Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks

While staying in Visalia, CA we drove an hour to these two parks. Although they have separate names, they are actually one park and one can drive from one to the other. Located in the Sierra Nevada mountains in central CA, they are home to the giant Sequoia trees. Two of them, General Sherman and General Grant, are the two largest trees on earth. It is estimated that they are dispersisng seeds. These trees, in addition to being fire tolerant are also impervious to insects and disease. In fact,  most of them die from falling over due to a relatively shallow root system.

2 large sequoias

Stephen inside a dead sequoia

King's Canyon

2,200 years old! What makes them so majestic is their incredible width. While they are quite tall, the CA Redwood is taller. Most of them have scars from fires years past. The fires help the tree by forcing the cones, many of which are attached to the trees for 20 years,  (the size of a chicken's egg) open and

When viewing them, I felt like I was on another planet, for I had never seen any other tree that compared to them. They are quite massive, even in their upper structure. They grow amongst other conifers such as the redwood and the sugar maple, but they do exist in groves. They are easily identified by their red bark and size.

King's Canyon, in addition to Sequoia, also has sequoia groves. It is also one of the steepest canyons in the US. You can travel from the top of the canyon to the bottom, where you find the rapidly flowing South fork of the King's river. It is quite beautiful. It is also remarkable given the drought that is obvious throughout the countryside.

One other thing to mention--in this arid climate, you see miles of citrus, olive, and nut trees in the valleys below the Sierra Madres. I wonder how the farmers are able to pay to irrigate these fields given the current draught status?

Prescott, Phoenix and Tucson, AZ

As most of you know, we spent @ 2 months in AZ. When camping in Prescott we went RV shopping. Our RV was 7 years old and experiencing some problems. We had already replaced 2 axles, all tires, and now our convection oven broke. We found a lovely, new RV which we decided to purchase. Without going over the trials and tribulations experienced in getting our new loan, I will say that it took @7 weeks longer than we expected, but by the end of June, we left Prescott with our new 2016 42 foot Solitude fifth wheel.

While in AZ, we took several trips. We went to Phoenix to see two Frank Lloyd Wright homes and visited Tucson to see the Suguaro National Park, and my friend and colleague, Kathy Huebner. We also took a side trip to Tombstone to see the famous OK Coral and went to the Desert Museum as well.

Wright's home and school at Taliessen West

Wright's son's home

Tombstone

Tombstone cemetery--grave of man killed at OK Coral

Suguaro National Park

Page, Arizona

Page, a relatively small town in Northern AZ has some beautiful sights. While there we saw Lower Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and took a raft trip on the Colorado River.

Lower Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon located on Navajo land. While the Upper Canyon is above ground, the lower canyon is visited by descending a crevice in the bleak Arizona landscape. It is longer than the upper canyon and provides some amazing views.

Horseshoe bend can be viewed by hiking 3/4 mile from a road stop about 1/2 mile from town. One looks down on the Colorado as it makes almost a 360 degree turn. We had the opportunity to see it the next day from a different vantage point. We took a rafting trip on the river and actually navigated around the bend.

Check out the pictures.

Horseshoe Bend

Antelope Canyon

Light shaft in Antelope Canyon

Rafting on the Colorado (1000 ft canyon walls)

Monument Valley and Natural Bridges National Monument

Monument Valley was my favorite location when I toured the west 11 years ago with Bradley. I wasn't disappointed this time. We stayed at Gouldings, the same campground across the road from MV that we stayed in last time. The campground is surrounded by red rock cliffs, has a gift shop, dining room, grocery store, and a lodge. It also has the movie site of a cabin used by John Wayne while filming Stagecoach.

Monument Valley is on Navajo Tribal Lands. When you visit it, you must either drive an assigned dirt road or hire a Navajo guide who will take you to sites that cannot be seen when driving the planned loop road. Over 135 movies have been filmed here. The story is that the original Mr. Goulding went to Hollywood during the depression (1930's) with $60 in his pocket. He met director, John Ford, showed him some black/white photos of the valley and talked him into making movies in what became the "iconic west."

We chose to hire a Navajo guide who spent 1/2 day driving us around the valley, telling us about his native culture, showing us natural arches and monoliths, and taking us to a traditional Navajo home, the hogan, where we observed a woman spinning wool into yarn. At the end of the tour he sang us several Navajo songs in a beautiful setting.

The Navajo society is matrilineal. When a man marries, he moves in with the wife and pays her family a dowry. If she is a skilled weaver, potter, etc., the dowry is increased accordingly. The Navajo, or Dine, value the sky, mother earth, water, women and then veterans in that order. Elders are highly respected. The female hogan is round to symbolize the woman's pregnant belly, and has nine wooden supports which represent the 9 months of pregnancy. The door always faces the East. The family awakens at least one hour before dawn to welcome the sun. Movement around the hogan is always clockwise. The traditional hogan is made of cedar wood and is covered by a mixture of sand and water (mud). Some Navajo still live in hogans, especially elders. We were informed that the reservation is @the size of West Virginia and @75% of the Navajo live on the reservation.

The next day we decided to visit National Bridges Ntl Park which is about 2 hours away. We had to drive about 1500 feet on a dirt road that scaled a mesa. There were no guardrails and at least 10 switchbacks. The park itself had 3 natural bridges formed within the same sandstone canyon. Quite interesting.

Hogan

Me on horse at John Ford's Point

Santa Fe, New Mexico

We spent 10 terrific days in Santa Fe. While there we visited Bandolier National Monument, Taos and the Taos Pueblo, Madrid, Los Alamos, and many great restaurants, museums and shops in the city.

The city itself has a population of 82,000 people and is 7,000 miles above sea level. It is surrounded by mountains, some with snow, in the high desert environment. The landscape has a lot of desert plants, pinon pine trees and juniper as well as some plants that you might find in the northeast. When we arrived the lilacs and irises were in bloom.

Santa Fe has several building restrictions. There are no tall office buildings. In fact, I rarely saw buildings taller than 2 stories. Pueblo architecture is mandated and all roofs must be flat. Swimming pools are prohibited in the city limits.

There are many people in Santa Fe from somewhere else. It seems that many of the citizens have chosen to live there in a 2nd or 3rd iteration of their lives. You also find many people with Hispanic and Native American backgrounds. A large number of Pueblo Indian reservations surround Santa Fe. New Mexico is greatly influenced by these cultures. I was also surprised to learn that Sephardic Jews settled in Santa Fe to escape the Spanish Inquisition.  For a small town, there are 5-6 synagogues in the area. New Mexican food is similar to Mexican, but also flavored by the red and green chiles that grow in the state.

Downtown Santa Fe is unlike any other city. Even though the city is the site of the state government, you see little to no office buildings, and many galleries and museums. The stores carry very expensive Native American jewelry, pottery, and southwestern clothes. Sculptures are everywhere. There is a small town square, some very old pueblo style buildings and churches, and artisans selling their work all over town.

Bandolier National Monument and Los Alamos are both about 1 hour North of town in the Jemez (pronounced Hay-mez) mountains. Bandolier is the site of ancient Pueblan cliff dwelling located in Frijoles canyon. You can walk or hike several trails in the canyon and climb by ladder into some of the cliff homes. There are also ruins of several ancient Pueblan towns.

Los Alamos was the secret site of the Manhattan Project during WWII. Prior to the creation of laboratories and a surrounding small town, Los Alamos was home to a few ranches and a school for privileged and underachieving boys. When Albert Einstein requested that President Roosevelt and congress dedicate money to the creation of the atomic bomb, this location was chosen for the scientists who worked on the project. All was top secret. You had to have a pass to get into or out of the city. All outgoing mail was censored by the Federal Government. People living in Los Alamos did not have a street address and were unable to identify themselves by name. In fact, when traveling out of the area they had to use pseudonyms.

It is now a modern small town. Much of it consists of research laboratories. When approaching the town we had to drive through a gate where we were asked if we were US citizens. I visited a small museum which had replicas of the two bombs dropped in Japan, one named after FDR and the other after Churchill, thus the name "fat boy."

Also north of town, but a little farther is the small town of Taos. It is named after the Taos Indian Pueblo which is just outside town. This pueblo has been continuously lived in by the Taos natives for over 1,000 years. All the homes are adobe. They have outside adobe ovens and no electricity or indoor plumbing. Drinking water is obtained from the stream that runs through the village.  We were told that many of the Taos residents also have modern homes outside the pueblo.

South of town is the small, ex-mining town of Madrid. It is now a town of artisans and small shops which are quite funky. We ate lunch there and purchased a few items.

My last day in Santa Fe I visited museum hill and went to the Museum of Indian Art and Culture. There were at least 6 more museums to visit but I ran out of time.

Downtown Santa Fe

Oldest Church in US

Taos Pueblo

Shop in Madrid

Frijoles Canyon

Bandolier Cliff Dwellings

Big Bend National Park

Big Bend is located in a desolate area of Texas along the Rio Grande river. The river is so small and narrow that one could literally wade across it into Mexico. Geographically, it consists of mountains 5,000 to 6,000 feet high, the Chihuahan desert, and the river. While it is a desert climate it is rich with desert vegetation; much of it either blooming or preparing to bloom. We saw several road runners (yes, they do run on the road, but can fly a little when in danger), a number of vultures, and long eared jack rabbits. The park also has javelinas, bear, and mountain lions as well as 4 varieties of rattlesnakes and tarantulas.

I'll tell the rest of the story through pictures.

Prickly Pear Cactus in bloom

Rio Grande river. Mexico on left, US on right

Hill Country, Texas

We spent 10 days in the hill country located between Austin and San Antonio mostly viewing wildflowers, little towns, and the LBJ National Park. The weather was overcast and rainy for most of the time.

When driving around you see fields of flowers including the state flower, the bluebonnet. The bluebonnet looks like a small lupine and comes in red and blue. We discovered a wildseed farm outside of Fredricksburg  that had fields of bluebonnets and poppies. In the same area you see many wineries and on the road to Johnson City you find the LBJ Ranch which is now a national park.

While I remember LBJ, I  must say that I was not enamored with him. He seemed so unsophisticated, and the stereotypical Texan. I've never been impressed with the state and I guess I have had a prejudice against people from the state. I imagined them as cowboys--uneducated, illiterate, and conservative Republicans  (although LBJ was a Democrat--what can I say?)

Bluebonnets

LBJ and Lady Bird tombstones

Field of poppies

LBJ home

Reproduction of LBJ birthplace

Bluebonnets and other wild flowers

The recent politicians from the state have done little to change my impression.

In spite of this, I have to say that the ranch was fascinating. You see LBJs birthplace, his ranch, the one room school he attended as a 4 year old, and the cemetery where he and his wife, Lady Bird, are buried. In his home you can visit the entire first floor including the bedroom where he died at 64 years old from a heart attack, his bathroom, Lady Bird's bedroom and bathroom, the living and dining rooms, the kitchen and LBJ's office. While president, LBJ spent 20-25% of his time on the ranch working and entertaining dignitaries. People who visited the ranch wrote their names in cement. These are displayed behind the home. Although Lady Bird lived at the ranch until several years before her death, all renovations between the 1960's and today were removed and the ranch was returned to its 1965 decor. It is located in a beautiful area along a river and the grounds have an airport, fields of cows, barns, and many large live oak trees.

I was reminded that LBJ passed more legislation than any other president including The War on Poverty, numerous Civil Rights bills, the Voting Rights Act and Head Start. Never have I seen such a personal look at the life of a President.

Shortly before we left we visited my friend Karen Wolffe and her husband, Terry Hersh, in Austin. We had a great time looking at the city while spending time with great company!