Sun and Star Gazing

At the visitor's center at the Black Canyon National Park, one of the park rangers set up a telescope for viewing the sun. It was morning and everyone was stopping to look at the sunspots. The ranger was explaining what we were seeing.

There were two small sunspots and a small solar prominence. I could't take pictures but found a link that shows a similar view.

The sun through a solar telescope

That same night I was up looking at the beautiful night skies after they finally cleared.

Great pictures of constellations by Astro Bob  One of his pictures is below:

This is what I saw last night, Aug 29 at about 4:30 am

Couldn't get anything like this with my camera. The large bright dot above the word 'East' is Procyon, the main star in Canis major, Orion's favorite hunting dog.

Humming birds, deer and black birds, and awesome sand dunes!

Near the Great Sand Dune National Park in Colorado there is a wonderful lodge by the same name. It is just outside the national park. We were sitting outside and 5 deer passed by. They were so close I didn't even need binoculars to see them.

They walked casually by were we were sitting, probably no more than 50 yards away. Zoom on the camera helps!

There was a bumming bird feeding station just outside our patio door. If you stood very still you could be within 3 feet of the feeder and the humming birds would buzz by you and sometimes stop 2 feet in front of you as if to say "hello".

They were feeding until dark when I couldn't see them anymore and then came again.at dawn.

A juvenile yellow headed black bird posed on a nearby fence. The mature adults have a brilliant yellow head.

All of this wildlife was seen at the lodge near the entrance to the Great Sand Dune National Park near Alamosa, Colorado. As the sun rises over the mountains to the east of the dunes, the shadows race from the west to east and the sun rises over the mountains. These dunes are over 700 feet tall, the largest in the US. It was a long way from where you could park your car to the entrance to the trail to the dunes. People hiking up the dunes looked like tiny specks as they climbed up the ridges. It is hard to show just how enormous the dunes are.

Sunset was beautiful. For a while we could see Venus, but then the clouds covered the sky. By midnight the sky cleared and the Milky Way was visible as well as Neptune, Uranus, The Pleiades, the Big Dipper, the constellations of the Summer Triangle, the Great Square of Pegasus and lots more. By 4:30, yes I was up again, Orion, Taurus and Gemini were rising in the east. Jupiter was brilliant in Gemini. The waning moon was just above Orion to the left. Sorry I couldn't get pictures of this. By late autumn we will be able to see them early in the evening!

All in all it was an amazing day and night at the Great Sand Dune National Park in Colorado!

Black Canyon near Montrose, Colorado

Just outside Montrose, Colorado there is a spectacular canyon.

The canyon ranges from 1700-2700 feet deep. The river that runs down the canyon has a steep change in altitude because the river drops an average of 96 feet in a mile.

This hard rock was uplifted then cut through by fast-moving water.

The gorge does not show evidence of human occupation by the Ute Indians living in the area. No early Spanish explorers to the Southwest reported seeing the canyon The first written record was from 1873-74. It is so deep, so sheer and so narrow that very little sunlight can penetrate it.

The rock formations are spectacular!

The Gunnison river first carved through soft volcanic rock. Then it cut down to harder, older crystalline rock. It kept cutting through this hard core for two million years. The river now carves its Black Canyon more slowly because dams upstream lessened seasonal flooding. 

Purple flowers were found throughout the rim.

I really loved this part of the canyon wall!

If you are traveling in western Colorado, this is near Montrose, It is really worth the trip!

Weaving

Throughout this trip I have seen beautiful weavings created on upright tapestry looms.

This weaving shows a Navajo holy person called a Yeibichai. This weaving was about 2 x 4 feet.

This one was in the museum at Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado.

Lots of kinds of plants are used to dye the wool for weaving














                                                                                             
This was at the Indian Market in Santa Fe. Although I have seen lots of examples of weaving, I have yet to see any sheep! Where are the sheep?
                                                                                                                                                                 

Great soup and suds! Silverton, Colorado

At the end of the train ride from Durango to Silverton (see the previous post) there is a place to get food and beer that you don't want to miss. The people there are the friendliest you will find on the planet. When we walked down the dirt street towards the Avalanche Brewery we were first attracted to the fence made of snow skies that was facing the street.

We thought this was a really cool looking place!
















We were looking for a place to eat lunch before getting back on the train to return to Durango.

So in we went....and found some incredible soups. We each ordered a bowl, it comes with cornbread, and enjoyed an epicurean treat!

This was the black bean pumpkin soup, absolutely yummy! Don loved his chili chicken soup too!

and a short time later.... 

Zack' mom supplied many (all?) of the recipes for the delicious food.

Doolie, from east Texas, was so much fun! We had a great time talking to Zack and Doolie.







The man preparing the delicious soup was Miguel Zarate and we spoke some in Spanish much to my delight! 

Avalanche Brewing Company is definitely a place you want to visit if you are near or in Silverton, Colorado! Their soups and craft beers are not to be missed!

                              www.avalanchebrewing.com

Blowing off steam - on a train ride!

There is a train that runs from Durango to Silverton, Colorado. It carried gold and silver and now carries passengers. The trip is a 100 mile round trip that takes all day with a two and a half hour stop for lunch in Silverton. More about that fabulous lunch in the next post. For now just enjoy the pictures!

The conductor and brakeman shared lots of information about the narrow gauge railroad.

The train ambles along, blowing off steam and the whistle from time to time as it climbs up the terrain.

Clouds hang low over the trees as we climb to more than 9,000 feet.

Waterfalls cascade down sheer rock walls.

Groves of aspen trees stand out with their white bark.

Huge boulders in the stream, high rock walls all around.

The train stopped to pick up and drop off backpackers. It also stopped to pick up water. 

The water comes from runoff from the mountain and is stored in large tanks beside the train track.

Some times the train was almost at the level of the river, other times we were a couple of hundred feet above it.

If you ever get an opportunity to ride one of these narrow gauge trains, be sure to do it!

Grand Canyon, 40 years later

40 years ago this summer, Don and I hiked from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon down to the Colorado River and back out. It was a 28 mile hike and took us three days! We slept on a rain poncho, no tent, no sleeping bag and cooked dehydrated food on a small back packing stove that our son Jonathan uses to this day! We did a lot of hiking and back packing in those days.

                                                        This view is from the South Rim.

Today we saw the South Rim at a location called Desert View. We began at the eastern edge of the canyon at Little Colorado River Gorge. This river cut this narrower part of the canyon shown here.

this is looking down, way down!

40 years ago I couldn't talk him into taking the mules to go part of the way down, and now you couldn't talk either one of us into trying that hike. The canyon is magnificent even from the top!

Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona

Ever since Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen made the movie Star Man, I have wanted to see meteor crater near Winslow, Arizona. The rain held off just long enough for us to get there today. The crater is nearly a mile across and more than 550 feet deep. 50,000 years ago a meteor ended its 500 million year long race through space in a collision at this site. This is the first proven and best preserved impact site on earth. Here is a view looking at the center of the crater,

then towards the left

then towards the right, it was too big to get all at once!

As you leave I-40 and turn onto to road leading to the crater, you an see that the land is rising. The meteor pushed up the land around as it hit and created this enormous crater. 20 football fields would fit in the bottom of the crater! The terrain resembles that of the moon and was a training site for NASA astronauts. You can walk around the rim but you can't walk down into the crater.

What a fabulous site!

The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, Arizona

Today we drove into Arizona and saw the painted desert .....

This rock has petroglyphs inscribed on it. With binoculars you could see  them very well. 

It was very large and more than 100 feet below where I was standing. 

This is a petrified log that was used as a bridge over the ravine. 

Years ago, it was reinforced beneath with concrete. Walking on it was not permitted. 

The log was about 2 feet in diameter.

There are huge petrified logs in the park.

Silica has replaced the plant cell material over time. 

The different kinds of minerals create the variety of colors in the logs.

There were logs, now they are rocks.

This is the base of one of the giant logs.

Copper, iron, and manganese made patterns and 

blends of yellow, red, black, blue, brown, white and pink. 

Petrified wood weights up to 200 pounds per cubic foot. 

Several kinds of early dinosaurs fossils are found here. 

They lived during the Late Triassic Period, over 200 million years ago.

"Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see,"

remember the words to the song by Don Henley, "Standing on the corner"?

Well, here we are--on the corner. A short time later the rain--err- monsoon started!

They get very excited here in Winslow when it rains, they don't see it that often!

What a great day!