Joliet – Route 66

I decided I should see the beginning of “the mother road,” historic (and now completely renamed) route 66. People in the Chicago area seemed clueless about this and by the time I hit Joliet it was too late for anything to be open except travel centers, gas stations, and a very bleh Wal-Mart. None of these places seemed to have anything. So I stayed in the area… went to the gift shop/museum in the morning. They had what I wanted, finally. I also stopped by the Route 66 park and the ice cream place with the Blues Brothers dancing on their roof. I guess the Blues Brothers was mostly filmed here or something… it was amusing. Even more amusing was the fact that the woman at the gift store said she often got Dutch people coming in there. This makes no sense to me. Why would America’s most nostalgic highway be of any interest to someone living in another country? What an odd concept! Oh well, to each their own. Route 66 is pretty damn cool. Someday I may drive it straight instead of weaving on and off it, backwards…

***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!

July 12, 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.

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

Dinosaur Footprints Arizona

There was a big tacky sign aside the road reading “Dinosaur footprints!” with a depiction of… Godzilla mixed with a critter and dressed up in psychedelic colors? I’m not sure what the artist was trying to say there… but with a sign that confused how could I not stop? I had a suspicion it was a tourist trap where unwary tourists disappear never to be heard from again. At the time this seemed a fair enough risk. It actually wasn’t bad! I was flagged down as I drove in by a guy standing next to a jewelry stand. He proceeded to take us on a tour, showing us all sorts of footprints from allosaur and velociraptor and two others that either weren’t identified or I forgot. Oddly no herbivorous footprints but I did see baby velociraptor footprints bounding along next to their mommy and one set of baby allosaur footprints ambling alongside its mommy. The neatest part was a track showing where a velociraptor was running full speed, jumped, and then slid in the mud before gaining its balance again. It painted the picture of an athletic and perhaps somewhat clumsy creature. I could imagine them playing in the mud a bit like a big cat.

I was also shown a dinosaur ribcage still embedded in the rock as well as a claw and lots and lots of dinosaur poop. I was given a chip of fossilized vegetation, a little coprolite (fossilized poo) and a sliver of petrified wood found here as well as some red rocks the locals use to make jewelry. I think this may have been just because the guy liked me (I showed genuine interest and didn’t bring any screaming destructive children.) At the end of the tour I was happy and gave our tour guide a tip/donation for the journey back into time. It was really rather neat! He also told me where to find some Anasazi petroglyphs that were about to be fenced off from the public due to vandalism. That pisses me right off by the way… vandals who destroy precious pieces of history like petroglyphs from the eleventh century from an extinct tribe! What the hell! Keep your kids on a fucking leash if they’re the type that does this! I’ll end my rant 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 1, 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!

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 1, 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.

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 29, 2011 0

Fossil Fish Dig – Kemmerer Wyoming

On Thursday morning I was back at Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery to go out fossil fishing. I were guaranteed 6-8 full fish specimens.

I went out with a teenage boy, Dylan, whose summer job it was to work the quarry, and a friendly middle aged couple named Lynn and Bill. I drove in a beat up old truck up a dirt road that led straight to the center of the mountain. Let me tell you, the ride was steep! At one point we passed two or three antelope.

“What pretty animals.” Bill exclaimed, before asking if it was legal to hunt them. It was. Shame, they were very pretty. I refrained from asking what the little rodents dashing across the road were. I didn’t really feel like looking like an idiot. That’d be like someone coming up to me in NH and asking what the squirrels were.

Anyway! I came to the quarry, which was a small section where rocks could be seen piled up like sheets. I were given a hammer and chisel and given a quick demonstration before being given the opportunity to pick one of three spots. I chose the one I could climb on. It was the first rock I found the first fish, three actually, although two were “exploded” and could no longer really be identified as fish. Apparently not only full skeletons are preserved in the fossilization process, but sometimes piles of decomposed goo are as well. Decomposed goo or not I was proud of my first find, and the little skeletal fishy was perfect in my eyes. Besides, the exploded fish didn’t actually count as normal people don’t like to keep them…

It took a while but eventually I found a partial big fossil, a mioplosus, a somewhat rare find here.

After this the rock got real fragile. Apparently it had gotten wet at some point and some of the layers were flecking off like paper, revealing fossils that in no way could actually be preserved. This was frustrating, I dug through all of that and back down to the hard layers. Apparently the “18 inch layer” where all the commercial digging was done had the consistency of concrete. That’s where the professionals dug with heavy machinery and of course I wouldn’t be chipping away at that layer. I found the allotted amount of fish I was promised, in three different species, knightia, mioplosus, and diplomystus. All except the mio were a few inches in length and preserved wonderfully. I was very happy with the finds. Over on the other side of the quarry another group had found three monster fish, complete too. One had to be extracted with a saw. All this and I felt bad for the couple who was in our group who found substandard fossils, all tiny, many very fragile, and not a hell of a lot of them. They were such a sweet couple too!

Coming back from the dig was an adventure all its own. Imagine being in a beat up old truck going down such a steep hill that looking out of the back of it you couldn’t see the road behind you, just fresh mountain air. Now imagine going down that same hill knowing that the road was only vaguely the width of the vehicle you’re in and any mistake would result in you toppling off the side and rolling down the mountain. Nerve racking! I made it though, as Dylan told us why his truck’s roof was slashed to bits. “Some of the other guys up here sometimes get bored and test their new blades on the ceiling…”

I was super pleased with my finds. I wasn’t really expecting much. The trilobite dig was a lot of fun (and a completely different experience, being in different rock) but this had its own charm. I even found myself rather liking the little fish that once swam around here, eons before my existence. I was told of a dinosaur dig in Montana but the funds were running thin. Perhaps I’ll come back for that someday. Still, the fish quarry people insist that customers on the “fossil tour” (trilobite, fish, and dinosaur digs) said their fish digging was the best of the three. We’ll see!

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 22, 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

Redwood National Park California

I went to the Redwood National Park hoping to see some big trees. I wasn’t sure if I would see any or not, knowing full well that most of the really big trees, the ones which are thousands of years old, have long since been logged before the days of national parks. However I had watched documentaries that say redwoods grow 6 feet a year and that in the canopy there are whole ecosystems we’re just now learning about in tree caves in and on branches, even whole species of amphibians living their entire lives up there. It’s a neat and romantic idea, still, on my way to this place I passed dozens of cheesy little small-town attractions like The Grandfather Tree and Confusion Hill. I actually stopped at Confusion Hill to see what it was about. There was a small very packed gift shop and signs all over the place saying to beware of the rare and elusive Chip-a-lope. And low and behold there were Chip-a-lope in the gift store, little stuffed chipmunks with antelope antlers on their head. Cute. There was something about a train ride and a twisted tree and their back yard seemed to be sectioned out into bizarre exhibits. I should mention the place was run by an old hippie woman, and probably her husband. I left confused alright, never finding out what the “mystery” advertised on the giant sign even was. Perhaps which drugs were used to inspire this place? I can voucher a guess on that one.

The area was rife with aged hippies. I should mention this, as that morning I accidentally flashed one when the back door of the Jeep unexpectedly flung up during my morning rituals. Then there was Confusion Hill and someplace I passed called Area 101 which looked like a small ghost town someone had boarded up and psychedelically painted with UFO’s and eyeballs. I stopped to take a photo of that bizzarro place only to be mocked by two of its patrons, old hippies, hooting and hollering and jumping around like monkeys. Touché. I smiled and waved in turn. Yes, I know I’m a dorky tourist. Might as well wear it with pride.

When I got to the actual redwood forest I drove quite a ways noticing most of the monster trees were indeed old stumps, cut down for one reason or another. Finally I got to the trails. I took the Ladybird Johnson Trail, starting with a wooden bridge that extended over the highway. It led me into the woods where I got to see giant dead trees, hollowed out by fire but still standing! I walked further. I found a cavernous tree off the path and meandered off to check it out. I have a hard time resisting such temptations sometimes. I took photos and checked it out thoroughly. It was more interesting than what was on the path and I was not the first one to think so as graffiti in the tree noted which of the many puppy-eyed teenagers loved whom. Back to the path I finally started hitting live giant trees. They were impressive but nothing like the photos I’d seen as a kid of people stretched arm to arm around the old trees, in fact they weren’t even as big as the “drive through” tree I passed, with a large hole carved out of it allowing cars to pass right through it. That tree was still alive, despite the harassment. There was apparently a “tall tree grove” but it was inaccessible without a permit. The signs stating this fact did not state how to get a permit or if it was possible.

In any event the trail was a nice one, especially for someone’s who’s out of shape tush has been doing very little except driving around the Jeep… and it was humbling to be in the presence of such wide and tall trees. Despite warnings of bears and cougar I saw no wildlife, save for a jay and a snake. The jays were demonized on the exhibit signs. I was told not to feed these opportunistic monsters because they were making some other more natural birds go extinct.

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 15, 2011 0

Big Sur California

Big Sur was weird. I though it was just a single park named Big Sur that had beautiful coastlines and redwoods. Instead I found out that Scenic Coast Route Highway 1 would bring me through six separate parks, all named something different but all considered the Big Sur area. Big Sur apparently was the river bordering each. To add to the confusion there were free beaches and scenic overlooks right off the highway about every 500 feet it seemed. So why pay for the park and where? I never figured this one out. The information center did nothing but complicate issues. Whatever, back to the beaches I went!

I took lots of photos of the rough and jagged rocky coastline being battered by angry waves. I even found my way down to a beach. It was oddly devoid of shells but it was absolutely gorgeous. I was inspired by the colorful plant life clinging to all the rocks. It was definitely different from the beaches back home as well as every other beach I’d been to. I liked it 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!

June 11, 2011 0

Yosemite California

I had already had Yosemite circled or map and was going to go there but upon getting within five miles of its entrance (at Tioga Pass) I were informed that that particular entrance was closed and I’d have to take a detour in the mountains, which would take me no less than two hours. Did I mention the mountain was owned by the military and there were all sorts of signs saying stopping at any point was prohibited? Big military Jeeps climbed up and down and soldiers with large rifles could be seen every now and then just standing aside the road keeping guard. To make matters all the more tense the farther we drove up this insanely steep mountain the more snow started to pile up on the ground. The Californians here, who must have also been on the way to Yosemite, could be seen every now and then ignoring the signs and stopping to play in the snow. Gates started to appear on an increasingly thin road, just beyond them reading “road closed” just in case the option had to be taken. By now the snow was reaching well over the height of the Jeep and I wondered just how it was plowed like that in the first place, they must have some seriously hefty equipment to do so. Luckily I made it to the top of the mountain without anything being closed but the ride down was rough. I’ve been on a lot of mountain roads since beginning the journey but this one seemed more intense, with far steeper declines on very windy roads. It would have been a bad place for anyone’s brakes to fail, that’s for sure!

When I finally got back on the road, the same road I was detoured off of, I entered the park but by this time it was getting quite late. I rushed through, trying to see all I could and stopping every now and then to snap photos. As I was told this place was full of waterfalls, all postcard pretty. I walked over a little wooden pathway going over the local marsh. I couldn’t resist splashing the water once which was bath warm. How very odd! There didn’t seem to be too much going on in the water but there were mule deer all around and people were reacting to them like they were one-eyed one-horned purple people eaters, leaning out their window and yelling, “DEER! There’s a deer right there!” At that point I was far more amused by the people than the deer. In New England deer are so common we eat them… and I don’t mean some people eat them, I mean you’d be hard up to find anyone who hasn’t at least tried venison once or twice.

Finally I ended up on the path to see the main fall, Bridal Veil. First I took a little detour to their bathrooms and I must say they had hands down the worst bathrooms I have seen on my trip. Walking in there were ten or so stalls lined up and toilet paper EVERYWHERE. Looking into the stalls I could see some of the toilets were over flowing with not only toilet paper but also pads and tampons. I am not sure where all the toilet paper was from because the dispensers were all full… with paper it absolutely refused to let go of. Nothing was clean, there was graffiti here and there but I suppose it could have been worse. I was told the graffiti in the men’s room was artfully crafted in actual human shit. I don’t get this at all! Why doesn’t such a known park, which receives so much money from visitors, not just hire a bathroom cleaner?!

But anyways, back to the falls… even though it was late there were still people walking up here. You could see the falls between the trees and take pretty photos. I passed an interesting little rock outcropping that formed a cave-like formation. At the end of the path I was able to walk right over the river at the bottom of the falls. It was wet, very wet, and no photos were possible as the camera lens was instantaneously covered with droplets of water. Still it was quite invigorating! I actually chickened out and didn’t go across the bridge. I had no idea where it led, but apparently it was a loop path. I ended up back out on the road to the Jeep in no time, stopping one last time to photograph an ancient mule deer with a completely white face. She appeared to be pregnant and was letting people get within a foot of her. She simply didn’t care. This had to be the world’s oldest pregnant deer. I don’t even know that she was with it enough to know she was a deer.

On my way out something big caught my eye but it confused me in that split second because it was too fat to be a deer, much too fat. As it turns out it was a baby grizzly bear just checking everyone out. One good look was all we got as the ranger on duty was already chasing him away before I could get the camera to focus on him. This is common practice in the area so bears don’t get accustomed to people and their food and therefore are far less likely to attack humans and get shot themselves. Still, it was neat to see a blonde baby bear after reading sign after sign reading, “Speeding kills bears. Obey the speed limit.” They even had the logo on magnets in the gift shop, just in case you needed a future reminder.

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 10, 2011 0