Tag: destination

Grand Canyon North – Arizona

So the Four Corners guy also told me the grand canyon has a North and South side.. something I probably should have known but I am finding the research t hat went before this trip to be… lacking. that wasn’t my department. That’s fine, though I did almost miss Valley of the Gods due to it and did miss the dinosaur footprints. SIGH. In any event, I decided to see the North side today. I drove only two and half hours and suddenly there’s trees, tall ones. With no warning whatsoever. They’re everywhere, pine, and they smell like home. I am suddenly hit with a pang of homesickness but its quickly disturbed by the sighting of an elk, real close. I took photos.

I walked the path to Bright Angel Point. Maybe I were just tired but none of it was that impressive. The trees were so much like home and the canyon? Yeah it was huge and all sorts of pretty colors but I’d been driving through much prettier all day. I’m going to the South canyon in the morning. It’s the more touristy side and I’ll see if I’m more impressed with it.

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Grand Canyon South & Little Colorado River – Arizona

I already had a pass to get into the Grand Canyon so I decided to check out the other side. For once I was I well slept and probably in a more open mood when I arrived. I drove into the visitor center which was overflowing with people. I loitered around looking at a stuffed raven and a stuffed cougar cub which had apparently been hit by a car. There were also displays of Indian ruins and pottery and geological information. I stopped at their bathroom, chuck full, didn’t feel like waiting so I drove off to see some of the views we could find.

I drove down the road a little ways and then pulled off at the first little parking area I found where people were gathering. It wasn’t as busy as the last place I’d been and best yet there was a raven sitting there begging for food. It made off with a cracker, flying into the canyon where it appeared to have a nest. I resumed looking around. The south side of the grand canyon is not obstructed by too many trees like the north is. You can see a lot and today I was impressed. Apparently my visibility was over 74 miles as I could easily recognize a mountain range that far away. I snapped some photos and then realized the raven was back, cocking its head and trying to figure out if there was more food. An entire rye biscuit was thrown at it. The bird looked at it, hopped around, gave a quizzical look, and decided against picking it up. However a minute later the raven decided the food was abandoned and picked up the whole cracker, flying away with his new treasure and landing somewhere on the rim of the canyon, probably trying to break it up.

The views of the canyon got more and more majestic the more I traveled down the road. I saw the canyon, the surrounding mountain ranges, peaks and eventually the river that winds down it. This wasn’t until the very last stop though. Here was a little pueblo, three stories high, you could walk up to get a better view. It was decorated with traditional Navajo paintings and there was a gift shop inside that had a lot of beautiful Navajo pottery as well as many other things. I climbed up as far as I could go and found a spectacular view, far too enormous and wild for any photo to ever do it justice but there it was stretched before me for miles and miles.

I had some tourists take photos and saw a strange little blue bird with a crazy head crest. later in my travels I would come to figure out it was a Steller’s Jay, something obscenely common yet so strange to me!  It was so windy that day that even the ravens were being blown around and my hair stood straight up like a troll for the photograph. These were some heavy gusts! It was still worth it.

Now as to which side is better… the South side definitely has more people, but it also has numerous views and far more options on activities than the north side. The north side is great if you want to walk in the trees, see some elk, and get some nice glimpses of the canyon.

After the canyon visit I went up the road and stopped at the Little Colorado River Canyon. It was $2 a person and there was a nice Navajo market set up at the side. I went through it and took one last chance to marvel at their creativity and art. After this I saw the canyon itself, over the guard rails. It was alright, the market was more interesting…

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Horseshoe Bend, Vermillion Cliffs – Arizona

I was instructed to go to Horseshoe Bend by a friendly local Navajo man. It’s free and if you happen to be in the area you must go see it! Of course the heat was simply scorching and the hike was up a number of steep sand covered hills which I’ll admit were a huge challenge to someone as unfit as myself. Weeks driving a Jeep and eating nothing but PB&J’s had taken it’s toll. I felt like a smoker wheezing and gasping for air, clawing my way upwards like I was escaping Hell! Still once I got to the peak the view was staggeringly beautiful, a circular body of water with another piece of mountain jutting up from its center, so massive I couldn’t take a full photo of it. I walked around taking photos. I had a photo taken by a couple from Chicago and paid back the favor. Then I noticed a couple speaking Dutch which was a delightful change of pace from the Germans I saw everywhere else. Greetings were exchanged and photos were taken. I was just impressed by their intense baby buggy which looked like it might have four wheel drive. That thing was hardcore. And the baby? Most quiet and content new human I have ever seen. Apparently they were travelling from here to the grand canyon as a vacation, bringing their little bundle of joy along. I sort of wish I knew a language other than English. Perhaps someday.

When I walked back I saw some tracks in the sand. I identified them as those of a lizard and I were able to trace them to a rock where two adorable lizards were skittering about. On this little off-path detour I also found a weird bug and more brightly colored lizards. One of the strangest realizations I have had since coming out traveling is the fact lizards are everywhere. Hundred s of varieties, all different sizes, clinging to rocks, ground, and trees. I grew up and lived in New England where if you want to see a lizard you have to go to a pet store or zoo. I don’t think these free range reptiles will ever loose their charm in my eyes.

Let me tell you the hike back was brutal. Being the little wuss I am I took two long breaks and then thanked God when I could finally see the Jeep again. It was hot, I hadn’t eaten lunch, and I was both absolutely famished and thirstier than I’d ever been before.

Driving away from the area I passed and photographed the Vermillian Cliffs and a few other things. Everything was just so surreal. I am not sure I will ever believe I was once in a place so beautiful.

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Antelope Canyon – Arizona

Antelope Canyon is a guided tour done by the local Navajo. It’s a VERY bumpy ride getting there and a bit pricey at thirty something dollars a head but let me tell you… it was worth all this and more. This time I got to actually walk into the belly of the scenery I was admiring. Here was a brilliant red crevice in the rock, worn away in fantastic swooshes by sand, wind, and flood water. With every swirl you could see something even more profound.

It was a very short tour, if one were to just walk through it paying no attention it’d take maybe five minutes, but this would be a waste. I’ve never heard of Antelope Canyon but apparently others had. I shared my tour with a couple Australians and a number of French. One of the little French women attempted asking if I could take her and her boyfriend’s photo. This was done mostly through sign language since my French is pretty much gone (one of my few educational regrets…) I love the French. I love their stubborn insistence not to learn anything other than French. I have long since theorized the reasons French and Americans have such a hostile frenemy relationship is because we’re too alike. Go back to where you came from! BWAHAHAHA. Seriously though – French is such a beautiful language. I smile every time I hear it and am more than happy to snap a few tourist photos to have the privilege.

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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Navajo Nation – Monument Valley, Valley of the Gods, Mexican Hat

So after talking to that strange Vermont man I decided to go check out Monument Valley. I don’t even know what to say… it is the most gorgeous scenery, so profoundly huge and beautiful that I don’t think my words could ever come close to describing it.

Imagine topless flat mountains made of rock whose form and vibrant color were so startling they looked like they could be alive. Imagine green, yet oddly plantless plateaus, and brilliant red towering to the sky. Imagine rocks whose form looked like giant melting marshmallows and imagine a landscape so immense and so humbling as to take over all other thought. I couldn’t take enough photos because every time I drove even slightly around each formation the light would change and a whole new personality would come out.

Monument Valley was full of robust formations, some even looked like castles in the distance. Valley of the Gods contained many similar formations, just different shapes. There was an episode of Doctor Who filmed there. All geekery set aside I found the Mexican Hat quite by surprise. It just happened to be on the road that I was on so I pulled over and took a photo. It indeed looks like a rock supporting a giant red Mexican hat. It was all so amazing. The scenery just kept getting more beautiful and complex with every blink of my eyes.

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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Four Corners Monument (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah)

I decided to go to the four corners because who wouldn’t at this point? I mean really, its there, might as well go. I sort of figured it’d be this lame monument in the middle of nowhere with nothing much going on around it. I also figured it’d be free. No, you do have to pay a few bucks to see it, nothing too extravagant though. I drove in and found it quite busy. People filed in and out, the vast majority were Americans this time. People came in and took photos of each other touching all four states at once. The usual staged touristy photos were taken.

Around the monument itself there were a few dozen little stands, all with Navajo craftsmen and women. They were selling everything from tacky little four corners memorabilia to hand crafted sand paintings, gorgeous pottery, and lots and lots and lots of jewelry and beadwork. The people selling the stuff all said hi and were very friendly. I talked to a few and one woman told me that the sand paintings were all made of locally collected pigments, taken from various rocks. This was amazing as they were so colorful. I ended up buying one (a depiction of a pot – unique from the other more traditional designs) for $15 as well as a magnet. I have a magnet for a number of my destinations now. It would forever remind me of the irony of the situation – a meaningless monument set up and run by Native Americans for white people to show them the lines they drew in the dirt for their states. I mean whoever thought of that was genius. Props to them!

It was sweltering and hot and I was hungry so I tried some “fried bread.” Turns out that this was just the local way of saying fried dough, which is fine. It marked the end of my fried food tour. I was eating it with cinnamon and sugar in the car when I heard a knock on the window. I looked up and there was a guy that I swear to God looked like the father on one of those crappy 80’s sitcoms, Family Ties, I think. Anyway, that’s aside the point..

“What town?” He said without even coming up with a proper greeting. I recognized his Yankee accent. He was either from New Hampshire or Vermont. Since there was a moment of confused silence the man repeated his question and I answered.. Turns out he was from Bennington Vermont and had been traveling for 16 years. He told me about the book Travelling on a Shoestring and a number of locations I could check out including Monument Valley, just an hour down that road there.

I ended up taking his advice and good thing or else I would have missed Valley of the Gods which would become one of my favorite destinations.

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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Congress Bat Bridge – Austin Texas

Congress Bridge is the home to the largest urban bat community in the world and every night four and a half million of the little beasties come flying out to fetch dinner. I battled the sun trying to get there before the big event. I parked a half mile away believing this was such an attraction there couldn’t possibly be any place closer. As it turns out there is a parking lot right next to the bridge that is pretty much for the bat people who gather every night. You have to get there early though because it was full.

I was thrilled to see people of all types walking towards the bridge and gathering both on the bridge and under it in a little park. I went under it and picked a spot on the grass to sit and wait. As dawn drew in a handful of bats, maybe 20 or so all together, started to file out one at a time, swooping down towards the crowd. After a few more bats came out the crowd suddenly got up and left. I wanted to stay and keep watching because the cacophony of squeaking was still overwhelming. More people left until there were perhaps ten people under the bridge still. I’d been having trouble with the camera which didn’t like the night photography. I got up to take a closer look and walked to the end of the bridge… now this is where all the action is! If you go to watch the bats go to the fence bordering the water. The bats were coming out of that little area like water, thousands of them swooping by in seconds. The people above this one particular location were also getting a show, and the only people left on the bridge. We walked up there and watched awhile too. It was amazing. I can’t believe how many of the little boogers were still pouring out. It made me so happy to watch them. I didn’t really think I’d get that much of a kick out of it but how cool is that, that these bats are living, in the millions, under a bridge, in the middle of a huge city, and people are gathering in support of them? It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I was practically skipping back to the car.

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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Windsor Ruins – Mississippi

In Mississippi I went to the Windsor Ruins. Apparently this absolutely enormous building was built as the largest Greek Revival mansion in the state. It only stood for a few years before it burned from the top down leaving nothing but 24 eerie columns. I tried to go after dark (against park rules) but didn’t make it. Still it was oddly impressive, nestled in some rugged and wild country. It was quiet and so peaceful out there. The columns reached towards the sky with a little plant growing on one. Some of them were crumbled and I guess the metal stairway that was left after the flames was taken by a local church. It was a bit weird in the sense it felt like I was looking at a Greek ruin in the middle of frickin’ Mississippi.

As I left I noticed a dirt road, apparently going to nowhere. Seeing as the road I was supposed to take was closed due to flooding the decision was made to try this one. I travelled farther and farther down this road as it got increasingly worse. It got narrower, the path got more bumpy. It looked like the last travelers through here might have been in a Conestoga wagon. Then, as if I was on some sort of crazy safari I saw something dash across the road at such an alarming speed that I couldn’t even come close to identifying the wee beast. I turned around and took the path more travelled.

As it turns out I think I figured out what the strange blur I saw was. Apparently armadillos are a small, probably mythological, southern creatures with the armor of centipede and the speed of light. I had been wanting to see a live one and in all the photos they look so placid and even slow.. HA! Wrong! I also got to see two deer cross the road and it was broad daylight.

I took lots of photos of the scenery because it was just gorgeous down that way with gorges filled with greenery and vines wrapping around trees. It was a strange landscape. On my way out I came across yet another roadblock, this time on a main highway. I stopped and a very young officer asked, “So where y’all trying to go?” Apparently, “I don’t know.” isn’t a great answer to give someone. He picked up his little list of places to go and ventured a guess, “Arkansas? And you’re taking which highway?” “Uhhh…. Let me see…” This time the GPS was consulted and the cop just started laughing. “Oh you got a Garmin. I had one of those. She told me to drive straight into a lake once.” Comforting thought! Thanks! Apparently the Big Black River had overflowed and I had to go literally an hour out of our way to get back on track.

When I got back into town, and after passing this particular gas station three or four times trying to find an addressless ghost town, I stopped in to fill up. The locals were ever so helpful… “You trying to get to Vicksburg? We saw you pass by a few times…” Great, now I’m being watched! SIGH. Can’t do anything conspicuously these days.

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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Mystic Caves – Arkansas

I am not sure why I went to the Mystic Caves… it’s not as if they were world famous or anything. I mean as far as caves go this one was taking a bit of a piss but in the spirit of writing down every adventure here I go…

I was guided through both Mystic Caves. During the first tour I was with a small group of quiet adults and I took time to listen to the guide and take photos. Apparently the cave was used by local Indians who found one of the chambers sacred and used some slime growing on the wall for medicinal reasons.. Then the white man came along and used it as a moonshine distillery during prohibition… at which time they sooted up the ceilings, broke off a lot of the stalactites to sell during the depression, annnd caused damage when their distillery just up and exploded one day. The place was a mess, a great illustration of how destructive man is, but little else. It was also tiny.. and the staff kept naming the formations after food. “This is our wedding cake, over there is our carrot patch and don’t miss the curly fries!” There was however a number of fossils embedded in the ceiling so go fossils! Woo! I’m sure they were edible once…

Our guide ended the tour by telling us some hogwash story about a monkey being brought down in the cave and then getting stuck to the ceiling somehow. There was indeed something gnarly-looking dangling from the ceiling but a monkey it was not. Everyone listened like, “yeah whatever.” Our guide kept pausing midsentence, as if he were expecting us to say something or laugh. We were a boring bunch and didn’t.

The Chrystal Dome was a little better. It was only recently discovered, in the late 1960’s, and only on active tours since the 1980’s. It was only one set of stairs to the bottom of the dome where you could look up and see intact stalactites and stalagmites starting to form on the floor. This time we were accompanied by a Biblical swarm of 13-14 year old Christian boys, either boy scouts or from some boys only Christian school, who the hell knows. They all had flashlights and were fairly loud and obnoxious. Our tour guide said very little about what was actually known about the cave, instead he started telling stories about a guard Yorkie who got stuck in the rocks, and then a guard turkey, and then a guard alligator, and then a fucking octopus. I wandered off and took photos on my own of this weird slimy orange thing I found, too old to be amused by this, though on the way out I did see the Virgin Mary but I guess that’s to be expected. She’s everywhere.  Our tour guide merely called her an angry wife, pointing to another formation that looked like a guy and two critters, dogs or fish depending on which story you could visualize. Coolest thing here was a little salamander in the rocks and a wolf spider nearly as big, both of which were actually real…

Though it was amusing I doubt I would suggest this cave to anyone outside the local area. There are just a lot of better caves to go to and $14.50 a person seems a bit steep for such a little place. In any event the gift shop was beautiful, had amazing minerals, rocks, and fossils.

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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Arkansas’ Largest Natural Bridge

I saw a number of really huge signs aside the highway reading, “Arkansas’ largest natural bridge!” How could I not want to follow them like a lamb to slaughter? So I took the heavy, overloaded Jeep, and pursued a dirt road that zigzagged in every direction worse than San Fran’s famous Lombard Street. Did I mention it was a mountain road so I was also going down hill at an increasingly uncomfortable angle. I think the Jeep may have been crying, or at least slightly whimpering. Jeeps are tough after all.

Finally I ended up at a tiny ramshackle little mock-up of a pioneer house and a tiny parking lot. Where’s the bridge? I walked in and the attendant, a young guy, jumped up seemingly all happy to see another living soul. He rattled off everything there was to see here and the $5 fee. Then he instructed me to sign the guestbook and seemed not to know what to say next so I meandered out, only after noticing that in the middle of the day I was the only visitor here and had come from the farthest distance by a long shot. I walked out and saw the little recreation of an Ozark classic, the moonshining still, complete with scary wax figurine armed with a shotgun. Above there was another pioneer house, complete with artifacts from the era, including a coffee grinder the size of a dormitory fridge. There was even an antique fly trap! It looked remarkably like a hanging beekeeper’s hat.

So I walked out down this path in the middle of the woods and there it was, signs reading, “Do not climb or cross bridge! Stay on path!” Above that of course was a strange site, a bridge made of stone, a seemingly natural formation but still somewhat unsettling as it did indeed look like an intended bridge. I took a few snaps, walked up the path as far as I could, goofed around a bit, and came back.. Interesting detour.

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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