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.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 5, 2011 0

Death Valley – Nevada/California

Death Valley is a weird place. It’s an inhospitable place, but absolutely beautiful. The mountains surrounding it are clearly visible and often look like they’re made of some sort of layer cake or colored powder. There’s something so food-like about them. The roads lead to one resort after another that caters to rich snobby people driving rented RVs and Mercedes. It’s a playground for the rich… a grotesque show of the power of money. “Look I can afford to vacation in the frickin’ desert! And in complete comfort!” There were even pools behind the lodges and the people? UGH. There was even some little punk-ass snot doing push ups shirtless in the middle of the salt flats of Badwater like “Lookee me! I’m all tough!” Has anyone ever been impressed with such dip-shit bravado?? It made me want to pull a switch blade just to see if he’d crap himself. But alas, that’d be unladlylike.

To make matters worse the little brats had completely graffittied a great deal of the salt flats, writing their names and little heart signs in the sand everywhere. Pissed me right off, this was such a pristine place for those obnoxious brats to ruin it for everyone else. I walked quite a ways until the graffiti nearly dried up. It was too hot to go any further. I got back to the Jeep drenched in my own sweat. I’d bathed in sun lotion so I was also greasy besides dripping with sweat.

I went to the Devil’s Golf Course. That was neat. It’s this vast expense of land with gnarled salt chunks littering the landscape and making it almost look like a coral maze. I dared some idiot to lick it to see if it was really salt. The answer was a resounding yes. It was such an odd sight… Like popcorn or something. And I didn’t have to hike anywhere to see it.

The last destination I decided to go to was Salt Creek which was home to the rare pupfish. It was a half mile round trip hike. I figured this would be another wild tortoise hunt but actually the really tiny creek was full of them. Most were so small they looked like mosquito larvae but there were a few bigger ones with beautiful stripes. They reminded me of cichlids. Cute little boiling cichlids.

I walked around and eventually found a curly tailed lizard running for its life on the hot sand. It was adorable! When it was running its tail was curled right over its back like a pug. It straightened out when it stopped and I took some photos. I must say returning home I will miss the lizards.. they have brought such joy to me watching them and seeing the many different species I never knew existed. I am happy to have experienced them.

But anyway, though I bathed in more sun block I still managed to get burned ankles, part of one arm, and pink cheeks. It’s never wise to bring someone the shade of an albino into the desert. I was surprised to find the insect life here was supersized like the fly with a fluffy mohawk that was bigger than the hummingbirds I saw at the zoo. When I got back to the car I was very ready to get out… but I stopped for a magnet… and a cold drink… and the most amazing popsicle ever. It was cold and that was all that was necessary in being the most amazing popsicle ever. Like seriously, The. Most. Amazing. Popsicle. EVER. No popsicle before or since could ever come close to that popsicle in greatness.

The most sadistic part of Death valley was the one gas station I passed. $5.50 a gallon. Basically if you aren’t loaded you aren’t getting out of here alive.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 9, 2011 0

Coral Castle – Miami Florida

The Coral Castle is one of those quasi-obscure tourist attractions that didn’t start out as one. I had heard about it on a documentary when I was child and always wanted to check it out. Basically it’s a castle created by a five foot tall one hundred pound man. That’s not that interesting. The interesting part of this story is the fact he built the castle in the 1920’s with no modern technology or equipment and since he worked on it in the dead of night he also had no witnesses. Some of the stones used to create the outer walls are as much as 30,000 pounds and no one has any idea how he managed this feat on his own. Some people blame aliens. Because that’s clearly what I’d do if I were visiting earth for the first time – I’d appear to one random old man and tell him to build me a castle in the dead of night!

The castle itself is beautiful. He managed to carve moons, stars, and other planetary shapes all around the place, not an easy thing to do in the particular stone he was using which is actually coral. There are three moving stones on the premises, a rocking chair and huge door and a triangular gate that weighs 6,000 pounds and can be pushed by any visitor who wants to try it. I of course decided to try it and believe or not it didn’t take much effort at all, the whole thing just slid as easy as could be (and I am not that strong!)

Of course when you look around you realize this was made as this man’s home. He had a tool shed and a bedroom in a structure that looks very normal and house like (other than the materials it’s made out of ) and then he made all sorts of open air rooms out and about. There were living spaces, a table shaped like a heart, writing desks, a repentance closet with another chair, a bunch of little pools, a bathtub, a drinking well, a kitchen, and a bedroom, complete with adult and child sized beds, including a crib, which freaked me the hell right out, especially knowing he didn’t have any real children – just the ones he imagined up. Apparently there were five of those…

Of course the most interesting part of this whole thing was the fact the man who created it was completely fucking crackers. He had a crush on some heiress, who probably didn’t know of his existence, and he believed she was sending him messages through a newspaper comic. He also was a recluse, pretty much only dealing with people when they came to his little castle and paid ten cents to look around. He must have done this little tour a lot though because by the time he died he managed to amass several thousand dollars. It gave me a lot to go over in my mind. I have yet to figure out why a creative and super intelligent mind is so often disturbed.

The place was small but amazing if you’re one to ponder. The little automated tours were long-winded and boring but the rest was cool. It was also covered in lizards, both native and not and it took every ounce of my willpower not to try and catch one. When I was a kid I spent so many hours learning to catch everything I could… chickens, turtles, frogs, wild birds, you name it. A lizard would have been fun… but I captured them in photos instead. They were adorable and fast.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 21, 2011 0

Atlantic City – Putting Class into Perspective

Atlantic city isn’t my scene, never was, and never will be but it was suggested soooo many times I felt negligent in not stopping by. It wasn’t as if I had the money to gamble and if I did I’d rather spend it on some other food source than the PB&J’s that were becoming the bane of my existence than a few shiny casino chips. I mean don’t get me wrong – if someone else wants to gamble go ahead, I couldn’t care less. I just think if I were to waste money I’d at least light it on fire or do something cool with it.

I drove in and saw the most garish, sparkly, gaudy buildings I have ever seen in my life. In letters probably bigger than the damn Hollywood sign read TRUMP everywhere. Holy crap… There’s having an over-inflated ego and then there’s that…. This must be the human equivalent of a Tom cat’s pissing contest. To make the whole thing all the better there were ghetto houses and derelicts smattered in between these glittery shiny casinos. There seemed to be no middle class at all…. Just the obscenely rich and the desperately poor. There were condemned homes, buildings that were more or less just ruins, fences everywhere… It was depressing thinking anyone even lived in this squalid manner in a ghetto that was so disparaging it looked like it was from a third world country. There is just no reason for it, but to make it even worse were the casinos right next to it all… a real smack to the face. We left feeling very melancholy. And since taking this trip we have learned Atlantic City wants to build a pedestrian bridge between the casinos so that their patrons will not have to look at the eye sore that is the poverty stricken ghetto outside. Such an American reaction, rather than redistribute the wealth in a socially beneficial way we’d rather just hide the poor people from sight and pretend there’s not a problem to begin with.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 20, 2011 0

And so it Begins!

Ever since I was a tween I dreamed about going across the entire United States and soaking in everything it had to offer. I had grown up in a bubble – and as nice as that bubble was I wanted to know what else was out there besides the trees and stone walls of New Hampshire. Was it really like visiting another planet out West? Where the people the same all over? Was there anything that united this society besides the idea of country? As much as I longed to know the answer I kept my dreams to myself until at the age of 25 an opportunity arose and I figured it’s now or never.

Suddenly my freakish encyclopedic knowledge was actually useful! I picked lots of destinations – everything I had ever wanted to see from the geysers of Yellowstone, to the fossils of Butte National Monument, to the charismatic Robert the Doll in Key West. I was going to do it all.

A map was procured, one of those big pastel maps of the United States you see hanging in history and geography classes in every public school. Pins were stuck into desirable destinations like some sort of 2-D voodoo doll and then the waiting… the ungodly anxious waiting as the weather slowly creaked from one bone frigid season to something a little more livable. It begins!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 16, 2011 0