Category: Uncategorized

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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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!

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!


 

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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…

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!


 

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Camping in Cotez Colorado

I camped at a KOA in Cortez Colorado. It was a comfortable little place, mostly filled with RV’s, with two Teepees, some camping spots with water and electric, and a set of “primitive” campgrounds down a hill. They were peaceful and quiet with no electric, water, or fire pits (due to recent fire hazards.) There was also no shade and the bathroom was up that hill and across that campground. The first morning I got up to go pee I actually got lost coming back. I spent twenty minutes circling the campground like a vulture, trying each little road and winding close to a river. I knew I wasn’t camped next to a river, I were next to a big fence with cow patties on the other side, why couldn’t I find them? It was hot, I wasn’t dressed as properly as I normally am, having figured, “I’m just going to the bathroom, I’ll be back in a jiffy, no one will see me.” Eventually I came across a woman walking her three little dogs. One was off the lead and came charging at my ankles yapping ferociously. I cooed at it, “I’m not that scary!” The woman laughed, I bent down to pet the two who were behaving themselves. Then I asked her where the primitive campgrounds were. I was on the right path, for once! I found the hill and then almost tripped when a little lizard darted out from the bushes and scared the bejesus out of me. When I arrived at the tent I felt like I’d accomplished some great harrowing mission.

The campground was full of friendly people for the most part, and one German woman who seemed to always be scowling at me. Someone said she probably thought I was a gypsy with my bandana. I crimpled my nose. Whatever, not my problem. Later I saw one of her kids sunbathing by the pool. It didn’t take me long to notice someone had painted the bottom of his feet neon orange. I never got an explanation as to why this was – why anyone would want to paint the bottom of their feet neon orange. I chalked it up to the random antics children often get into like that time in second grade I had a male classmate show me his big toe. “My mother painted it red. I don’t know why. She told me not to tell.” Why do I even remember that?! And why am I still laughing?!

Later that day I saw two big elk buck near the tent and watched for twenty minutes as two tiny little wild bunnies chased each other around a field, kicking their wee furry feet in the air as hard as they could. I also witnessed a bald eagle fly by. It lived at the end of a nearby nature trail. I feel spoiled in the amount of wildlife I’ve been able to witness on this trip. It’s been a great experience.

I swam in their heated pool. I want one now… and it was great to get out of the scorching sun for a bit. I did laundry, took showers, cooked a little bit, all under the constant threat of thunderstorms which never came. It was a good rest.

 

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Sturgis Montana

Sturgis was completely unplanned. We just happened to be nearby so we stopped to check it out for a bathroom break. I knew it was the location of the notorious Sturgis Bike Rallies and some of the history of that but that was really all… If I had known we were stopping in today I might not have chosen to wear full hippie regalia, tie-dye Haight-Ashbury T-shirt included. A bunch of old people in the packed McDonald’s gave me a look that could kill. I proceeded to the bathroom anyway. Ruud followed saying, “Good point, straight to the bathroom. I don’t like this place.”

We stopped at a little gift store to get a couple post cards. Just because Sturgis wasn’t really my thing didn’t mean I didn’t know someone who wouldn’t appreciate it. This place was filled with the usual biker stuff, the slutty t-shirts, the angry little jacket patches, lots of Harley Davidson memorabilia and skulls, nothing I hadn’t seen before. I chose my postcards and paid at the counter which was being tended by a young heavily pierced and tattood woman who actually knew how to smile. I liked her. We left after this.

***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!***

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!


 

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Cody Wyoming

I was told by someone that I had to go through Cody after exiting Yellowstone, in fact I think two or three different people mentioned this but none of them let me know what Cody was. It wasn’t until I was at the ice cream parlor in Yellowstone, staring at the old advertisement for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, that I realized Cody was probably one of those tacky Wild West tourist traps. I was right. Statues of old Western heros, white buffalo, and various other animals lined the streets. Everything was made to look like an old saloon. There were hotels and inns everywhere as well as huge clothing stores loaded with the most garish of clothing articles, enormous glittering purses, baby pink cowgirl hats, ten pound shiny belt buckles, rattlesnake boots, and cowboy hats of every kind imaginable. Of course the best part of the town was the dubious and probably offensive depictions of “Indians” which were everywhere. The second best part of the town was the Dug Up Gun Museum. I didn’t go in but I expect these are just firearms people found buried in their back yards. How weird and freaky is that?

I couldn’t resist stopping to pick up a post card for my cousin who happens to be named Cody. I hope he gets a laugh out of it but I really don’t know.

I stopped at a McDonald’s there for quite awhile and I got to watch the local teenagers while pretending to be focused on other things. There were a couple chicks there, maybe 15 or so in age, with make-up covered faces and tight clothing. One of them was trying to pick up a boy, one in a group of four, all dressed up to the hilt looking like they’d just walked off a set for a 1940’s Western, hats, boots, flannel shirts, and belt buckles included. When all four came over to sit down she was still smiling and flirty. Eventually her chick friend grew annoyed, not wanting to have a part in this, and left. The remaining chicka soon found her devious plans were to backfire. Somehow the topic of conversation wound around to some friend of theirs, not present, who had recently been “almost caught fucking a girl real good at the bus station. Cop came rollin’ by and he just had enough time to pull up his pants!” This story went around getting more outrageous, the girl’s smile now turning to an intensely uncomfortable grimace. Fifteen minutes later when the gaggle got up from the table she took tail and headed for the hills. ‘Course now I had lost my entertainment. Damn.

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!


 

 

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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.

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!


 

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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.

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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.

 

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U-Dig Trilobite Quarry – Utah

U-Dig is a quarry loaded with trilobites that anyone with a wad of cash and four hours to spare can go liberate from the rocks. Of course I’d been to a number of rock shops and had already spent a quite a few hours fawning over the Madagascan specimens, but I knew the little buggars you find in the US are a little less fancy. According to their website most people came home with over a dozen trilobites when visiting.

The twelve year old tending the admission stand was only somewhat helpful in giving instructions so I took over. I grasped a rock in my hand, which I saw already had a weakness in it, and popped it open with the little rock hammer I was given. Immediately two trilobites could be seen inside, though they were wee ones, very wee ones. My scavenging of the rocks was finding dozens of little trilobites and impressions and pieces scattered everywhere that people had missed and I was only going for rocks that already had visible weaknesses in them.

I wandered around a lot, picking here and there. I found at least two species. Some great specimens came out of the rock after several hundred million years only to say hi and dissolve in my hands. That happened a lot. An old man came by that said he was down here three times a week. He asked if we were finding good specimens. I said yes. His ancient border collie Australian Sheppard mix wandered around the rocks sniffing something out.

Meanwhile more people arrived, with small children… who brings their children to a rock quarry?? Of course these children were just as unmanaged as the rest of the country’s that I’d seen. One little boy climbed up to the very top of the top of the quarry and peered down at all the chipped rock, throwing stones down to hear them thunk. “Get down from there!” his mother yelled, repeatedly, for twenty minutes, until the child got bored of being up there and came down on his own. I was so irritated by this I nearly climbed up there myself and dragged him down by the ear. If you’re going to yell at your children then back it up with some action! Then maybe next time he’ll listen! Of course once one kid goes up so must the rest… within twenty minutes the other boy, from a different party, was prancing up there as the first boy whined, “Why can he be up there when I can’t?” No one did anything for that kid, not even a yell. And as we were leaving the last small child, a girl, fell on the rocks and cut her knee open.

I was getting tired of the kids but my time was running out anyway… I was very very tired and unbeknownst to me the sun had cooked a piece of my back because sitting on the rocks made my pants slip down a little bit and my T-shirt slipped up a little bit. UGH. On the good hand I found the biggest trilobite just fifteen minutes before leaving. I found it in an untouched piece of rock I pulled out of the cliff. It was maybe two inches long, but also wedged in a giant rock. It had both negative and positive sides, but how could I drag this huge heavy rock home? I asked the boy if they ever cut rocks down, he called up his grandfather, the old man, and he came up and chipped the rock away until it was a manageable specimen showing the 2ish inch trilobite I’d found. Unfortunately the imprint couldn’t be saved, though he tried. I left with a bucket full of rocks.. I don’t know how many specimens, some great, others not so much. It was a lot of fun.

After U-dig I drove out of there and past a strange quasi-ghost town. It had a main street much like any little town does, filled with shops, and all the essential places a small population needs. It was somewhat recent structures but they were all boarded up or abandoned. Windows were missing, the buildings were cracking, and one shop really creeped me out. It was a framery or something and whoever owned it appeared to have just left one day, leaving all the frames still on the walls… They were decayed by time and age but otherwise were sitting there as eerie little testaments of a town that once was. Around the outskirts of main street you could see dilapidated houses reading, “for sale” and “prime property!” I saw one soul there, a teenage boy with his two dogs, the female trotted out into the street with huge milk-filled teats. I nearly hit her. The kid seemed to take no notice. It was all very strange… I was happy to be out of there.

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!


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