Roadblocked In Texas Remembering Roadtripping Monument Valley Etcetera

A Microsoft OneDrive Memory from this Day, that I do remember. And I do remember this memory happened in October. The exact day, I do not remember. Or the exact year. It was either 1997 or 1998.

That is me looking into the lens of my long gone antique Casio digital camera, with its selfie taking feature which was years ahead of its time.

The others in the photo were floaters with me on Lake Powell, living on a houseboat for four days. In the photo, from left to right, that is Danielle, then Wally, next to his twin, Big Ed, then the twin's little sister, Lydia, with Wally's first wife, Wanda on the right. Not in the photo were fellow floaters, Danielle's first husband, Ross, and Lydia's first husband, Keith.

The scenery in the photo likely looks familiar if you've ever watched a movie set in the Wild West, such as Stagecoach, and many others. That is a section of Monument Valley you are looking at. 

I am a bit confused as to the itinerary of this trip. I think our first destination was Moab, for a few days, exploring Arches National Park and the Fiery Furnace and Canyonlands National Park. And mountain biking the Slick Rock Trail.

From Moab we trekked to Bullfrog Basin on Lake Powell, from whence we houseboated. Getting off the houseboat we ferried across Lake Powell. I think the ferry was called Hall's Crossing. I may be wrong about that.

After the houseboat the destination was Mexican Hat and the San Juan Inn. The route to that Inn involved driving down the treacherous Moki Dugway. It was from Mexican Hat we crossed the San Juan River into the Navaho Nation and Monument Valley.

After Monument Valley it was back to Moab for a couple days. Then the group split up, my remaining group heading to Durango, overnighting in Silverton, then on to Taos, Alamogordo, White Sands National Park, Tombstone, Yuma, Algodones, Mexico, Las Vegas, then back to Washington.

This turned out to be the last long roadtrip I have tripped on. Well, unless you count the drives back and forth between Texas and Washington....

Easter Memory Remembering Hiking To Delicate Arch In Arches National Park

Microsoft's OneDrive's Memories from this Day seems to be a gift which keeps on giving. Causing me to remember memories I've not remembered for a while. 

Two of my all-time photos showed up in the Memories from this Day email, on this final day of the 2024 version of March, also known, this year, as Easter.

The photos were taken with my long gone Casio digital camera with its unique selfie taking feature, years before phones made the selfie thing a common occurrence.

These two photos were taken in Arches National Park. That would be one of the state symbols of Utah in the background, known as Delicate Arch.

Staring at the camera lens, with me, that would be Wanda. 

The hike to Delicate Arch is one of the most scenic hikes I have ever hiked. There is some elevation gain, but not too strenuous an elevation gain. 

You do not need a ranger to guide you on the Delicate Arch hike, like you do on Arches National Park's Fiery Furnace hike.

Memories of trails from years past makes me wonder if I will ever once again see myself on a scenic trail in a scenic wonderland...

Remembering Moab Fiery Furnace Gemini Bridges Porcupine Rim Slick Rock

Yesterday I found myself lamenting about how long it has been since I have been in Utah.

It was a photo of Bryce Canyon that had me realizing I've not been in Utah this century. There was a period back in the last century where I found myself in Utah once a year. Usually including a multi-day stay in Moab, the Mountain Biking Capital of the World.

In the Moab area there are miles upon miles of mountain bike trails. That would be the Slick Rock Trail you see above. Me on the left, Big Ed on the right. If I remember correctly, Wanda took the photo.

I did not complete the entire Slick Rock Trail. My mountain biking skills were not up to it. But, I did manage to bike the entire Gemini Bridges Trail. The Gemini Bridges part of the trail was a bit scary. To bike this trail required one vehicle to be left at the end of the trail, so as to drive back to the trailhead where the vehicle which delivered the bikes to the trail was left. 

That same mountain biking week in Moab that I biked the Gemini Bridges Trail I also biked the Porcupine Rim Trail. This turned out to be the most difficult bike ride I have ever been on. This trail also involved multiple vehicles. My van was left at the end of the trail. I forget the precise logistics. I was so exhausted by the end all I wanted to know was where was my van parked.

The Porcupine Rim Trail starts with an ascent of a couple thousand feet, eventually reaching Porcupine Rim, a steep drop off to the valley below. From that point to the end it was mostly a strenuous downhill coast. I do not ever remember being so exhausted as I was by this bike ride.

Moab is also near to two of Utah's National Parks. Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

In Arches National Park you will find the Fiery Furnace Hike. This is a ranger guided hike, requiring registering at the ranger station at the entry to Arches, and paying a hiking fee. It was 10 bucks when I last hiked the Fiery Furnace, back in the late 1990s.

The reason the Fiery Furnace hike requires a ranger to lead is because the hike is a maze of slot canyons in which it is easy to get disoriented and lost. It can get way too HOT. The Fiery Furnace has seen some fatalities over the years.

In the above photo that is Big Ed helping his sister, Lydia, cross a deep chasm.

Deep into the Fiery Furnace the ranger calls for a rest stop. During this period the ranger regales the hikers with tales about the Fiery Furnace.

I am fairly certain I will never mountain bike any of the Moab area trails again. But, I sure would enjoy hiking the Fiery Furnace trail again, that and all the other trails in Arches National Park.

It was the view from Islands in the Sky, in Canyonlands National Park, back on New Year's Day of 1995, that I saw mountain bikers way below, thinking to myself, that looks fun. So, upon returning to Washington I bought my first mountain bike, and by the next Spring I returned to Moab and had myself a mighty fine time mountain biking.

I forgot to mention that after lamenting to myself yesterday about it being so long since I've been in Utah, this morning's email's Microsoft OneDrive Memories from this Day, included the photos you have seen in this blog posting. 

However, these photos were taken in October, not March....

Google Remembers Driving Miss Daisy To Monument Valley & State Fair Of Texas & More

Two days in a row, for the first time, Google has sent to my email, emails purporting to be memories from that day, in which I actually remember all the memories. 

At the upper left, that is me looking at my antique, long gone Casion digital camera, which had a feature which allowed you to rotate the camera lens towards oneself making for what, in this century, is known as a selfie.

In this particular 'selfie' we ae in Monument Valley, in Arizona, two days after getting off a Lake Powell houseboat. The day we exited the houseboat we stayed at the San Juan Inn, in Mexican Hat, Utah.

Below the selfie, on the lower left, that is the sky ride at the State Fair of Texas, in Dallas. 

The upper right is the lake in Veterans Oasis Park in Chandler, Arizona. Below the lake photo is Driving Miss Daisy Around Chandler Veterans Oasis With Snakes. 

The lower right is an arch in Arches National Park in Utah.

And now, on to today's Google memories...

The upper left is, once again, the State Fair of Texas.

The other four Google memories are all from Dreamy Draw Park at Piestewa Peak, in Phoenix. At that location we did Dreamy Draw Hiking Miss Daisy In & Out Up Piestewa Peak.

That was a memorable day. Mom had a lot of fun getting rolled on trails through the park. I remember at one point mom memorably saying, "I didn't think I'd ever get to do something like this again." 

I do not think mom realized how steep the trail was, a couple times. The transit chair had good brakes.

So, there you go, my Google memories from the past two days...

This Morning My Calendar Took Me To Arches National Park With Wanda

 

I flipped my wall calendar to the new month of April this morning to find this month's featured National Park is Arches National Park, in Utah.

I had been to all the other Utah National Parks before finally visiting Arches after having been to Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks.

All the Utah National Parks are scenic wonderlands, with great hiking. Hike-wise, I think Arches is my favorite, due to the ranger guided Fiery Furnace Hike. 

On Utah license plates you see Delicate Arch being the symbol of Utah. You do not need a ranger to guide you on the hike to Delicate Arch. The hike to Delicate Arch may be my all time favorite hike.

Let me see if I can find one of the photos I took of Delicate Arch, which turned out to be one of my all time favorite photos.

Found it...

That would be Wanda the Washingtonian next to me, with Delicate Arch behind us.

This photo was taken by my now antique Casio digital camera, which had the ability to take what are now known as selfies, before phones made that practice ubiquitous.

Seeing Arches National Park this morning sure makes me want to once again gaze upon a scenic wonderland. I have not gazed upon a scenic wonderland for over three years, with the scenic wonderland of Arizona being what I gazed upon at that point in time...

September Wall Calendar Takes Me To Fiery Furnace Elephant Arch

It has been a month or two since I flipped my National Park wall calendar to a new month and found myself looking at a sight I have seen in person, with me then wondering if I will ever see this again.

In August it was a National Park in Florida, the Everglades. I've never been to Florida, so I have never been to the Everglades.

I have been to Utah a number of times, including visiting all the National Parks in Utah, including the Utah National Park you see above. 

Arches National Park.

I am fairly certain the above is the arch known as Elephant Arch. If you look at it with your imagination turned on you can likely see why this would be named Elephant Arch.

Arches is one of my favorite places I have been to on the planet, but it is not my favorite Utah National Park. That would be Zion. Or Bryce Canyon. 

Arches has one of the best hikes I've gone on. It requires a ranger guide. The Fiery Furnace Hike. I've done this one twice. This hike requires a guide because it is easy to get lost in the maze of slot canyons. And Fiery Furnace gets real HOT. Hence the name.

Linda Lou Takes Me Back To Delicate Arch With Sky Islands

Yesterday whilst blogging about Linda Lou Leading Me Back To Skagit Valley Black and Blue Berry Picking I made mention of the fact that Linda Lou had caused me to re-locate photos I had not realized I'd sort of lost, and that many of those photos had been taken with my long gone antique Casio digital camera.

Finding those sort of lost photos had me looking at scenes I had not seen in a long time.

Such as that which you see here.

My long gone Casio camera was way ahead of its time. The camera had the ability to rotate the lens which allowed for the easy taking of what we now call "selfies".

I was a frequent selfie photo taker during that era, something I have mostly balked at when doing such became so ubiquitous, and sort of annoying.

In the selfie above I believe the year was 1998. The location was Arches National Park in Utah.

If I remember right the work of Mother Nature behind me in the selfie was known as Wanda. The other work of Mother Nature behind me is known as Delicate Arch.

Delicate Arch is one of the iconic symbols of Utah. One sees it on Utah license plates.

The hike to Delicate Arch has some elevation gain, but not enough to be what one might think of as strenuous, but definitely more strenuous than most of the hikes in Arches NP, with the only other actual semi-strenuous Arches NP hike being the Fiery Furnace Hike.

The Fiery Furnace hike is a bit treacherous, and thus requires signing up for it at the Ranger Station, paying a fee, and having a Park Ranger lead the way through the confusing maze of trails.

I have twice hiked the Fiery Furnace hike, and enjoyed it both times.

I would like to see a return to Moab, and Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park, which is nearby.

I think I saw Canyonlands NP selfies whilst strolling through the collection. I will go see if I can find one of those...

In this selfie I am looking at you from Islands in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park. I remember it being windy that day, and cold. The month was October, if I am remembering correctly.

Well, that should end today's selfie trail down memory lane...

Delicate Arch Evidence That Texas Has Aged Me Beyond My Years

Tonight I was looking for a picture of myself when I was fatter than I am now, due to having a use for a picture of myself being fatter than I am now.

But, I could not find a picture of myself being fatter than I am now.

While looking for a fat picture I came upon one of my all time favorite pictures. I applied the Picasa Picnik CinemaScope filter to the picture, which explains the black bars at top and bottom.

This picture was taken about a year before I moved to Texas. I'd been stuck on a Lake Powell Houseboat for 4 days, and then to Moab, where eventually we went to Arches National Park and hiked to Delicate Arch, which is what is in the background in the picture.

Looking at this picture it is appalling to see such stark evidence of the degree to which Texas and its harsh climate has so greatly aged me. Maybe the passage of 12 years made some contribution.

Moab, Arches, Stehekin, Maui, Las Vegas, Bears & Fiery Furnace Hikes With Nephews & Slow Modems

I think I mentioned I spent a few hours in the past couple days re-doing a lot of my biggest website. I updated old stuff to make it look slightly less ancient.

But, I did not realize, til thinking about it this morning, that some of those old webpages are well over 10 years old. No wonder they looked so dated.

Another thing with the old webpages is they were made back way before anyone had heard of the concept known as broadband, back when you thought you were being superfast when you upgraded from a 14.4 BPS modem to a 28.8, and then the unthinkably fast speed of 56.6. Was it .6? I dunno. It's been a long time.

So, back then websites could take a long time to load. If you made websites you kept graphics to a minimum. If you used photos you sucked as much resolution out of them as possible, while still managing a semi decent image.

That first picture you see above is not too bad. That was a scanned image, re-scanned during the era of broadband. That is Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park. I've done that hike twice. If you are ever in the Moab zone, do not skip Arches and do not skip hiking the Fiery Furnace, even though it will cost you a few dollars and it's a group, ranger-led hike. It's fun.

The worst pictures are those I used for one of the funnest things I've ever done, that being taking the Lady of the Lake on Lake Chelan to Stehekin in North Cascades National Park. I have never seen so many bears. Not even in Yellowstone, when bears were still allowed there. I think I still have the original photos of the Stehekin trip, though that is well over a decade ago. I could find them and re-scan them. But I am drawing a blank as to where the photos are.

Actually, now that I am looking at them, the absolute worst are the pictures from Maui with my nephews, Chris and Jeremy. They now live in Phoenix. Recently my sister was thrilled to have both boys moving back home again. Temporarily. I do not have the originals of the Maui photos, so I am stuck with these badly damaged images. Damn the early days of the Internet and what it made us do.

I have the originals of photos taken in Las Vegas when my nephews, Jason and Joey, took me there soon before I moved to Texas. I re-scanned one of them recently when I wrote a blog about Death Valley. The nephews and I went out to Death Valley on a HOT August day that had the potential to break the temperature record. But it did not. We got plenty HOT though.

It seems so recent that the nephews took me to Vegas. Joey was 15 then, Jason 18. Joey is now 26, which I guess makes Jason 29, married, divorced and with the cutest kid I've ever seen, my great-nephew, Spencer Jack, who has a blog, but it is viewable by invite only, so I won't bother making a link to it. That is Joey on the right, with his big brother, standing in the Excalibur pool, with the skyline of New York New York behind him.

The Top Ten Places I Want To Escape To

Washington Mutual's Problem Resolution Center called and left a message. I called back. And left a message. I've no clue as to which of the Washington Mutual Problem's the caller was seeking to resolve. Right now I don't care.

Instead I'm in the mood to muse as to where I'd like to go to escape here, someplace fun that I've already been to and know is fun. I'm not in the mood for anything new right now. Though I am taking the TRE train to Dallas tomorrow morning. I live on the edge.

So, where do I want to go if I could right now? I'll try and think of the Top Ten. That should occupy 10 more minutes of waiting for Sarah Palin to have her meltdown.

In no particular order.

Bryce Canyon National Park. I love everything about this place. It's otherworldly scenery. It's great hikes. Ruby's Inn. I spent an Easter weekend at Bryce Canyon a few years ago. It was in late Spring. There was still snow at Bryce. It's at a high elevation, as in over 9000 feet above sea level at the highest.

Grand Canyon National Park. I've been there several times. Have stayed overnight twice. Once at the South Rim. Camping. I hate camping. And the most recent time, at the North Rim, staying in log cabins. A blizzard roared in overnight leaving us snowbound til snowplows from Utah could rescue us. I've only hiked down into the Grand Canyon once. It's a real good thing.

Arches National Park and Moab. Well, also Canyonlands National Park. Moab is your base town and in all directions there is good stuff to do. Like the photo at the top, that's me biking the Slick Rock Trail by Moab. That's a group hike in Arches NP, called The Fiery Furnace, on the left. You have to pay a fee and it has to be ranger led. You can get lost in there.

Yosemite National Park. The first time I saw this place was in fall. I was not all that thrilled. Then sometime in the 90s we rented a big ol' Cadillac, 3 other guys and me, and went on a road trip, ending up in Yosemite at Curry Village. It was spring, the waterfalls were out of control. I loved it.

Disneyland & California. I've not been to Disneyland since 1994, not since they've added Disney California. I've loved Disneyland ever since I was 13 and got taken there on what was to be my next to the last family vacation. We loved Disneyland so much we went again the next year. I was 14. I never went on a family vacation again. 7 years later I was in California on my own, staying at San Clemente State Park. And remembering back 7 years prior. That seems like such a short time now, but then it seemed like so much had changed. Over the following years I've lost count of the number of road trips to California and Disneyland. I guess the last one was in 2000. But I didn't get to go to Disneyland. Yuma instead. To spend Christmas with my mom and dad. It was real tempting when you saw road signs saying it was only 120 miles to Anaheim to take a right and skip Yuma. But I'm not one to ignore my mom and dad. Even though, apparently, they and others think I do. (That's called slipping in an Easter Egg to see if anyone reads this drivel)

Lake Powell. You need to, at least once in your short life, go to Lake Powell. You don't need to rent a houseboat to have Lake Powell reveal its charms. But a houseboat helps. Good housemates on the houseboat are important also. I've houseboated Lake Powell twice, both times in the 1990s. The water is warm and clear. The scenery is among the best on the planet. Which is why you'll be sharing the lake with so many darn foreigners.

Las Vegas. Any longer than 4 days and Vegas wears out its welcome. But I always have fun there. It can be exhausting. It's not the gambling that attracts me, it's the way over the top over stimulating nature of the whole place. I've only been to Vegas once since I moved to Texas. That was on a roadtrip back to Texas after spending a week or two in Washington. Those trips back were so much more pleasant than the more recent ones. Why? I do not know. That's Nephew Joey and me riding the roller coaster at the New York New York casino when I took Joey and his brother to Vegas the summer before I moved to Texas.

Taos, New Mexico. There was nothing I did not like about Taos. I love the southwest adobe style. The great places to eat. How fun it was to ride my bike around Taos and discover interesting things, like the grave of Kit Carson. And the Taos Pueblo. Even the Taos McDonald's is special.

Yellowstone National Park. I've not been to Yellowstone since the fall before wildfires burned most of the park. Yellowstone is one place I don't mind camping. Hiking over all the boardwalks to see the bubbling water and exploding geysers, loved it when I was a kid, loved it when I wasn't a kid. Yellowstone has been a fond memory ever since my little brother and me were awakened by our mom screaming, standing on top of the picnic table, because a bear was running through camp.

Bears remind me of Stehekin. I've only been there once but everything about it was perfect. A long boat ride up Lake Chelan, staying in the National Park Lodge. Stehekin is in the North Cascades National Park zone of Washington. We brought bikes and pedaled daily up to one of the best bakeries ever, the Stehekin Pastry Company. For dinner each night we'd take a long bus ride up the valley to the Stehekin Valley Ranch where the Courtneys would make a real good dinner for us and a lot of other people.

Stehekin is related to another place I'd like to escape to right about now. That being hiking deep into the North Cascades. The trails are good. What you see when you get to the end of the trail is amazing. Some summers I would go on a hike up in Cascades several times a month, til the snows returned in October. It always amazed me, when I lived up there, how many northwesterners had never experienced the sea of peaks, that being the seemingly endless sea of mountain peaks that extends north and south, with things like Mount Rainier sticking up higher.

I've gone up to 10 places I wish I could escape to right now and I left out Zion National Park. It should be in the Top Ten too. I don't remember ever being so surprised by a place as I was by Zion the first time I saw it. The tunnel into the canyon remains one of the finest moments of my pretty much un-momentous life.

The Collapse of the Wall

Big Ed, in Big Texas, this morning emailed me a link to a shocking story in the New York Times about the collapse of the Wall.

Wall Arch that is. In Arches National Park. One of my favorite places on the planet, of what little of the planet I have seen.

The last time I was in Arches National Park was shortly before I moved to Texas, in 1998, I think. We'd spent several days in Moab, exploring Arches NP and Canyonlands NP. It was a group of 6 or 8, hard to remember. From Moab we went houseboating on Lake Powell.

The first picture is from the New York Times showing Wall Arch before and after the collapse. When I was at Arches in 1998 the trail under Landscape Arch was no longer open due to a large chunk of rock falling from that unlikely fragile looking arch.

I am almost certain the above photo shows Wall Arch in 1998. That is Big Ed's Big Sister, Lydia, in the foreground, with his nephew and niece being followed by Big Ed's Big Twin, Wally and his little wife, Wanda. I believe that is Wall Arch behind them. I could be wrong.

The arch below is the aforementioned Landscape Arch. With Wally and Wanda and Big Ed standing in front of it. I just looked it up and it is still standing, 17 years after it lost a large chunk of its midsection. Some suspect the weight loss made the arch stronger.

There is a longstanding myth that Landscape Arch was supposed to be named Delicate Arch, while the state symbol of Utah, shown below, was supposed to be named Landscape Arch. I always believed this myth to be true, due to Landscape Arch looking so delicate, while Delicate Arch seems like an unlikely addition to the rocky landscape. Below is one of my favorite photos, Delicate Arch in the background, me and someone who's name escapes me right now, next to me. This picture and the one above it were taken with my now antique Casio digital camera. I bought it way back in 1997 for the appalling price of $599. I was young and stupid. But, I did take a lot of pictures with that old camera.