Raining on Mt. Rainier

The snow lies dark and deep on the foothills of Mt. Rainier, Washington.

Washington state is damp. The locals call it liquid sunshine... not a bad approach to making the silk purse out of the sow's ear. Our visit to this beautiful state has taken us through tall Douglas Fir trees – so tall they seem to touch the sky. We parked in a city park, amid thick, bushy birch trees and cottonwood trees.
Amidst the rain showers, a watery sun breaks through and we decided to take advantage and drive to Mt. Rainier National Park. It's 72 miles away and we take the little Honda on jaunts like this. We started at 177 feet above sea level. But it was a climb all the way to the east. The rains came and went and came again.
We passed through Mossyrock – well-named since most of the rocks and trees here are coated in moss. We came to Ashford and were warned this was the last place to purchase gasoline before entering the park. But our trusty little Honda sips gently from the gas tank and we drove on.
One of the great, great advantages of being of a certain age is you can purchase a lifetime pass for $10 which provides free admittance to any of our national parks. Since the less aged must pay between $15 and $25 to enter this should go down as the best $10 we have ever spent.
Mt. Rainier is the fifth National Park, signed into being by President McKinley back in 1899. The mountain stands at 14,471 feet. We never did see it because of the snow and the low clouds as we ascended.
We came to Paradise where the visitor center is located and greeted sturdy young things, outfitted in snow shoes or cross country skis who were heading out on the trails. We, instead, visited the movie theater where the majesty of Mt. Rainier unfolded before us. This is an active volcano which currently is sleeping. It still spouts steam through vents but there has not been a major eruption in 73 years. Back then 30 feet of cement-like mud descended on the highway.
Mt. St.. Helens, just 35 miles down the chain, celebrated its 30th anniversary of exploding and moving millions of tons of mountain, as well as millions of trees and mud. We actually were able to view Mt. St. Helens on our way back to the motor home because the clouds parted and revealed the angry face of the mountain.
As we climbed to Paradise, we passed the 3,200 foot elevation and that's when the snow began. The mountains within sight were thickly coated while the packed snow alongside the highway was six to eight feet high. Mt. Rainier gets 680 inches of snow on an average year. It had a record snowfall in 1976 – 1,120 inches of snow. That number is correct.
We saw some deer munching on the endless quantities of moss. They looked at us with no fear. There also are brown bear, mountain lion and mountain goats.

Earlier in the week, we had driven through the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon side (The river separates Washington and Oregon states.). Now we are traveling in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark who passed this way in 1804-5. We camped in a state campground among the moss-covered giant trees. Then we drove the car to a variety of massive waterfalls along the highway. The river had many dams to produce hydro electric power. Mountains rise straight up from the water's edge and our journey was three days of glorious views.

Monday, May 24
We ventured into Seattle, through its maze of rough roads and flying, aggressive traffic. We made our way to Pike's Market where much of the food of the city is sold – particularly the fresh fish. It's a contact sport, in many ways: You choose your fish, a salesman in orange overalls grabs it and shouts to his mate behind the counter. The mate returns the call, repeating the order (e.g.: Four pounds, fresh halibut”) and the salesman flings the fish through the air. It always is caught with a flourish by the behind-the-counter guy and a cheer erupts from the dozens of tourists. Good entertainment.
Our wanderings took us through an international city of food and crafts: Pakistan, Nepal, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, Russia. All the ethnic food you could ever wish to sample.
Seattle is a difficult city in which to walk because so much of it is on the steep side of hills. But the city fathers have brilliantly designated the downtown area as a “free” bus zone. This means you can walk, hop on a bus, get off and walk, then hop on another bus. The drivers are helpful about guiding you. If you have a bike, you simply lower a device on the front of the bus and clip your bike on before climbing aboard. And it doesn't cost a penny. We were both mighty impressed as this keeps cars off the city streets.

We have now passed the 4,000-mile mark in our journey. Add 1,100 miles for the driving we have done in our trusty little Honda. We are less than 150 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia and plan to be there on Saturday morning.

In the Footsteps of Giants

Two sets of tracks define a relatively flat area of the trail, where wagons would run along side by side.

“There is no obstruction in the whole route (to Oregon) that any person would dare to call a mountain.”
Missouri Gazette, 1813 (This would represent the first indication of the decline and fall of newspaper reporting accuracy)

“The hills ware dreadful steep … locking both wheels and coming down slow got down safe oh dear me the desert is very hard on the pooor animals going without grass or water for one night and day.”
Helen Marnie Stewart, 1850

I'm with Helen in spirit as she and her family made the 2,100-mile trek along the Oregon Trail. Jo and I stood Sunday at the Snake River in Glenns Ferry, Idaho, looking across to the trail, still etched by the thousands of wheels that brought the prairie schooners down the hill and to the side of the river where the people had to make a decision: cross the swift-running Snake, using three islands in Idaho as stepping stones; or continue along the edge and into the desert where there was no food for their oxen.
Half of the trail trekkers crossed the river at this point. The rest pushed on, half of them losing their lives in the desert. There is said to be a grave every 80 yards of the trail. Ten percent of the 200,000 who set out never made it. Many lost all their goods in the river as their wagons were swept away in the roiling current. But still they came. The Shoshone Indian people saw them coming. They saw the dust of 1,000 Euro-Americans walking alongside their wagons.The wagons were something they had never seen before. And they saw oxen, something they had never seen before. And they helped them across the river. They showed them where the safest places were to ford. And the new Euro-Americans thanked them and befriended them. And then they took the Shoshone lands.
The Conestoga wagons used in the East were far too large for the Oregon trail. So the emigrants used smaller rigs, called “prairie schooners.” From a distance, their white covers looked like sails. There was no room to ride in the wagons.
There is an enormous emotional pull when you walk in the tracks left by these people. Perhaps it is because I am an immigrant, too. But I could feel the will, as well as the pain and the sickness and the daily struggle.
Overlanders got up at 4 a.m. The men hitched the teams and the women cooked breakfast over a buffalo-chip fire. The wagons rolled out at 7 a.m. At midday, they made an hour's “nooning” stop to rest livestock and eat a lunch of leftovers. At 5 p.m., the wagons rolled into a circle – not for protection from the Indians, but to form a corral for livestock. The men tended the stock while the women cooked a supper of cornbread. Beans. Fried meat, gravy, and coffee.
In the “Emigrant's Guide to California,” Joseph E. Ware advised emigrantrs tro supoply their wagons with the following items for a partyy of four:
824 lbs. Flour
200 lbs. Beans
725 lbs. Bacon
75 lbs. Coffee
135 lbs. Peaches or apples
25 lbs. Salt
160 lbs. sugar
200 lbs.lard
pepper
bicarbonate of soda
tin polates
spoons
coffee pot
camp kettle
knives
Total cost of these items in 1842 was $220.78

Isom Cranfill wrote these words in 1846:
“We arived at the uper crossing of Lewis River at 11 O'clock a.m. & commenced prepareing waggon beds to ferry over the River (verry Hot). We Ferryed Eleven waggons and their loading over the river. The wind blowed Severely in the forepart of the day & waves run too high to navigate the River. It was not quite to high in the Afterpart of the day & we Sucseded in Giuting over Safe & r\Riged up at 4 o'clock & set out on our journey.”

Shoes were a major problem for emigrantrs on the Oregon Trail. Mary Ellen Murdock Compton wrote in her diary of wearing out nine pairs of shoes along the route. The emigrants learned to barter with the Native Americans for moccasins.
One man turned terrible misfortune into a valuable commodity. Catherine Haun in 1849 tells how the man had a leg amputated following a rattlesnake bite. Rather than become a burden to others in his wagon train, he learned to mend boots and shoes while riding in the wagon.

The diaries of those to made it through bring this epic voyage alive.

“Father...died at the second crossing of Ham's Fork. We had two wagons, so mother had the men take the wagon bed of one of them and make a coffin. She abandoned the running gear, ox yokes, and some of our outfit, and we finished the trip in one wagon.”
Elvina Apperson Fellows, age 10 in 1847

“I would make a brave effort to be cheerful and patient until the camp work was done. Then starting out ahead of the team and my men folks, when I thought I had gone beyond hearing distance, I would throw myself down on the unfriendly desert and give way like a child to sobs and tears, wishing myself back home with my friends and chiding myself for consenting to take this wild goose chase.”
Lavinia Porter, 1860

Jo and I drove along Interstate 84 into Oregon, now called the Oregon Trail Highway. Our trek is a puny effort. It may be many miles longer. But it surely does not come close to standing shoulder to shoulder with those who came before, some 160 years ago. There are tears in my eyes as I look out across the rolling hills of eastern Oregon and see the deep-etched tracks that remind us of the five-month-long journey from Missouri to Oregon.

Of Golden Tablets and Golden Spike

The angel Moroni blows his golden trumpet from the highest spire at the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City.

Thursday, May 13, 2010
We've lingered in the Salt Lake valley of Utah, surrounded by snow-covered peaks on our east, south and west. Two reasons for the lingering: We wanted to poke around into the beliefs of the Mormons and this is Ground Zero; 2: we have been struggling with a recalcitrant indicator light problem on our rig. We've been blowing fuses for a few days and needed to root out the cause.
While a mechanic endlessly worked at tracing the fault in our wiring, we took off in the car (and the cat) to poke around the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Oh, silly me. I actually thought we could walk into the Temple. No. We were met by a man dressed entirely in white (white tie, white shirt, what suit, white socks, white shoes) who was named Elroy. Elroy asked if he could help us and I asked if it was permissible to enter the Temple. Only if we were members of the church, he told us. Clearly, by our attire, we didn't match the look. Elroy suggested that we walk around the corner and wander to the visitor's center where we would meet two women - “there will always be two of them,” he said – and they would take care of our every need.
With the cat in her red bag, we wandered past three beggars into the visitor center. And the women were there, in groups of two. They each wore a badge along with a flag of their country of origin. I noted flags of Singapore, India, U.S., The Maldives. We greeted them but they did not pounce so we wandered through the center where there was a diorama of Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago. We took an escalator upstairs to a round room, painted with the heavens. In the center of the room was a larger-the-life marble carving of Jesus. He stood there with hands outstretched while a disembodied voice spoke on behalf of God, telling all in the room that “This is my beloved son.”
Dozens of families stood before them stature to have their picture taken. As we sat on one of the comfortable couches we watched as the pairs of women knelt in front of couples to answer their questions.
Still, no one came to us and we descended two floors to a series of dioramas that explained the belief systems of the church. We also took in a movie that did an impressive job of explaining the church's outreach to the poor and the unemployed. We picked up a pamphlet the explained the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This told his story of being 14 years old and his struggle to choose a Christian sect with which he could worship. He could not choose, but stumbled onto the Epistle of James which reads, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God … and it shall be given unto him.”
Joseph decided to give it a go and he went out to the woods behind his home in upstate New York. After he was enveloped in darkness and he felt he was struggling for his life, two personages appeared to him and one said, “This is my beloved son. Hear him.” He asked which sect he should follow and was told not to follow any of them for they were an abomination to the lord.
Four years passed and Joseph was much abused and persecuted because he told of his vision. He slipped into “many moral errors.”
But he lay in bed one night and asked for forgiveness and to find out how he sat with God. This was a big night for he was visited by an angel named Moroni who gave him key information about the gold tablets he eventually would uncover and translate. The rest is history. Joseph took his flock west, always under attack from people who didn't like Mormons and what they stood for. They settled in Salt Lake and created a city and a religion that has grown and spread across the world.
Jo and I remember being in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, during the Water Festival. More than a million people had come in from the provinces for the festival and we wandered among them on the waterfront. The booth that was most popular, above all the food and drinks and snake charmers and clothing stalls was a tent in which members of the Church of Latter Day Saints showed a movie about their outreach to the poor of Cambodia. It always was filled with people who watched and listened.
We wandered back to our car, passing banks of tulips, jonquils, iris, pansies and petunias and poppies. A nice little stream channeled its way beside the sidewalk.
We received a welcome phone call from the mechanic, saying he'd located the bare wires that had been the cause of our shorting turn signal problem. Now we were able to head on. We came north again, marveling at the beauty of the snow-covered mountain ranges rising all about us. We came to Ogden, Utah, to spend the night.


Friday, May 14
We drove across the northern edge of the Great Salt Lake, on a two-lane road, and came to the Golden Spike National Historic Monument at Promontory, Utah. This is the place, back in 1869, where the continent was connected by railroads from the east and the west. Leland Stanford brought along a golden spike which was driven into the wood to secure the final rail.
There's really not much to Promontory. But each day, replicas of the two steam engines from the east (No. 119) and the west (Jupiter) come out of their train shed and meet on the track.
The site exceeded our expectations because of the arrival of the trains, sighing with that lonesome steam whistle as they approached the historic site, and because there is an excellent museum on the site. More than 10,000 Chinese workers dug their way through the Sierra Mountains to get the Pacific leg on its way. Their digging progressed at eight inches per day during the first two years. This can only be compared to our modern goal of sending a man to the moon and bringing him home safely.
We headed out for Idaho after the visit, driving alongside the Sawtooth Mountains which look exactly as they should with a name like that. They were covered in snow but our highway was clean and dry.
Distance traveled thus far: 3,340 miles.

Welcome to Zion and Bryce

Court of the Patriarchs, showing Moses, Isaac and Jacob.

May 6, 2010
We crossed the desolate Arizona landscape, through bleak, tired Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations with cheap homes and endless collections of broken-down trucks and cars in the front and back yards and found little to stop for. When we came to Winslow, we parked in a Walmart lot and found, as the afternoon wore on, that a community of 14 motorhomes and trailers and assorted other RVs joined us in the lot. They ranged from simple boxes added to the back of a truck to a Prevost deluxe motor home with all its gaudy marble floors and $2.5 million pricetag. We never could figure why someone who can afford such a rig would opt to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. But it takes all kinds. Probably the owner would say, “How do you think I was able to afford such luxury if not by watching my pennies.”
In the night, Interstate 40 was the scene of a deadly truck crash. It closed the highway shortly before midnight and, when we awoke and turned on the TV news, the road was still closed. But we were promised it would open at 6:30 a.m. Oh, I should mention, that Arizona does not recognise Mountain Time as a standard and it moves its clocks forward an hour to Pacific time. Because we planned to be in the state for just two days, we didn't change our internal clocks, since Utah and Mountain Time still beckoned.
The highway north of Flagstaff, Arizona also was closed in the evening because of wildfires that had jumped the highway and created zero visibility because of the billowing smoke.
On Friday morning, we set out on Interstate 40 and rolled west for 45 miles before coming to a parking lot on the highway. The road remained slow, slow, slow. After half an hour, we came upon the wreck.
One of the tractor trailers, 53 feet long, was peeled back like a gigantic sardine can. The driver in that truck had died. The other truck was torn apart, though not quite so badly.
After getting past this, the road opened up and we made Flagstaff in less than an hour. We turned north and climbed for several thousand feet before summitting at around 7,800 feet. Then we descended to the town of Page, the site of the dam at Lake Powell.
The road got narrower and rose again into Utah. Now the landscape changed again – this time we were surrounded by multi-colored rock mountains. Ochres, bright orange, yellows, brown and even green (from copper) stratas entertained us. But we were tiring and when we found the turn-off to our campground called Lutherwoods, we were more than ready to stop. It is positioned midpoint between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. What we didn't realize is that Lutherwood, run and owned by the Lutheran Church, is three miles up a gravel road at 7,550 feet. We made our way over several cattle grids and found, on arrival, we were the first people to visit this year. We were welcomed by the camp host who had arrived the day before from Las Vegas.
We washed the red dust off the car and motor home. Then we wandered over to a herd of deer that had come down from the snow-covered peaks to munch on the green grass 100 yards from our rig. They looked just a little nervous as I sidled up to photograph them. And when they caught my scent, they scattered but slowly wandered, munching, back into the juicy green area.

Saturday, May 8, 2010
Brrr. We awoke to a chilly 26 degrees. The external water system had frozen. But we were able to use the internal tank on the rig to get water for tea and coffee.
We set off for Zion National Park, 36 miles from our home on a hill. We had read some National Geographic material about the park. But the place took our breath away. You feel you are in a spiritual, holy place. There is something quite comforting and protective about Zion. We drove in from the east, passing along a winding road that threw vista after vista at us as we came around each descending hairpin curve.
You come to the canyon floor and above you, thousands of feet above you, soar the majestic wonder of Zion. Great monoliths of sandstone rise up from the valley. Some are 5,500 feet above sea level. It fairly takes your breath away and you are humbled by the majesty of the place. There are no superlatives in our language that provide adequate descriptions.
The place has been inhabited for 15,000 years by the people who came 'way before the Pueblo Indians. The Paiutes lived here before the Mormon scouts came down from Salt Lake City. The word was sent back that a river ran through the canyon and farming was possible. Brigham Young sent several families south to colonize the place. They showed the Paiutes how the Book of Mormon described the Indians as the lost tribe of Israel and they bought the story. They lived in harmony with the new settlers.
I asked a ranger if Brigham Young ever visited the place and he told me the prophet was uncomfortable that the lead missionary had taken up tobacco growing (learned from the Paiutes) and it was not okay with Mr Young that this man should be smoking the weed. So Brigham Young called the place “Not Zion”. But that didn't stick.
No one in Washington would believe such a special place existed. Paintings were sent back but they were thought to be the work of a soaring imagination. When the photographs arrived, showing the astonishing rock formations, the government was moved to make the place a National Monument. The classification National Park came at the turn of the last century.
Jo and I used the propane-powered tram to carry us through the park. We could step off at one of many stops and hike the special places before returning and boarding again.
At Angel's Landing, we spent time with a ranger who told us about two condors that have been relocated to Vermillion Cliffs, about 50 miles south of Zion. She said she had seen them soaring over the park with their 9-10-foot wingspans. As she spoke, Jo scoured the sky overhead and quietly announced one of the condors was there. It soared several thousand feet above Angel's Landing. And the landing stood almost a mile above us. But Jo spotted her condor. There are so few condors in North America that each is identied and carried a number.
We caught the tram to the most northern stop, the Temple of Sinowava where we sat beside a 1,000-foot-high waterfall and ate our picnic lunch as the Virgin River gurgled beside out feet.
There is a 1.1 mile tunnel, blasted through one of the mountains, which we passed through in our car in total darkness. This had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. As the tunnel turned on its journey through the mountain, we would come to enormous windows, blown out of the tunnel and showing another mind-blowing vista. This was definitely an E-ticket ride.

May 9, 2010
Now we came to Bryce Canyon National Park. It is about 80 miles from Zion. But there is a completely different feel to the park. At Zion you are at the bottom, looking up and the majesty. At Bryce, you are on the canyon rim, looking down. And the view is different because the canyon is constructed of different kinds of rocks. They are much softer here and they have eroded in a strange and mystical way, leaving thousands of sentinels almost like the stone soldiers that were buried in China.
I was chatting to one visitor and he said he felt Zion of the male while Bryce was the female. There might be something to this for Bryce has a softness while Zion is formidable and massive.
We have no electricity in the national park but the price certainly is right: $7.50 a night. We can only run our generator until 8 at night. So we slipped off to bed at 9 p.m. And huddled under the comforter until 8 on Monday morning when we could put the generator on again and run our gas furnace.
Snow is forecast tonight so we have that to look forward to.

Of Petroglyphs and Pueblos

Meet Romeldo Shadduck, a Pueblo Indian who was sent to the Indian Boarding School in Albuquerque when she was 12 years old.

Monday, May 3, 2010
“Each of these rocks is alive, keeper of a message left by the ancestors.....There are spirits, guardians; there is medicine.” Pueblo Elder William F. Weahkee said this about the thousands of petroglyphs we found today in the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stood on a lava field, a hawk spiraling down from the mesa above. Some of the glyphs are recognizable as animals or people. There are crosses and other mysterious markings on the black rocks.
As we climbed the mesa, we came upon two native Americans. One was blind and was being helped up the rough and rocky path by his friend. It was the first time they had come to the glyphs. We chatted with the sighted Indian and he told us he was descended from the Anasazi. He guided his friend's feet on the tricky path while he told us about how the Anasazi believed that aliens from another planet came to these parts thousands of years ago and merged with the Anasazi. “My grandfather believes this,” he said, almost defensively. I told him anything is possible in this beautiful land.
No one really knows what these glyphs are all about. They have deep spiritual meaning for the Pueblo, Navajo and Dine Indians. The glyphs are said to be understood by the Pueblo people. But they believe it is not appropriate to reveal the meaning to those of us who are not of them.
They are thought to be about 1,300 years old. Some of the glyphs are actually more modern, placed there by Spanish shepherds who grazed their sheep on the mesa. But the early crosses, with a cross within another cross are by the Native Americans. The Spanish shepherds created more simple imagery.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Today was Ting Lee's date with destiny. We found a vet in Albuquerque, via the internet, who agreed to spay her before she comes into heat. We dropped her off at 7:30 am. And then went wandering around Albuquerque for the day.
First stop was a traditional breakfast at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. I had huevos rancheros, with eggs, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, toast and tortilla while Jo dug into a heaping plate of blue corn pancakes, served with pinon butter. The butter had pine nuts in it and she raved about the taste treat.
We wandered the exhibits and learned about the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico. But, as always, the place came alive when we came upon a tiny and old Pueblo woman, Romeldo Shadduck, (her father had been given the name Shadduck by Presbyterian man from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she told us.
Romeldo told us she had been sent to Indian boarding school when she reached the 7th grade. She graduated from Indian School and was sent on to college where she earned a degree that permitted her to teach other Indian children.
“I still live in the adobe house of my ancestors,” she told us proudly. “It has six rooms now because my brother added two rooms.”
Romeldo's brother made it high into the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Her oldest sister, who is 96, also was a teacher and is about to be given an honorary doctorate. I asked this lovely old lady, in a gentle way, how much younger she is than her sister. Romeldo was not about to give up her age, however. “Oh, I am much younger. I was the fourth child. My sister was the first child,” she said.
Jo wanted to know if the people at the Indian School had tried to change her into a white American but she said it was a good experience for her. “Everyone had to speak English,” she told us. “But that was because the children all spoke different languages.” She said she speaks the Puebloan language of her mother. But she does not speak the language of her father, who came from another tribe. As a result, she spoke English when she spoke with her father.
She was extremely proud of the fact that she still lives in her adobe home today. I asked if it has electricity and water and she said these were added many years back. She said the adobe style of construction is rarely used today. “It's all sticks now,” she said. Many of the buildings here in New Mexico are built in the adobe style. But they are constructed of concrete and steel. Romeldo's home is of the original mud and straw.
We wandered into Oldtown, where there's a square, surrounded by Indians selling their turquoise necklaces and silverware. We found a quiet plaza off the square and sat in the shade, listening to three Indians playing soothing music on pan flutes, along with bamboo wooden flutes and guitar.
When we picked up Ting, exhausted, late in the afternoon, the vet handed her over and said she was in good spirits and looked very strong. She now weighs 5 lbs 4 oz. She gave us a plastic conical collar to keep her from reaching her stitches. But that proved to be unusable in our motor home. She immediately slid beneath the driver's seat and got her collar jammed which resulted in huge wails of distress. So we decided she would have to learn to live without the collar and without trying to nip at her stitches.

Wednesday, May 5
High winds were forecast for this afternoon. So we decided to make a short 120-mile jog west to Gallup, New Mexico. We came to Red Rock Park, run by the city of Gallup. We now are surrounded by the Navajo Indian reservations.
Our campground is as advertised – backed right up to enormous red sandstone rocks. There's a natural structure a couple of miles behind us called Church Rock that towers over everything and seems to be in the shape if a trident of rocks. We visited the museum at the park and got to study some quite spectacular sand paintings, done by the Navajo. There is one, Bears and Soft Talkers, which took eight days and nine nights. It measures about 30 inches square. At the center is black darkness and the gray face of the sun and the white face of the moon, both with feathers and rainbow bars. The bears each have four tracks. Soft Talkers each wear headdresses of eagle tail feathers and owl feathers. Their wrist bands, knee garters, and sashes are of rainbows. The moccasins are of the black clouds The painting is entirely hand done out of pulverized colored sand.

Meeting the Pueblo People

The 13,101-foot high mountains above Taos welcomes us from a graveyard in Las Truchas.

We're parked on the high desert, north of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The wind is howling... 45 miles an hour continuously with gusts hitting 65 to 68 mph. This is totally crazy. In all our travels we have never experienced anything like this.
We're in a dust storm and a fine coating of dessert sand coats everything inside the motor home – including us. The act of opening the door takes both hands.
We're staying at an Escapees Club park and we love being around these people. They truly are like us – mostly live aboards who gave up on most of their possessions so they could roam North America.
When we drove up to the entrance, the campground hostess came out of her little office and rang a large bell several times. This was to alert the camp that a visitor has arrived. After giving us a welcoming hug, she signed us in. While she did that a number of the neighbors stopped by to offer their own welcome.
In the afternoon, we gathered in the community hall for refreshments. Jo and I were introduced and were invited to speak about our travels....very welcoming people.
The blowing wind was so violent that we had to lower our motor home jacks to keep the rig from rocking so violently. At one stage we thought the rolled up canopy might break free and we needed to tie it down with our plastic ties.
The winds settled down in the late evening and we slept well. But we'll never forget this experience.

Friday, April 30, 2010
We awoke to a silent morning. Rabbits silflayed on the verge beside the motor home and cattle stood in the high desert with an electric fence separating them from us.
We said our goodbyes to our hosts and headed ever-uphill toward Roswell where we parked at the Visitor's Center. The lady who chatted with us gave us lots of information, then suggested we let her photograph us beside the aliens that populate everything in Roswell (the evidence is in the New Mexico photo album).
Roswell's reputation is built around a young cowboy who saw a UFO crash into the desert outside Roswell back in 1947. Initially the U.S. Army agreed it was a UFO. But then they circled the wagons and said it was a weather balloon. Of such stuff endless conspiracy stories are woven. We went to the UFO museum in town and spent an hour being inundated with more info than I need about UFOs.
Next overnight stop was the tiny crossroads of Vaughn, NM. We started the day at 3,100 feet and the empty road rose before us, slowly, inexorably upward. As we came to the crest of the hill for Vaughn our GPS told us we has passed 5,984 feet.
When we settled into El Rancho Camp, Jo wanted to cook some brownies. But the recipe for high altitude brownies requires that you reduce the water, add flour and remove an egg. They came out beautifully.
Vaughn must be loved by someone, just not by us. As Gertrude Stein once said: There's no there when you get there.” That's Vaughn.
Santa Fe, the state capital beckoned us the next day. The morning started at 33 degrees, a shocking difference of 60 degrees from Carlsbad. The deer were with us again on the naked hills. There are no trees, hardly even a scrub bush on the way to Santa Fe. And the hills continued to rise before us. We reached 7,024 just as we entered Santa Fe. We pushed on north to a campground that took us closer to Taos.
After we were settled in and had lunch, we left the RV and motored on the high road to Taos. What an incredible ride this was. We soon drove through the snow line, about 8,000 feet. We stopped in the village of La Trampas and visited one of the finest surviving 18th century churches in New Mexico. The town was established in 1751 by 12 families from Santa Fe.
We arrived in Taos late in the afternoon and when we tried to enter the Pueblo of Taos (the traditional and cultural center of the Pueblo peoples we were told visitors could only stay another 45 minutes. The man still wanted to charge us $10 each for the privilege. We thanked him but decided 45 minutes was too short a time to spend in the pueblo. So we made our way back to the town of Taos and wandered the art shops.
I chatted with a swarthy Pueblo woman named Jocelyn in one of the galleries. I asked her is she could help me understand the displayed carving called “Red Menace,” a little Pueblo man, painted totally red. He carried a rattle and wore a breech cloth of blue cloth with stars on it. She said the story stemmed from how the Pueblo people would fight other tribes. The man was a Pawnee brave and during a skirmish the Pueblo people had beaten the Pawnee. “This allows us to take from them anything we want,” Jocelyn told me. “So we took his song and his dance.”
She explained that this permits the victors to make a fool of the vanquished foe. She pointed out that the rattle was made from a tin can, not the usual gourd. “It's like we are diminishing him,” she said.
I asked her if a white man, or a Spanish person came to the pueblo if he would have been taken in and provided hospitality. “Probably,” she said. “Because the people would know they would not be endangered by just one person from the outside. But, she said, the Pueblo people had a sophisticated system of runners who passed the word from pueblo to pueblo about passing peoples. So the people in the pueblo would be well aware of any stranger long before he got to the pueblo.
It snowed lightly as we made our way back to our RV.