This is a summer of no specific plans or timetables. We decided to generally head toward the Northwest but did not plan a particular route or time line. The only thing definite was that we needed to be near the Canadian border by Aug. 29 to go on our Alaskan cruise.
We stayed in Cottonwood, AZ for two weeks and then moved to just north of Flagstaff. We have driven past the signs for two National Monuments many times and each time said someday we need to stop there and check them out. This was a good year to stop.
The first is Sunset Creator Volcano National Monument. I have been interested in volcanic areas since I took some geology courses in college (that was just a few years ago).
All of the hills in this area are cinder cones. Cinder cones are big piles of cinders thrown out by a volcanic eruption. There are about 400 of them here.
Our campsite while visiting the area.
Just a few miles north is Wupatka National Monument which preserves ruins of houses built by the native people. They were built atop and around large rocks sticking out of the desert.
A nice view from their patio.
All the hills in the background are cinder cones.
I am always on the lookout for interesting plants and flowers.
While we were in the area we drove east of Flagstaff to visit the Meteor Crater. This is on private land but they are doing a great job of preserving it and providing visitor services at a reasonable cost. Even within a few hundred yards you would never know this was here. It looks like just a small rise until you get to the top of the rim. This may be the best preserved meteor crater in the world. It is about 4000 feet in diameter and when the meteor hit it threw out rocks the size of a small house.
The eastern Arizona sky.
We traveled on to St.George, UT. We had a great visit with friends there and toured the Johnson Farms Dinosaur Track Museum. It seems this fellow was using a bulldozer to level a hill when he looked down at some of the rocks he was moving and saw something interesting.
The track, in the lower middle of the picture, was made when the dinosaur walked on some mud. The track was then covered with material that eventually turned into rock and preserved the reverse of the track as well as the mud cracks around it. The museum has hundreds of tracks on display.
This slab of rock is at least 25 feet long with track ways of several dinosaurs.
One must be careful when one is near dinosaurs.
Utah has many national parks. The only one we had not visited was Bryce Canyon.
Just west of Bryce Canyon is Cedar Brakes National Monument. It is similar to Bryce Canyon but it is a bit more colorful. It is at about 10,000 feet in elevation, 2000 feet higher the Bryce. It was cold and windy when we were there the last week of May and there was still snow laying around, but it was well worth the visit.
While we toured this area of Utah we stayed in aptly named Red Canyon, just west of the national park.
From southwestern Utah we slowly made our way through the middle of Nevada. A 200 mile day was a long day. We finally stopped for a few weeks in southeastern Oregon. This is wild and lonely ranch country. It is an area where you can drive for an hour and not see another car. Our kind of place.
Here are a few shots of the scenery of this beautiful area.
I thought that when we owned a house, we had a very large mailbox. It was tiny compared to this one. When you live 50 or 60 miles from the nearest town and get your mail once or twice a week, you need a mailbox this size
This round barn was one of several built on a huge ranch. On the inside it did not look anything like I thought it would. Because the winters here are so harsh, it was built to give the ranch hands someplace to train horses.
You can see that it is built with double walls. They kept the horses and equipment in the center area, inside the stone wall and trained the horses in the space between the two walls which went all the way around the barn. It looked like a small race track.
When I saw this sign I thought someone made a mistake. Most highway grades are 6 or 7 percent. I discovered I was the one who was wrong. I found out later that this is the steepest paved road in Oregon. I went down this 3 mile long, very curvy hill in 1st gear in my motorhome and still needed to use the brakes. If it had been any longer I would have had to stop and let the brakes cool before I got to the bottom.
This is a lake in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with the Steens Mountains in the background. There are two swans in the middle left of the lake.
I found another volcanic area. I just seem to be drawn to them. This area is called Diamond Craters. Even though this looks just like a simple hole in the ground, it is an unusual feature called a “maar”. When the sediments at the bottom of this maar were studied it was determined that there had been water in here for six thousand years.
A farm in Southeastern Oregon.
Here is something you don’t see everyday. This nighthawk liked to spend the day on a fence rail that bordered our campsite.
We never know what we might find when we are out driving the back roads. This hot spring area was back a dirt road 6 miles from the main gravel road.
On one of our trips in the Steens Mountains we came upon a textbook example of a glacier carved U shaped valley.
I was hoping my parking break held.
After traveling 11 miles on a road that almost required four wheel drive we came upon what could be the highlight of our Oregon stay. This is part of the 37,000 acre area where the Kiger Mustang lives.
The Kiger Mustangs are wild horses that possess many of the characteristics of the original Spanish Mustang and are like no other horse in America. We were very lucky to find a small herd.
On to central Oregon and Washington in our next post.
