr pictures, with regard to criticism. There is a flickr group called "Score Me", where you submit a shot and send a critical analysis of the five preceding shots, submitted by others. Walter Ezell responded that the people in the Score Me group can be mean in their criticism. Here's my reply.

"I value their opinions and probably should submit more shots for criticism. Almost always, when one of my shots gets criticized negatively, I feel bad and think "That's crap" -- but after thinking about it, I usually see some merit to what they are saying and try to use it to make better pictures next time. I know this has been helpful in the past. I want to be a great photographer. What's stopping me are lack of artistic sensitivity and not enough time in the field. I look at marvelous shots by Mike Jones taken at places where I have been and wonder why I didn't see what he saw. Part of it is due to him being there at the right time. But part of it is superior artistic vision and this is what I am trying to improve. After a lifetime spent analyzing problems with my left brain, I am trying to listen more to my right brain."

This is a worthy endeavor.

This week brother Jim, Walter, and I are traveling through Colorado, Utah, and Arizona taking pictures. I am posting some on my flickr site. Yesterday and today we are in Moab, UT. We are getting ready to depart for Monument Valley in an hour. Then it's on to Canyon de Chelly and back home on Friday. The weather has been good and we have been having a great time.

Decision Moose continues to perform well. QTAA, umm, continues to be flat.

The Moose, which was in cash at the start of the quarter, went into EPP on July 27 and remains there. I went back to cash after Monday's bump up in the market, putting my Moose account up 37.5 percent since inception 18 months ago. QTAA lost some money early in the quarter and then made it back plus a bit in August and September. I also went back to all cash in QTAA on Monday, putting it up about one percent in 18 months. I would be doing better with QTAA if I strictly followed the signals.

Other than a little bit in TIP, which has done fairly well, I remain mostly in cash (which earns almost nothing these days), awaiting a downturn. I believe that there is another big drop yet to come. So I wait.

After a week of cloudy, rainy days, today arrived with blue sky and a few clouds over the mountains. I took a walk along the six mile loop, temperature in the sixties, Bach on the iPod. Mist swirled around the spires on the northeast side of Sandia Peak. Shafts of sunlight beamed down through the low clouds; a golden hawk wheeled in a lazy spiral overhead. I was overwhelmed at once with sadness and great joy. Bittersweet on steroids.

Daddy was born on 9/19/1919. Today he would have been 90. I can remember him from the days when I was four, my right brain not yet quite beaten into submission by the left, as society and survival eventually demand. To me then he was a god, strong, unexplainable, and vital. The benign smiling face, the dark evil eye. Everything and more.
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Neurophysiology in a nutshell: The human brain comes in two parts called the right and left hemispheres. They are connected via a bundle of nerves known as the corpus callosum. The left hemisphere knows about names, numbers, how-to-do-it, inside vs. outside, before vs. now vs. after. My left hemisphere is typing this blog. The right side knows none of that. It knows feelings. It was in charge when I had that overwhelming moment this morning. Music and poetry nourish and come from the right side. The left side learns by logic, by deduction and induction. The right side doesn't so much learn. It just is.
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One dark night, after twenty hours of extreme exertion, right side in charge after the left half had given up, I saw things that weren't there, heard voices that didn't exist, spoke words without meaning. Cold sweat on my back. The left half awoke just enough to hear the right side tell it that death was not something to be feared, because I was already there. Always was and always will be, outside of time and the world. Great sadness, overwhelming joy. Everything and more.

I will never forget this.

(This is the fifth and final posting in a series that begins with "Neon", below.)

After registering at the Hat Rock, I got back in the truck and drove about 20 miles south, to the entrance road that leads to the loop road through Monument Valley. Part of Monument Valley is in Utah, but the more photogenic part is just across the border into Arizona. There is a $5.00 entrance fee, good for the day. The Navajos have built a swanky new hotel there at the entrance. During the summer the rate is $195 per night.

The 17-mile dirt loop road is rugged to say the least. There are numerous gulleys and potholes. I saw lots of tourists in their rental vans, and they were doing OK creeping along at about 10 mph. It takes an hour or more to complete the loop. The best photo ops are near sunrise or sunset. If the sky is just right, the buttes can light up with reflected rays just for a minute or two. So you have to pick your spot and hope for the best. This is what I did, waiting around for about an hour at the pullout overlooking the area called the Mittens. Just before the sun set, I got this shot.


After this I went over to check out the new hotel. As I was leaving I saw that the western sky was lit up in a grand pink and orange display. I hustled back to the truck to get my camera, but by the time I got it set up the color had faded.

I drove back to Mexican Hat. There are several decent motels in the town but apparently no good restaurants. There was an outdoor steakhouse where they cook the meat on a huge rocking grill over charcoal, but that wasn't for me. So I went to the local thrifty mart and bought some snacks.

The next morning, Saturday, I left Mexican Hat at 9 am and headed back to Placitas. I got home at 3:00, after 1,200 miles of fun-filled traveling.

(This is the fourth posting in a series that begins with "Neon", four posts down.)

Friday, August 28. The waitress in the Red Rock Cafe said that it was going to get up to 104 today. This news lent some urgency to my task for the day. I left Hanksville and traveled north on paved road for 20 miles, turning east on the unpaved Hans Flat Road. Horseshoe Canyon was still 30 miles away. The road was well graded but, this being open range country, one couldn't go too fast because, cresting a hill or rounding a curve, one might come face to face with a group of cows standing lazily in the middle of the road.

I reached the trail head for Horseshoe Canyon at 10:30. The trail register showed the last visitors being two days ago. Signs reminded of the need to carry water into the canyon. I took three 20 oz. bottles of Gatorade and left several under the truck, where they would be in the shade. The descent was 700 feet of elevation change over about a mile and a quarter of slickrock. Reaching the wash at the bottom, I traveled up-canyon looking for the petroglyphs that were my reason for coming here.

The dry, sandy bottom made walking slow but not unpleasant. I used the shade of the canyon walls where it was available. The great wall of life-sized drawings was about 2.5 miles up the almost flat canyon. These petroglyphs could have been made as long as 8,000 years ago. Because of their isolated location and elevation on the cliff wall, above the flood level, they have survived in excellent condition.

About halfway to the great wall, I came upon a deer in the bushes about ten feet in front of me. I didn't see him until he bounded away. A little later, something else got my attention. At first I couldn't define it. Then I noticed that the sound of everything seemed different, kind of open and then reverberating. I was walking into the focal area of a large alcove and, at the focus, it made quite an echo. On the way back, I stopped and walked inside the alcove. Artifacts found here indicate that it was a home for the ancient ones who lived in this canyon.

Eventually, rounding a bend, I saw the great wall. Here are some pictures that I took there.

It was getting hot so I didn't dally for long. The climb out of the canyon was not too bad, and I got back to the truck three and a half hours after I started.



















I stopped back at the Red Rock Cafe for lunch and then headed south for Mexican Hat, where I would spend the night. I got a room at the Hat Rock Inn.

(This is the next in a series that begins with the posting labeled "Neon".)

On the way back to the campsite, we stopped at a little pool of water that had minnows swimming in it. It was isolated and seemed like it would soon dry up until the next rain. So it was a surprise to me to see the minnows. Aaron got out his filter pump and filled up our water bottles. The river water is quite silty, and this water was clear.

When we reached the campsite, it was left to me to decide whether to go out on another walk, and I chose to wait until the next day. So we set up our tents. The place where I had originally chosen was about 30 feet above river level near a vertical rock wall, but there were lots of ants crawling around. Aaron said that they would be gone by sunset. I decided to move down closer to the river, about 25 feet lower and 100 feet away from the original site.

After setting up my tent, I went for a short walk with Aaron, who was looking for a route up the canyon wall on the other side of the river. When we returned, Aaron got out his stove and cooked us a delicious pasta supper. Soon it was getting dark and we crawled into out tents. I had brought my smallest and lightest one. You have to slide in feet first. There isn't room even to sit up. But it does keep the rain off. That night the chances of rain were about zero, which was good considering that I was down close to the river and a flood would have washed me away. After an hour or two I woke up and noticed that it was getting cold, so I slipped on my wool long johns and went back to sleep. I still got cold later that night.

Wakened by the rising sun, I thought I heard a small animal breathing outside my tent. Maybe a coyote, I thought. I looked out but didn't see anything. It was probably the rain fly scraping against the tent fabric. I dozed off again and a while later, looking out, I saw Aaron emerging from his tent, about 100 feet away. As I walked back up the hill, the temperature rose by about ten degrees I would guess. It was remarkable. I would have been more comfortable if I hadn't moved my tent down by the river bed.

Aaron made some coffee for us, and we had bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Then we set off downstream for Ringtail Canyon, about a half mile away. We walked some in the river, and some on the bank. The river wasn't deep, but sometimes the rocks were slippery and occasionally you couldn't see the bottom. So you had to kind of feel your way along with your feet to avoid big submerged rocks and potholes. My big worry was falling and getting my camera gear wet.

Ringtail Canyon is a narrow, very dark slot canyon named for the ringtail cats that allegedly live there. There were some big rocks to cross at the entrance, and I got a hand up from Aaron. After a few yards down into the canyon, it narrowed such that we had to turn sideways to continue. Eventually we came to a chockstone that would have to be gone under, and I decided that I had had enough. So we retraced out steps and walked back up the river to the campsite. We had lunch (fig newtons for me) and hoisted our packs for the walk out.

We took a different route back, walking upriver about a half mile and turning west into Fence Canyon. This route was a bit longer but avoided the long, steep sandy trail that we came down. Nevertheless, the hike up to the top of Fence Canyon was strenuous. Then we walked a couple of miles across undulating slickrock to the final climb up 500 feet of steep slickrock. Aaron kept a moderate, steady pace, but I had to stop a few times to catch my breath.

When we reached the 4Runner, we took out some folding chairs and cooled off with a Gatorade. By then, it was mid-afternoon. Eventually we drove back to Aaron's house, where I said goodbye and got in my truck for the ride to Hanksville. I left around 5:30 and got to the Hanksville Inn around 8:00. I stopped for an Italian BMT at the Subway in Torrey. This was the most non-vegetarian meal that I have had since early June. I did enjoy it, though.

(This is a continuation of the previous posting.)

A little afer 8:00, after checking our packs to be sure we weren't forgetting anything, the three of us piled into Aaron's 4Runner and headed east out of Escalante. After a few miles, we turned south down Hole-in-the-Rock road. The gravel road was well-graded and it was easy to do 50 mph or more. After about ten miles, we reached the signed turnoff east to Egypt Bench. This dirt road was narrower but started off smoothly. The farther we traveled, the bumpier it got. Eventually it became clear that a high-clearance vehicle was needed, but there was little sand so 4WD was not a requirement. After about seven or eight miles, Aaron pulled the vehicle over and we got out and walked about 50 feet to peer into a deep abyss at the head of a narrow canyon about 300 feet deep, straight down. A great rappel but not for us today.

After a total of about 9.5 miles on the Egypt road, we reached the end. Parked on a high bluff, we could see our destination across the other side of the Escalante River. It would be a three mile cross-country hike with about 1,000 feet of elevation drop to get there. The first half mile was on sometimes steep slickrock and got us about 500 feet lower. Then it was two miles of slightly undulating slickrock up to the edge of the last drop down to the river. This was about a half mile of soft sand, which is easy and fun to go down but hard to ascend.

At the bottom of this drop, we stopped in a shady area near a wall of rock and had lunch. A veggie sandwich with locally-grown cucumbers for me.

We left our big packs and camping gear there in the shade and took waist packs and water for the short trek up Neon Canyon to the Golden Cathedral. We waded about a few yards down the river (knee-high water) and crossed over to the east bank, where we exited into the canyon. Looking at the red-orange walls you could see how Neon got its name.



After a short walk, as we rounded a bend, we came to the Golden Cathedral.



This magnificent alcove has two or three openings through which water flows after a rain, making it topologically speaking a natural bridge. There was a pool of water at the base, and sunlight reflecting off the water made a dancing pattern of light on the wall above. We stayed there for a couple of hours, photographing and taking it all in. We had the place to ourselves except for the tadpoles in the water and an occasional dragonfly.





To be continued ...

On August 25 I left Placitas for the long drive to Escalante, UT. The first 150 miles are on US 550, a four-lane lightly traveled road. There was some repaving work in progress, but it didn't slow me by much. In Bloomfield, NM, I took US 64 west through Farmington and Shiprock to the Arizona border, where after four miles, the highway becomes US 160 at Teec Nos Pos. Just past Red Mesa I turned north on US 191 for about 30 miles, almost to Bluff, UT. Then it was US 163 west to UT 261 north and up the Moki Dugway, where I stopped to take a few pictures. After about 30 miles I turned west on UT 95, which goes past Natural Bridges National Monument and then north past Fry Canyon to Hanksville. At Hanksville I stopped at the Hanksville Inn to make a reservation for the 27th and then proceeded west on UT 24 to Torrey, where I took UT 12 south through a magnificent Aspen forest and across a pass at 9,600 feet and then down into Boulder. Continuing south and then  west, I finally reached Escalante after ten hours of driving.

I had a reservation at the Circle D motel, where I had stayed in 2007 for $15 a night. The rate now is more like $65, but they have made some improvements. The morning of the 26th I was up bright and early at six and wandered across the street to the cafe at the Prospector Inn, only to discover that it wasn't open yet. So I drove down to the gas station on the east end of town and got some coffee and snacks.

At 8 am I drove over to meet Aaron Johnson, who runs Grand Staircase Adventure Guides. His friend Toby was there, and the three of us set out for Neon Canyon a few minutes later.

To be continued ...

Next Tuesday I am leaving for Escalante, Utah, for an overnight hike into Neon Canyon the following day. It has a place called the Golden Cathedral, which I want to see. Aaron Johnson will be my guide. To prepare for this, yesterday I hiked from Placitas up to the top of Sandia Peak and back, 15 miles round-trip with about 6,000 feet of elevation gain if my gps is to be believed. You can see my gps track here.

Last night we went to the public judging for the NM State Fair Photo Contest. The panel of five judges went through several hundred photos in the three hours that we were there. The scoring range was from 1 to 99, but all of the prints scored in a more restricted range: there was one in the 60s, most were in the 70s, about a quarter were in the 80s, and one was in the 90s. A judge could protest any given score and then each judge would have to defend his or her score and the print was scored again. This happened on about 20 percent of the prints, including one of mine, and each time the score was raised, usually by a couple of points.

My prints scored in the average or below range. The panorama got a 75. Initially it scored a 73 but one judge, who scored it an 80, protested and it subsequently got two extra points. The Blue Sky print in Fine Arts got a 77 without comment, and the black and white landscape got a 74. I cringed when they put it up because in the bright lights that they used, it looked quite pale. More contrast and some overall darkening would have helped.

So my entries weren't exceptional, but there were many that scored lower. I think that the judges did a good job of ranking the prints and that they got mine about right. Nevertheless I felt bad at the end. It's hard for me to take criticism. This morning I feel better.

One of the cell phone companies, I think it's Verizon, has a commercial that goes something like this:
(Edit on 8/18: OK, so it's Sprint, not Verizon.)

"Right now 157,000 Verizon customers are sending a text message. 1,350 of them are in meetings. Seventeen are in the shower ...." Or something like that. It brings home the interesting notion that sometimes we are part of a group pursuing a common purpose, whether we know it or not. Sometimes the group might be more focused, as with runners at the starting line, all preparing to race to the finish.

Today I realized that I am part of such a group, which I'll call the State Fair Contestant Group (SFCG). In common with the 12-year-old combing her favorite rabbit, the silversmith polishing his jewelry, the alpaca farmer grooming his best mare, the model railroader getting his train set ready, the 37-year-old mother baking her secret-recipe apple pie, I have been getting my three photos ready for exhibit. Yesterday Jo and I took them over to the fairgrounds for entry in the photo contest.

A common feature of the SFCG is that we will all be judged. A few will have projects that will be declared outstanding and will win a ribbon; most of us will go home without accolade. Judging for the photo contest will be on Tuesday evening and is open to the public. I should go because I am sure it would be instructive, but at the same time I am -- what's the word -- scared! Putting it all on the line can be scary. I don't think my work is good enough to win any ribbons yet, but what if it isn't even worthy to be shown? I like to think that I take pictures to please myself, but this is a delusion. I want other people to like them. And if they don't, I will be unhappy.

Oh well, there's always the cotton candy. And corn on the cob. And turkey legs for the meat-eaters. And the Wall of Death motorcycle ride for the thrill-seekers.

It's the State Fair!

The New Mexico State Fair is coming up in September. Along with the rabbits, cows, and baked goods, they have a photo exhibit. I have decided to enter three of my pictures in the professional division. The rules state that pictures must be in 20 x 24 inch frames, except for panoramas, which have to be nine by 18 inches in 15 by 24 inch frames. Yesterday I finished mounting and framing the pictures. Here they are:

'

This picture is part of a panorama that I took during my August, 2007 trip to Coyote Gulch. The title is "God's Sculpture Gallery". The original is in color, but the black and white version looks good too I think. (To see the original panorama in color, follow the link above.) You can see Stevens Arch on the right. To get there you drive down 31 miles of dirt road and turn off onto a jeep trail for about four miles, then go about two miles on 4WD (sandy) double-track to get to the trail head. Next you hike about two miles over rolling slick rock and squeeze down into the canyon through a place known as crack-in-the-wall. I was there for two nights and a day and didn't see another person. The solitude and vistas are inspiring. I entered this in the landscape category.



This panorama was taken in June on the vacant lot across the street. The sun had just set behind Cabezon Mesa, and a rain squall had just passed through. You can see just a bit of pink virga on the far right side. This one is entered in the panorama category.



I took this picture in June in the back yard while trying out my new wide-angle lens. You can see the Jemez Mountains to the north along with some gathering clouds. If you look closely, you can see a house with a blue roof in left-center. I decided to title it "Blue Roof" because of that and the idea that if you look up, you can see the blue roof that we all live under (the sky). Also you can see some blue reflected on the wood. I entered this in the fine art category.

Judging will be on August 18. It will be interesting to see how my photos fare. Right now the pictures are sitting on the floor in the living room, and I think they look nice. I used museum glass in the framing. I will take them over to the fairgrounds in a couple of weeks and will let you know how it comes out.

My career as a professional student began inauspiciously in 1948 at Bennettsville Primary School. The first day of school was a very big event! We sat wide-eyed and a bit scared in Mrs. Forbes's classroom, with our mothers forming a row along the back of the room in front of the windows, perhaps in order to keep us from making a break for freedom. The first official act was to call the roll, and we were told to answer "Present" when our name was called and otherwise just to be still. Ms. Forbes went down the list and eventually said "Johnny Fowler". I answered "Present", relieved that I had passed my first official test as a student. My cousin Rooney was sitting in front of me. Soon enough, Mrs. Forbes spoke her name, and there was silence. After a few seconds I helpfully pointed at her and said "There she is". The mothers all started laughing. That's what I mean by inauspicious. I learned a lesson there. Being helpful is not always rewarded. Or, in the modern idiom, "No good deed goes unpunished."

The primary school held the first three grades. My second grade teacher was Miss Sullivan, who was also the principal. In second grade I learned about the solar system and realized that I could figure out the distance of each planet from the Earth even though only the distances to the sun were given in the book. Then it became a question of whether our nearest neighbor was Mars or Venus. It looked like almost a tie. I decided then that I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up.

One other thing about Mrs. Forbes's classroom. There was a dark, dank closet that she called the cloak room, which was where you were sent to stand in the dark for a few minutes if you misbehaved. I spent some time in there. I gave many of my teachers some extra gray hairs during my student days. I regret this now and wish I could apologize.

In second or third grade (my third grade teacher was Mrs. Napier), we had a school play. It was in the high school gym. The gym had a basketball court with a stage along one side and bleachers along the other. I was the master of ceremonies. I had to memorize a couple of pages of text that the teacher had written. It actually went quite well. I remember that the big girls put lipstick and rouge on me before the performance, and I stole away and wiped as much of it off as I could. After the play the teacher hugged me and told me that I had done well.

Yogi Berra said, "You can see a lot just by looking."

In my last report from the mall, my observations about current social customs among teenagers segued smoothly (or not) into a paean about the library. Today the mall crowd was a bit sparse, and milling clumps of young people were nowhere in evidence.

As I slurped on my Pom-Berry Smoothie, purchased in the food court at Orange Julius (my gosh, $4.80 for 20 ounces; that's over $30.00 a gallon!) a moment of giddiness came over me as I looked around at the names on nearby store fronts, none of which I remembered from previous visits:

Round 1
3D fx
Lids
Rave
EJ
Oriental Gifts
Cacique
Fanzz
Shiekh (sic)
Orange Nation
Torrid (Large and Plus Sizes)
Saucy
Zumiez

Wanna bet on how many of those names will be around in a year?

Some names that you will no longer see at the mall:

Mervyn's
Foley's
Kay-Bee Toys
The Darkroom (a camera shop)

I have to start reading more fun stuff. Everywhere I look these days the light of hope seems to be dimmer, and most of what I read warns of dire days ahead. Take away all of the foreign-made goods at the mall and what is left would probably fit into a single store.

Here's the deal: We send foreigners, mostly the Chinese, our money and they send us stuff. They exchange the dollars we pay for local currency with their nation's treasury, which uses those dollars to buy US government bonds. The bonds are a form of debt that our government issues to finance its spending. As health and education programs and financial bailouts of US banks and industrial companies continue to soak up more money, the government has to sell more bonds in order to create (or repatriate) that money. Two impediments to this cycle are becoming apparent. We US consumers have been spending more than we make, a phenomenon that is tapering off because the bottom of the financial barrel has come into view and soon will be reached. In the past we would just borrow more from somewhere (mortgage refinance, for instance), but now the spending part of the cycle is drying up. And foreign governments will be increasingly wary about buying our government's bonds as it becomes increasingly likely that either they won't be repaid or the currency backing them will be worth less due to inflation. When our creditors stop buying our bonds (heaven forbid that they should actually start selling them), we will be forced to raise the interest paid on them until they become appealing again. This cannot go on forever.

The ways out of this mess are all unpalatable:

Raise taxes. (Raising taxes on just the rich won't bring in enough.)
Cut social spending and reduce benefits. (Unpopular with most of the public.)
Inflate the currency by printing more dollars. (Then pay off our debts with money that is worth less [worthless?].)

Our best economists, the ones who didn't see the biggest financial meltdown in history coming even a month before it happened last year, say not to worry. Once the economy gets back on its feet, it will grow so fast that increased wealth will being in sufficient tax revenues to fix the problem. Don't worry, be happy.

Yeah, right. As Yogi also said, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there. "

Well, there's not much to report. I went almost completely to cash a couple of months ago, and money market rates continue to be less than impressive. Moose has stayed in cash. In the last couple of weeks, QTAA has issued some buy signals as the 200-day moving average dipped below the current price of EFA, IVV, and GSG, so I bought them without much conviction and indeed they have continued to follow the 200-day SMA down. So far they are down about two percent.

So that's it -- kind of a ho-hum quarter. I still think something bad will happen eventually and bring stocks down to the past year's lows. So I'm just waiting. I continue to buy a few TIPs when they get below 98. It's hard to see how inflation won't be a big problem sooner or later.

In other news: I took a day trip into the Jemez mountains today and found the GIlman tunnels. I took some pictures that you can see on flickr.

Last weekend we went to the NM Arts & Crafts Exhibition at the fairgrounds. I wanted to see what the photography exhibits looked like and Jo was interested in fused glass. She has been making dichroic glass pieces and they look quite nice. There were about a dozen photo vendors. I thought that most of their pictures were of comparable quality to what I have been doing. I got to thinking about what it would take for my photos to be just a cut better than theirs. What would make mine stand out from the crowd? I finally decided that the best an artist can do is to make what brings joy to his heart and soul and not worry about whether it will be popular. So I have to keep that in mind and just be thankful that I don't have to make a living doing this.

In other news: I signed up for Facebook under the name John D. Fowler Jr. Brother Jim invited me to be a friend, which required opening an account there. Also I befriended Steph. It is nice to check in and see what they are up to.

This morning I went out for a little six-miler in the neighborhood. Some jogging and walking. It felt pretty good. I have lost some weight since becoming a vegetarian and that helps. The Duke City Marathon is coming up in October. ...

I put some HDR panoramas of the Wave up on flickr today. I just found a site, www.wrapr.org, that lets you move around in a 360 degree panorama.  So cool! Click here to try it. (Then click on Wrapr It!.) I don't know i this will work forever of if there is some kind of time limit on it.

Note that you have to have Adobe Flash installed; if you don't, it won't animate. My macs have this, but I guess Windows doesn't automatically have it.

After about ten days of animal-free food, I am doing just fine. It's turning out to be a lot easier than I had thought it would be. No hunger, no cravings for cake and ice cream, no dreams of filet mignon at Ruth's Chris. Jo made brownies the other day and I didn't have to be tied to a tree in the yard to keep me away. I really didn't want any.

There seems to be a certain clarity of mind, a soft sweet inner peace, that I didn't feel before. I have lost some fat, and probably some weight, though it remains to be seen whether that will be permanent.

What have I been eating? For breakfast I have oatmeal or cold cereal with berries and soy milk. A couple of hours later I might have a handful of roasted almonds. For lunch, a veggie wrap or some soup or a salad with tofu. In the afternoon I eat some chips with hummus, and for supper I have one of the frozen veggie meals or pizza that I buy at the store, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or spaghetti. Later I will have some more chips maybe with salsa, pomegranate juice, and occasionally a small piece of dark chocolate.

It's all good.

Vegetarian. As in vegan vegetarian. Bite the broccoli.

Jo brought home a book, The China Study, the other day. It makes a good, but probably overstated, case for vegetarianism.

After what seems a rising sea of still minor but annoying health problems, I have decided to try it out. This is my third animal-food-free day, and so far I feel great. At this point, it's probably just the good feeling that you get when you do something virtuous, but maybe it will last.

I haven't been hungry yet, although it's a challenge to find animal-free food. After looking around at Albertson's I finally found a vegan pizza in the frozen foods section. Unhappily, after a few bites I threw it out. It was terrible! Then I tried a Kashi Tuscan Veggie Bake, and it was pretty good. But it has become apparent that I will have to learn how to cook this stuff myself if I want it to really taste good. So it was off to Whole Foods, where I bought about 80 bucks' worth of spices and other stuff that I never heard of before. And some hummus. And some tofu. And I found a good recipe site on the Web.

It all seems to be working out pretty well at this point. I'll let you know how it goes ....

I've said that if you have to have something wrong with you, hypothyroidism is a good choice, because it is easy and cheap to treat. It is diagnosed by testing for thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in a blood test. TSH acts as a signal to the endocrine system to have the thyroid glands produce more thyroid hormone, so if TSH is high, it is because your thyroid levels are low. I was diagnosed with this condition about 12 years ago. Symptoms include below normal body temperature, sluggishness, being overweight, and confusion. The medication, levothyroxine, is cheap ($10.00 for a 90 day supply at Wal-Mart) and usually easily tolerated if taken in the correct dose. Finding the right dose can be difficult, though. It takes about eight days for the medicine to take effect after ingestion, and it can take weeks or months for the endocrine system to rebalance after the dose changes.

Last November a routine blood test indicated that my TSH had gone into the high range, so the doc increased my dose. It turned out to be way too much. The symptoms of hyperthroidism (overdose) are high resting heart rate, difficulty sleeping, restlessness, and arrythmia (skipped heart beats). By April I was experiencing all of those. Another blood test confirmed that my TSH was about as low as it can go and a direct measurement of thyroid hormone (free T4) was above the normal range. So I backed off to an intermediate dose. That turned out to be still too much and probably caused the extreme fatigue and lack of purpose that I wrote about in the last post. I just wanted to lie in bed half awake all day. Nothing else seemed worth doing.

After the latest blood work I went back to my original (last November) dose and am already feeling like a real person again. The symptoms have disappeared. So I'm thankful and happy to be back living in the world again.

In the meantime, my Yard Work photo project is turning out to be a lot of fun. Here's the shot for June 1.

Today marks the end of the first year of this blog! I have enjoyed writing it (a form of narcissism, I know!) and hope that you have gotten something from it too. Saturday will also be an anniversary -- the 29th year of marriage for Jo and me.

Yesterday I started feeling better. I think I got some kind of bug (literally) on my trip. It was strange, because I had no fever and no aches or pains -- just bone tiredness that wouldn't go away. One suspicious thing happened to me out at the Wave. I stopped to rest in a shady place and took off my hat. After a few minutes I felt something on my head. As I brushed it with my hand, I realized that some kind of bug was biting me. It flew away and I didn't think more about it until that night, when I got a half dozen pea-sized bumps on my head in various places. They would bleed some if I scratched them but otherwise didn't hurt. It took about three days for the swelling to subside, which was about when I started getting so tired. But I think it really is the thyroid (mis)dose that has caused the problems. I have changed it back to what I was taking last year.

Anyway, I put some photos up in a set on my Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowpeak). Also I started a set called "Yard Work", in which I plan to add a picture every day that I take in the yard.

I got back yesterday, May 16, from the Coyote Buttes trip. I will edit this post soon with more details and will post some pictures in a few days. I got a few good ones and lots of blurred ones due to the cable release failing and autofocus getting turned off for a while. I had a good time but continue to notice some degradation in endurance. My mind writes checks that my body can't cash.

When I was in high school, Momma worked in the town clerk's office. For reasons nobody could fathom, they had a subscription to a magazine called Arizona Highways. She would bring it home and I would marvel over the gorgeous photos. (Check out their Web site.) Before seeing this magazine, I had thought of Arizona as nothing but sand and cactuses. After going through a few issues, I really wanted to visit, but I never thought I would actually get there. Being lucky enough now to live nearby (eight to 10 hour drive), I have visited several times.

Next week I will be going again, to Coyote Buttes, which is partly in Utah but mostly in Arizona, about 30 miles west of Page or 30 miles east of Kanab. I went to the same general area last November with Jim and Walter. I am returning to explore more of the area.

Coyote Buttes is divided into two parts: north and south. Each requires its own visitor permit from the BLM. Permits are hard to get, especially for the north part, which has the Wave. They limit visitors in order to preserve the delicate rock formations. After three tries, I got in at the north part and immediately applied for a permit for the south on the next day. So I will be going to the north on the first day, then to the south.

Roads and trails are sparse in this area, and there is no flowing water most of the time. I have been entering waypoints in my new GPS to help me navigate. And today I took a six mile walk with my back pack and camera bag, weighted to about 30 pounds to simulate the food, water, and gear I will be carrying.

There is one very small campground on the state line (two tent spaces in Arizona, two in Utah). But dispersed (off-road) camping is permitted with few restrictions, so I will find a place somewhere.

More and more, I see my life as connected by threads running in wild loops through the strangest places, binding together in time and space a perfect thing.

In this regard, I don't think I'm unusual.