Evanston Wyoming

Evanston was an interesting experience. I had nothing to do that day but had to stay in the area. I had a couple loads of laundry to do so I headed to the nearest Laundromat, which at the time was full with all sorts of people, muttering all sorts of grumpy things in numerous languages. There was a dude with obvious anger issues grunting at one of the machines, a couple of Hispanic women cheerfully folding laundry that obviously wasn’t theirs, and a most interesting family. It contained two teenagers, a tenish year old, and a four year old wearing vibrant red lipstick. The eldest, a boy, reminded me of the apocalyptic children I saw in Joshua tree, same stupid non-haircut and attitude. They were led in by a woman who couldn’t have been more than 35. She was dressed like a teenager herself, smacking gum and talking on her phone like she’d never grown up. She was feeding her kids some sort of junk food she’d just purchased. I thought these kids were her children until the youngest started calling her Nana. The two girls with her were not old enough to have a four year old so I’m guessing this brassy woman popped out her first kid at 14-16 only to have it repay the favor by doing the same and letting her take care of the grandkid. Either way she was doing a miserable job, as both a mother and grandmother. Currently she was doing no less than ten loads of laundry, all personal, which had probably been building up for some time. Even the attendants were asking her if she was doing someone else’s laundry because she was taking up so many machines.

Whenever this very special family failed to keep us entertained we could always look back at the guy with anger issues. He was stomping around the place throwing his laundry around like it had a personal vendetta against him when it fell to the floor. Even when he was waiting he was scowling at the world with an expression so intense one got the sensation he might knock you out if you even so much as batted an eye in his direction. He stormed out of that place like no one’s business.

I waited patiently for the laundry. I was half-asleep and wondering if this horrible place was where I had to wait for two days.

I was about to be pleasantly surprised. I decided to go for a walk down the little strip mall in town. I ended up entering a huge store run by two sweet elderly women, one of which greeted me and told me this place was a boutique, an antique shop, a book store, and a flea market. She also pointed me towards some “unique” jewelry. Oh my were they ever unique! I had never seen real stones used in something so ungodly garish. Then again the boutique had old lady clothes, maybe the jewelry matched.

The antique store was mostly odd bits of furniture and scary dolls, an odd set of hand operated egg-beaters. The flea market just had old crochet things no one would have bought anyway. It was all very… interesting, though I loved the friendly atmosphere. It was the exact opposite of the Laundromat.

Next I went to an adorable little art gallery in a JC Penny’s. It had all sorts of local talent, amazing pieces of wildlife paintings. I admired everything but not being rich had to leave even the coolest pieces there.

After this I somehow wandered into a little Chinese history/koi park. It had a little Chinese gazebo and a plaque stating that the Chinese had been instrumental in building the area, putting down the train tracks that the town settled on, though they seemed strangely absent now. Beyond the gazebo there was a garden and a little koi pond, with two lonely koi and some goldfish. I sat back and watched a little sparrow kvetch at me from the gazebo roof. I wandered from the shade, into the warm sun, and back into the shade before I decided to lie on one of the benches in the gazebo. I was so very tired and my back ached, as I hadn’t slept on anything flat for a month or so now. I lay there until a gardener came out and I decided I didn’t want to accused of being a vagrant and swept off. I walked to the little bridge over the koi pond, until the gardener finally left. He took his sweet time, and I am not sure what he accomplished in wandering around. I decided to go to another fossil and rock shop down the road.

The fossil and rock shop, Antares Fossil & Minerals, was a sight to behold. It had big colorful dinosaurs wandering the tiny yard. I walked past a woman watering the plants at the behemoth creatures’ feet. She soon followed us in. It was a tiny place absolutely stuffed full with pretty rocks and fish fossils. Apparently this place was run by a family who owned their own local quarry and traded fossil fish for other pretty rocks. It was an interesting idea for a business.

The woman I was talking to, Lily, owned the shop next door, The House of Light, something I passed not knowing what it was. She was a free-spirited woman, what I’d call a hippie. Her shop sold crystals, gemstones, metaphysical books, and Reiki treatments, practiced by herself. She led me through the shop trying to explain things. She even showed me her little Reiki room and pointed out some of its elements. I was rather confused by it all but that’s alright, I nodded politely. Reiki is just one of those things I know nothing about, but I have been curious about. She claimed she was a Christian woman by birth, God and Jesus and all, until Reiki showed her there’s so much more to the world. I could respect that.

Before I knew it she told me her whole life story, including her heritage, born to one Indonesian and one Dutch parent. I told her of my own journeys and she in return insisted I take a lucky rock home with me, from a basket of colorful rocks. I picked one that fit my hand perfectly, a nice fidget. I put it in my purse next to my lucky flea-sized trilobite.

To finish my wandering I decided to check out a park called Bear River. They had a paved path alongside the riverbank, paddle boats for rent, and swimming in one of the calm parts. I walked behind a big black standard poodle for a long time before its elderly owner turned around. I didn’t really see any wildlife but it was a nice walk.

I wanted to get dinner after this so I went to the local grocer’s, Smith’s, and ordered an assortment of goo. In their salad section of their deli they had pink goo (Strawberry Cheesecake salad) green goo (pistachio salad) and orange goo (Ambrosia.) I found the texture of goo to be repulsive and stuck to the normal salads. Party pooper.

From here I went to a McDonald’s to update the blog and answer e-mails. I sat there for four hours. I was falling asleep in my seat and not feeling that great by the time I left. This was the longest I’d ever stayed at one McDonald’s in a stretch.

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

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July 26, 2011 0

Mammoth Caves – Tennessee

I was told Mammoth Caves were amazing and that I had to go. I were running very short on money by this time and chose one tour, the New Entrance Tour. It was between that and the Historical Tour. I was told by the desk guy the New Entrance Tour was a good starter with more formations than the historical tour which was just interesting because of all the odd things that have happened in the caves. That sounded good but I sort of wanted to see the pretty rocks… so I went on the New Entrance Tour. There were one hundred and fourteen people in my group, including two infants and a number of screaming children because a big dark hole in the earth is a perfect place to take such easily frightened individuals. I proceeded into the cave and walked down some stairs, and down some more, and down ever more… I was thinking to myself, “Holy crap, I hope I don’t have to climb all these back up again. I’m going to diiiie.” My calves were shaking violently. Really? I was so out of shape going down the stairs was too much? UGH. That’s what two months of constant car riding will do to you.

The cave itself was a dark underground tunnel with a few slimy looking rocks and a few points that you had to duck of squeeze through but they were wide enough for the giant fat man in front of me sooo I got through just fine. Anyway, there wasn’t much to see, just a tunnel. There were no stalactites or stalagmites or anything weird or pretty until the very very end. Finally I approached the Frozen Niagara, a wall of popcorn, some formations that looked like wedding cakes, all typically slimy. They were pretty… but I think the last cave I was in was actually prettier, even though it was damaged pretty bad. Here the damage seemed mostly to be in the graffiti which was carved EVERYWHERE. If I had kids I think I’d threaten to carve initials into them if they tried something like this. Not that hard to keep watch of your kids people… SIGH.

After the fairly disappointing tour I got to bathe my feet in Lysol. Something about saving the bats, which is all cool. Had I more money I would have checked out the historical tour and seen if that was any better. I was told the Wild Cave Tour was amazing. It was also the most expensive and apparently intensely physically taxing, taking six hours and winding you through almost the whole cave through some every tight squeezes. I have a I’ll be back…

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July 15, 2011 0

Garden of the Gods – Colorado

I was told I should check out the Garden of the Gods. I didn’t bother to look up what this was before showing up. I stopped at the visitor center first. It was packed to full capacity with pushing, shoving, unhappy people. The postcards were 69 cents a piece, despite the fact all other postcards everywhere in the country were only 35 cents a piece. I rolled my eyes. I looked out the overview and decided to go make a go of it after staring at a map. Thunder was still following me and big angry black clouds swarmed the skies. Sure enough, as soon as I parked in the main parking lot to do the main trail, it started pouring like no one’s business. I don’t mean it was just lightly raining either, it was coming down so hard and so fast that rivers formed on the sidewalks and formed riptides. The drains set up to catch the rain were being quickly bypassed by 90% of the water. I decided to just drive around the park. It was a tiny park but pretty.

The rain had washed away most of the obnoxious people and uncontrolled children. I got out of the car when it let up for just a bit. I took few photos of the balancing rock and drove onwards until I found another little place aside the road I wanted to check out. I crawled behind one of the vibrant red rock formations, ahead of another loud screaming family. Parents here seem to utterly detest their children, yelling at them in angry voices whenever the slightest opportunity allowed, things like, “ICE CREAM?! ICE CREAM!? We’re not going for any fucking ice cream!” Every other car had a Jesus fish on it. I wondered why these miserable people were even here in the first place.

Eventually I made it back to the main trail, stepping out for only a few moments to take a few quick photos. I was surrounded on all sides by lightning and wasn’t daft enough to think that the rain wasn’t going to start pouring again soon. Some boy scouts were ahead of us on the path, spitting and cursing, and behaving as most of the scouts I had come across in my life. Wee little assholes, the whole lot of them. Scout’s honor?

The park was indeed beautiful, the paths were nice and easy. It was merely the massive influx of horrible people that pretty much ruined it for me. I went back to the visitor center anyway for a magnet. While I was in there it started pouring again. I made a mad dash for the Jeep but only managed to get a quick cold shower and a free wash of my clothes. I was soaked to the bone. I was laughing.

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July 6, 2011 0

Mesa Verde National Park Colorado

While I was camping I came across a pamphlet to Mesa Verde. I had known there were old cliff dwellings somewhere in the area but I mistakenly thought it was Chaco Canyon and I skipped it the last time I was here because of that little mix-up. I decided to go check it out… it was phenomenal!

Driving in I asked the woman who took my entrance fee if it was a hike to see these things. She said yes but otherwise was of no help with my questions, only saying there was an additional guide fee to these places. I really hadn’t the energy to hike into the middle of nowhere and the idea of paying an additional fee for a guide annoyed and confused me. When I ended up at the visitor center everything was cleared up. Basically there is an auto road, free where you can see a lot from a fair distance. Then there is a cliff dwelling you can go into for free, but it is a short hike down and then back up the cliffs. The rest, the guided tours, were to get into all the other dwellings and have someone teach me about them. Each tour had a group of 50 people and were an additional $3 per site to see.

I went into the Spruce Tree House, the free cliff dwelling. There was lots of people. The structure was still a ruin but a very interesting one, there were windows and different rooms, corn grinding stones, and an underground kiva that you could get to by ladder. There was a line for that and I watched as an impossible amount of people file out of it like a clown car. I waited and went in after they came out, making jokes with the girl aside us. “This is the first time I have waited in line to get into someone’s basement.” It was a round and very dark room, reinforced by a number of logs. There wee little niches here and there but all and all it wasn’t that big of a place. After this group of people went in, probably numbering twenty or more, we all filed back out. It was interesting.

I walked back up the cliff. I was huffing and puffing. Hikes straight up hills and cliffs always get to me. When we got to the top we took some photos. I accidentally got in the way of an Asian couple taking a photo (I hadn’t seen them there.) I backed up, smiling.

I entered the museum after this and I fell in love with their black and white pottery which looked so much like some of my own artwork it was a bit eerie. Here they had all sorts of things on display, a set of dioramas displaying the engineering of the structures. The fact all the Indians were depicted wearing loin cloths made me quite tweaky because if they really dressed that way they’d freeze their asses off in winter! Surely enough the next display was on a bunch of clothes remnants archeologists had found… full clothing, head to toe. SIGH. White people are so racist. It reminded me of my grade school text books where the Native Americans celebrating the first Thanksgiving were also prancing around in loin cloths… as if! As much I am in support of such liberating clothing I’ve been in Massachusetts in November. Suffice to say if you don’t want to get frost bite on your balls you better cover up.

I also got to play “guess what the object is for” with a bunch of little items that still baffle anthropologists. I think I had good guesses… rings, game pieces, etc. It was a neat little museum.

Afterwards I decided to take the auto road, with thunder booming in the background and threatening me with rain. The first stop was an overlook of The Square House. It took all my breath away. It looked so perfect and serene sitting in the middle of a cliff. I pondered how they even got into that crevice to build it in the first place, it seemed to be a sheer surface both above and below it. The other tourists remarked how amazing it was and what a lovely surprise.

The next stop I got to see the evolution of the pueblos. They hadn’t always been on a cliff. Apparently the Anasazi were one of the first cultures out here to settle down and make permanent residences instead of living nomadically. At first they built homes underground. I got to see what was left of them. Some still had pottery in tact and venting systems. It was really neat.

I drove around and looked at these things, all under modern structures to keep them preserved. This was fortunate as by now it was pouring. The rain finally let up at the end of the road when I reached the Sun Temple. I could walk around the outside of it and then there was the most amazing thing of all… an overview of almost all the structures here in the park. There before me in the cliffs, hidden, were whole little villages and homes, scattered everywhere. It was like seeing something completely camouflaged come to life. I took photos and gawked for a very long while. The sheer engineering and beauty of these structures was more than enough to marvel at. I was very happy with the trip here.

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July 5, 2011 0

Monument Valley – Again – Utah

I kind of drove around Monument Valley / Valley of the Gods the first time I went through this area and thought it might be a good idea to actually drive through it this time. I was told the road was “primitive.” You could call it that… you could also call it a road best suited to horses. None of it was paved, and there were potholes half the size of the Jeep every three feet or so. You could almost see the shocks shoot off the car in front of you. In fact if you decide to drive this road you better have the toughest car you can think of and a carton of heavy cream. The cream is so you can have fresh butter by the end of the trip.

That all being said it was well worth the tribulations I put the poor Jeep through. It was gorgeous and you could see most attractions from various points just driving this loop road. There were viewpoints you could park and take photos of and all sorts of people attempting the trip. I also learned later that if you were not foolhardy enough to take your car they did offer bus and horse tours. I strongly suggest the horse tour as this area seems like it’d make a very relaxing ride and their prices were reasonable. $35 for a half an hour all the way up to $120 for six hours, which I think would have been superfluous. A horse could have probably easily walked by the bouncing groaning Jeep.

I took lots of photos, postcard quality and I have the feeling this was worth the trip back. I really shouldn’t have skipped it the first time!

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July 1, 2011 0

Ashfall Fossil Beds – Nebraska

The Ashfall Fossil Beds was something I found looking at the pamphlets in other fossil places. I had no idea what to expect but it looked neat.. Apparently they had a rhino barn. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything but that’s alright, I was about to find out.

It was a $5 admission fee per person, plus an additional $4 Nebraska parking permit fee. I guess the Jeep needed admission too. The place was small but had very nice specimens of all sorts of things. They had the evolution of the horse hoof, a fossil turtle, and pieces of diseased bone fragments. Outside I walked a very short path listed with the evolutionary timeline. Soon I found myself in the rhino barn, lined with posters of weird creatures I’d never heard of that they’d found here. There were saber toothed deer, several species of American camels, tons of dog species that there’s no longer an equivalent to, several species of horse, and even a horned rodent that looked almost like a rhino and a gopher got together one strange dark evening.

At the end of the rhino barn three paleontology students worked to brush aside the sand and reveal a mass mortality of rhinos. Apparently a super volcano went off ten million years ago and killed the whole herd, adults, babies, even a fetus. As morbid as it was it was fascinating. Another student loitered at the sides, desperate to be doing something. She said if I had any questions just ask. Her high strung energy was a bit much but I suppose.

Outside was another small building, another girl worked here to pick tiny bones out of the sand, salamander vertebrae, bits of turtle shell, the toes of a desert mouse, the tail of a rattlesnake. I asked her if there was a favorite critter she likes to find. She replied the salamanders made her the happiest. We talked for a while. She seemed enthusiastic and sweet. After this I left. It was a neat little place, definitely worth checking out, even though it made me trek through the most boring stretch of grasslands in the country for hours on end…

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June 29, 2011 0

Mount Rushmore South Dakota

As a history buff and a lover of art you’d think I’d be thrilled to visit mount Rushmore. I mean it’s so…. big. Surely if someone had put that much time and effort into making a sculpture you can probably see in outer space it must be amazing, right? yeah, I wasn’t convinced of that either…. but still I find myself here.

I actually missed the exit to go to Mount Rushmore so I ended up going to its antithesis first. Crazy Horse Memorial is a Rushmore-esque mountain carving of the famed Native American leader, basically put up on the mountain in a moment of spite. Hey, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The face is absolutely stunning. I just had hoped more of it was done than the face since it had boasted to someday be a full figure riding a horse. Nope… I saw it, I snapped a quick photo, I left.

Rushmore wasn’t much better. It was free to get into but $11 parking and no way you could see it unless you drove in as trees conveniently blocked the view everywhere else. I walked in. There were people and obnoxious children everywhere. Lining the way was a collection of flags representing each state. NH was faded to the point I’m not really sure what was supposed to be on it (and memory fails to remind me.) The sun was glaring so bad I could only see it by squinting real hard. My cameras were no more fond of this lighting. Still, the story behind it was impressive… one guy’s dream, to sculpt a whole frickin’ mountain… Of course he had to stop at just their heads but isn’t it the thought that counts? Perhaps if Crazy Horse is ever finished then Mount Rushmore might get a make over too. They had an enormous gift shop with overpriced goods, absolutely packed with people. No interesting magnets. The postcards were crap too. I didn’t even buy any. We left.

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June 29, 2011 0

Grand Teton National Park – Wyoming

From the fossil fish dig I went straight to Grand Teton National Park. It was exceptionally cloudy and I stopped to take some rather mystical looking photos of the snow-topped mountains. I also walked a little ways around Jenny Lake which, for a lake, was beautiful. The water was crystal clear and the mountains overlooking it gave it a wonderful vibe. I dipped my hands in the water, which was so soft and cool. It was starting to rain and I needed to get to our campground before it closed. I’d already made reservations at Madison in Yellowstone.

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June 24, 2011 0

Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery, Kemmerer Wyoming

After Fossil Butte I passed this sign that said, “Fossil Fish Gallery” and of course had to stop. It was someone’s house, granted it was a large one. Out front there was a huge set of dinosaur footprints and some petrified wood. This promised to be interesting.

Going in there was a huge slab on the wall with dozens of fish on it. I climbed the stairs into the shop and saw a teenage girl tending counter. There were fish everywhere, big ones, little ones, delicate ones, all beautifully displayed. There was an absolutely enormous gar, its scales still visible. Not long after entering another woman appeared and started talking with us. She had the brash fast-talking ways of a Yankee, but claimed to be homegrown here in Kemmerer. She told us that she grew up near here on a ranch and that she never knew what treasures she was sitting on top of, stating as children she would lob the fossils like Frisbees at each other’s heads. She claimed many thousands of dollars of fossils got ruined in this fashion. Now she made a living off them, saying her husband was part and partial to setting up Butte National Monument Park itself, and that is why they were allowed to keep the massive gar. (State legislations require all “rare” fossils to be surrendered to scientific institutions.) She was a funny woman, showing us around, and showing us the difference between the fossils in the “18 inch layer” and the surrounding layers. Then she told us she took people up to the quarry seven days a week, from 9am to noon to dig, for a fee slightly higher than that of Fossil Safari. She had nothing good to say about Fossil Safari. She brought us to her basement where she had a number of fossils dug up at fossil safari. Apparently a couple people had come in the day before with these uncut, mediocre fossils they had dug up at Fossil Safari. She said she wasn’t even sure if they provided tools for these people but they didn’t provide any means of cutting them down to size. The fish dug up here were in better condition, they were at the dead center of the ancient lake, and preserved by petroleum seepage. They did not look like the silhouettes of fish that were sitting sad and neglected in this basement, donated for the young children to find in the rubble pile out back.

Penny, the woman answering all the questions, turned to me and inquired if I was always this quiet. Pretty much. This should be taken as a compliment, I found the conversation hat fascinating. Before I knew it I was booking an appointment with “the boys” to go to their quarry. It was slightly more expensive but way more personal, with only four people going up with each guide. And to add to the charm I was put in a group without children as, “There must be a reason you don’t have children!” What a funny comment.

I had to wait two days for the appointment and after the dig I bought a little “grade A” kit from them. It contains a fish fossil so deeply embedded in a piece of rock from the 18 inch layer that it has to be neatly and carefully chiseled and scratched out to see it. This sort of tedious work has always relaxed me. I very much wanted to try it.

June 21, 2011 0

Fossil Butte National Monument – Wyoming

I’d wanted to go to Fossil Butte National Monument since I was eight or ten but I couldn’t really remember why… or even what it was… I drove in and there was all sorts of markers aside the road reading which era of history I was driving into as I drove ever downwards. It was really neat and then I went to the visitor center and all along their walkway there was a strip reading when various animals have been found on the fossil record. Can you believe starfish are over 400 million years old? Creepy, I know.

The visitor center was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. They had fossils everywhere they found in the local area from the world’s oldest bat to a perfect little Eohippus, a huge alligator, lots of fish, insects, and plants. If you ever want to make me happy just drop me off at a place like that… I marveled at everything. There was a woman working behind glass to clean up one of the fossils and make it visible. I couldn’t tell what it was but she was using a tiny little sandblaster and said a friendly hello. There were three blonde women and a large gaggle of children filing out of an RV. It looks as if their family had outgrown their SUV. Probably polygamists by the looks – where the husband? I couldn’t see him.

The park itself is free and it was a cool 70 degrees. I had time to kill and I wanted to know what was up with this place so I walked up the historic quarry trail. They said it was strenuous but most of these parks use “strenuous” to describe paths that are merely wheelchair inaccessible. They weren’t lying this time… this path was a good mile straight up and then another mile and a half across and back down. I’d gone up in the opposite direction I was supposed to so that this upward part would be shorter… I came across an old camp house used for processing the fossils. It looked like it was built almost out of scrap material but who knows what was considered new building material in the 1930’s, which was when it was put up. It aged remarkably well. You could see parts of an old car rusted into the ground and a small mountain stream I was tempted to jump into. My legs were KILLING me and I was sweating my ass off. I sipped rations of water as I took breaks here and there.

Eventually I walked up to the quarry part of the trail only to find it was another straight up detour. I could see the place but I hurt so bad. I somehow bulldogged it up there, knowing I’d pay for this. There were markers telling me which layers of the rock were what and a little information. It was neat. I looked around the rubble to see if I could find anything. I found a tiny fragment of something, it had piece of a body and a claw… perhaps a crayfish or something? No one was going to miss a half a centimeter fragment of something so I pocketed it. I also found a rock shaped like a fish, laughing I decided it was a fossil fish. I had to bring that one home too…

There was a register up there. I signed it, realizing I was the only person to attempt the trail today and that since the year began less than 300 people had been up there… I wrote in the comments, “Lots of poop, no animals.” And it was true. There was so much elk and deer poop up there someone should have started a garden…

By the time I got back down to the car I was happy I’d made it but I was exhausted, hot, and know I’d probably pay for this little adventure dearly.

June 21, 2011 0