Of Coaches, The Dismal Science and a lesson from Eyore

July 2, Forest City, Iowa Winnebago Factory We had to arrive at 6am and so we slept in the parking lot of the customer service center. There were RVers already gathered at the door when we woke up at 5:45! so we didn’t get Turtle in the shop until noon. The people ahead of us were all in “coaches”: The difference between a coach and a motorhome is, like most differences in America, defined by money. If it the owners paid over 100,000 dollars, they call it their coach, the rest of us po’folks call ours motorhomes (we consider ourselves extremely wealthy, by world standards). A very seasoned sailor we had the privilege of crewing for, said that the pleasure received from a boat was in inverse proportion to the size, i.e. the smaller the boat the more fun the owners have. From a decade of RVing, I think the same principle applies to RVs. Turtle is relatively small, but for us, compared to a bike packing tent, luxurious; we think we’ve found the perfect balance; the people with the $500,000 behemoth probably think the same thing. Owning a coach is sort of like owning a very large home: do the people own the home, or does the home own the people. I remember feeling owned by our home, as much as we loved it. When it reached pre-teen age, it began to demand more and more attention and expense, and wasn’t very cute or fun anymore; some parents can probably relate to that. More Rvers are getting the idea; Winnebago reported to financial analysts that their large coach sales, and bottom line, were being hurt by the sale of smaller units like our 23 footer. Sorry Winnebago; get accustomed to the new world of $70 plus per barrel oil. July 3 We know we’ve arrived in the Midwest; hot, humid and mosquitoes. We have friends all over the Midwest, and I don’t mean to insult their homeland, formerly mine, but when people like us, so dependent on being outdoors in spectacularly beautiful surroundings, suddenly find themselves in the flatlands, and suffocating, the first week or so can be tough. I’ll get over it. One of the first things I noticed was how dirty the rivers are here, beginning as soon as the prairie gives way to cultivated fields. We walked across the Winnebago River, here in Forest City, and it was a sad little brown/green sluggish thing, incapable of reflecting a bright blue sky. I wonder if there are any fish in it, and if the kids are allowed to eat what they catch? I wouldn’t. One night in Western Minnesota we parked in a town park, and I could smell the surrounding fields, and memories flooded back of the chemicals we used on our small farm when I was a boy in West Virginia. My father worked in the C&O switching yards in the chemical plants of South Charleston, WV (highest cancer rates in the U.S.) and the workers gave him paper sacks of the latest thing in bug and week killers. He mixed them in an open 30-gallon drum balanced on the drawbar of our Farmall Cub; I perched below the rim and hand pumped the chemical mixture to a homemade (and clever) three-row sprayer he made. The chemicals sloshed on me regularly and I he told me to be sure and not get any in my mouth. Those smells bring back fond memories of childhood summers working on the farm, but I am glad I haven’t died from those chemicals—yet. Over a decade ago, when we crossed the Great Plains on Zippy, our tandem, we stopped in Nebraska at a Soil Conservation office, to ask about water quality. They said Nebraska farmers were just beginning to work on reducing the amount of chemical fertilizers on their fields, and had a ways to go. The impetus was an unusually large number of women having miscarriages in farm communities and a rapid degradation of the drinking water. I wonder what progress they have made? When the fields smell more of chemicals than plants, as they do around here, I doubt much has changed. Economic values take precedence in America. I believe an honest accounting system would place a value on the degradation of the soil and water, and those miscarriages. A pristine Earth is a deposit made in a bank for us by the Creator. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to account for our withdrawals? That way we would realize that each withdrawal leaves less for future generations. Just because we didn’t put it in the bank ourselves doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for maintaining the balance. The balance we have to consider is: increased wealth for the present generation, against the permanent loss of life-quality to future generations. This is not wacko liberal thinking, it is simple conservative economics, and it’s time we began being honest and admit we’ve been stealing from the future. We are a smart people, we can have wealth and a healthy Earth. How do you measure the economic value of poor health; perhaps you ask a woman who’s had a miscarriage, or the person who has a disease associated with the degraded environment. Someday the dismal science, as economics is sometimes called, will take account of quality of life issues, as well as wealth building. When people lose their health, they are willing to pay any amount of money (if they have it) to regain their health. Wouldn’t it be better for us all to have a little less money and a lot better health? We could if the science of economics would step up and count more than coins; your grandchildren’s lives depend on it. Claire is finishing up here June deadlines and I’m helping with the pictures while we luxuriate in Turtle’s air conditioning courtesy the Earth Bank. We are making a withdrawal of Wyoming coal and spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to your grandchildren’s future. “Oh well,” said Eyore, “Nothing to be done.” The Winnebago folks are friendly, and hopefully fixing our relatively small issues. We’re enjoying free wi fi, and electricity, at Lichtsinn Motors, where we bought Turtle. I’m just hoping for some rain to lower the humidity. The dawn sky was that soft rose color I associate with humid summer mornings. It hasn’t gotten to the wring-it-out of my shirt level yet, but I can feel where it is heading. July 4 Happy birthday! Read from Thomas Jefferson today in celebration. It’s just another workday for us. This is new, working on the road. We used to gather pictures and notes for stories while we traveled and finish them when we settled down in Tucson or the Northwest. This year we won’t settle down, we’ll travel 10 out of 12 months, three or four months of it in South America, where we won’t be able to write and submit stories, just gather pictures and notes again. But, as with the Silk Road adventure, Claire will find several stories to tell later, and I’ll provide the pictures. Everybody around here is out crowding the lakes, drinking beer and trying to keep cool until the fireworks tonight at Spirit Lake. Hillary and Bill Clinton are appearing less than 20 miles from here, but it’s way too soon for Presidential politics. The way things are going, in 50 years the Presidential election season will be three and a half years long! Give us a break folks. I think I like the parliamentary system, where the party in power can call an election at anytime; in something like five weeks the election is held, and the whole thing is mercifully over. It’s not as if having a long time to decide on a President contributes to the quality of the choice. We have 16 months to go!

The Goodlands National Park, or is that Badlands?

My feet over the abyss, and a stupid bunny who let me get way too close: coyote snack.

Claire being brave, and a prairie blossom

Badlands National Park got its name from the early French trappers and American settlers because of the eroded spires and hoodoos of rock that made travel difficult. I couldn’t find out what the Lakota (Sioux) called the beautiful (to me) land, but they made a good life there hunting bison until the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. The mixed-grass prairie on the highlands, and on the White River lowlands, is the largest such prairie in the National Park System; it is home to the newly introduced black footed ferret, that feeds on the Park’s many black tailed prairie dogs. Long gone, probably never to return, are the wolf and grizzly.

Whitetail deer out for a morning munch in a meadow

The fantastic eroded soft rock is a wonderful playground for the sure-footed, providing infinite routes in over and around the fantastic shapes. The colorful bands tell a story of millions of years of inland seas filled by river sediments; watering holes collected the bones of vertebrates long extinct, just now being dug up and classified. We were able to visit one such dig and watch the workers carefully brush soil away from bones undisturbed for 75 million years. Humans are a very brief part of the history of the Earth: it is unsettling that we are so thoughtless in our treatment of such a precious gift. Some are learning.

Vertebrate dig

If you ever get a chance, detour off of I-90, and spend a half-day at least taking in this less-visited park. You won’t be sorry.

. Prairie sunset

June 18-28: Black Hills of South Dakota Sioux Falls.

Riding the Mickelson Trail Harney Peak, highest point between the Rocky Mountains and the Pyrenees (Spain and France border) at 7240 feet.

Most people know the Black Hills as the home of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial giant sculptures. There is much more to the Black Hills than these two hugely popular tourist attractions. We parked Turtle for a week beside Mike Reynolds and Pam Traina’s (FHTV #190) house in Hill City, in the heart of the Black Hills. We should have known that visiting with Pam and Mike (Mike in Tucson, Mick in Hill City) would not consist of porch sitting and lazy walks. We bicycled a total of 169 miles with something over 12,000 feet of vertical climbing. After having not ridden for nearly two weeks, that was the biggest jump of weekly mileage, outside of touring, that we can remember. To top it off, the weather was at near record levels of heat and the humidity, though not high by Midwest standards, was brutal by Arizona/Utah standards. We survived though, and think we probably gained weight eating Pam’s great pasta meals. We also hiked to the top of Harney Peak, with a thousand or so other hikers; apparently it is the most popular hike in the Black Hills, with good reason.

Bison in Custer State Park

We also visited with Nick and Carolyn Clifford, new winter residents (owners) in Far Horizons Tucson Village. We also met Mary, raconteur and next door neighbor, and friends Fritz and Loretta, who gave us a ride, with bikes, about 35 miles up the Mickelson (rail) Trail for a one-way ride back to Hill City.

Approaching bison in Custer State Park; trying to decide how to hide behind those cars. We rode many miles in Custer State Park, gem of the Black Hills, home to herds of bison, pronghorns, flowers, blue skies and puffy clouds. Those puffy clouds do tend to turn to thunderstorms, and one day pelted Turtle with golf-ball-sized hail; we were convinced during the cacophony of hail and thunder, that we were about to lose our second motorhome to hail. We were lucky: the hail was not baseball sized, and our roof is now fiberglass and stood the test well; we could find no dents. The only casualty was a huge hematoma on Claire’s hand as she tried to stuff a blanket through the skylight to protect it, while I stood by and reminded her that hail was probably the main reason we have insurance. I’ll never say that again, and she won’t stick her hand out in large hail again.

Crazy Horse's eye

Crazy Horse from back side Crazy Horse from his index finger

We left Mike and Pam after a week and went back to work, getting an up close tour of the Crazy Horse Memorial by the public relations staff (thanks Ace Crawford) for a proposed story on Native American Tourism. We spent one night in Rapid (short locally for Rapid City) and a short visit with Tass and Bruce, fellow cycle touring adventurers we met in Turkey on our Silk Road tour. They had some great ideas for South America from their trip there several years ago. Since we were passing through Sioux Falls, we decided to pop in on Miller and Marilyn Glanzer (FHTV 421). They showed us the falls and the interesting downtown sculptures and treated us to sodas at a great soda fountain. Thanks! That rich ice cream soda was a wonderful lunch and will help us put back on the weight we lost in the Black Hills! (Yes, Pam and Mike, we both lost weight, despite Pam’s pasta).

The best soda in years in downtown Sioux Falls.

We’ll be in Iowa soon, visiting Winnebago for a few minor things on Turtle. For the RVers among you, we are getting 18-19mpg, even in the mountains. Good boy Turtle! Next up: The Greatlands National Park of South Dakota Bob and Claire

Tornado within a mile or two

Last night in Spearfish, S.D., we noticed the sunny day turn black, then green, which Claire said meant tornado. Hah. It did look funny though. So we turned on our little yellow weather radio (never travel the great plains without one!) and heard a line of violent thunderstorms were due to arrive in Spearfish at 7:45. Right. 7:45. Sure. At 7:43 a light rain began. I laughed. Some storm. At 7:44 the breeze picked up a bit. So what.

At 7:45 (I swear) exactly, we were hit by a downpour and 60mph winds, lightning and thunder. Turtle shook violently. I will never doubt our little yellow National Weather Service radio again. We were somewhat protected by Wal*Mart, but when some hail began to pepper us (we have a history with hail) we drove close to the wall of the building and were well protected through the worst of it.

Then we heard about a tornado bearing down on Spearfish. We are still debating whether we should have gone into Wal*Mart. I could see that huge roof sucked off and dropped back down on us in pieces; Claire could see Turtle sucked up the tossed onto the Yellow Brick Road.

Wal*Mart is on the far eastern edge of Spearfish. the tornado touched down three miles east of Spearfish, perhaps a mile or two from us. Yikes. Glad we didn't know until morning.

The wind backed and stayed force six until about 2:00a.m. when we again moved to the lee of Wal*Mart so we could get some sleep. I think I like 107 degrees in Tucson better.

We met a nice couple from N.C. heading for Alaska in their View (like Turtle) and spent a couple of hours talking about little glitches, and how much we like our Skinny Winnies. During the storm, we looked like two white beetles scurrying around in the horizontal rain, looking for shelter.

Not the the two pictures, taken a couple of minutes apart, are not the same. Picture number one, a heavy Wal*Mart cart is being blown uphill, out of its corral; picture number two it is long gone; we never saw it again after it passed our stern at about 20 mph.

Devils Tower (not Devil's Tower)

I think I'm being watched.

I don’t know how many times we have passed to the N.S.E. or West of this place and never stopped. We finally decided this was the time. Often things you have always wanted to see are underwhelming when first finally experienced. This was my reaction to the columnar basalt plug that somehow became named Devils Tower (it was supposed to be Devil’s Tower, but a clerical error in the bill forever gave our first National Monument an incorrect spelling). After so much red rock in the southwest, the greenish gray of the tower was a bit of a disappointment. Set down in any other country in the world it would be the most visited place. shame on me! However, the surroundings, pines, grass and wildflowers were a welcome change, and we enjoyed two days in the campground. There was a prairie dog colony between the campground and the tower, and they were somewhat habituated to humans; nobody shoots them here, and it’is possible to get a good look. When they are hunted, as they are on most all private property in Wyoming, they won’t let humans within a couple of hundred yards of them. Our campsite was in the middle of a grove of cottonwoods, and the rustle of the leaves sounds like a gentle rain falling, even with the sun shining. Our sunroof gave us views of the small, heart shaped, leaves against a starry sky each night. Last night thunderstorms to the east added depth and interest to the stars and broken clouds. We got a sprinkle. Or was that just the cottonwoods?

Vedauwoo Wahoo!

June 10, Vedauwoo, Wyoming. We decided to check out a SE Wyoming bouldering spot; the photos we saw at the Wyoming Welcome Center reminded us of a place in Australia called Devil’s Marbles. It is on BLM land, so the camping was cheap, and half price for me, so we decided to make a day of it and stay the night. The hike around Turtle Rock, from the campground, was four or five miles, just right, and we had lots of daylight. We got distracted by a little bouldering of our own: Claire surprised me by asking to try a little climbing and she did very well. If I remember the old system, we might have done some 5.2, hard core! It was really fun, but the top was truly vertical and we had no gear, so we passed and made our way back down to the trail and finished the hike.

The campground was basic, picnic tables, raised fire grates and no showers, but $10 and every site with a half-acre of space and a spectacular view of the granite piles of rocks. The wildflowers were thick and the scent of pine strong, and at 8,000 plus feet, breathing deep. The sleep was long and deep and the dawn was bright. Ahhhhhh.

Steaming Past Steamboat Springs

June 7. Steamboat Springs, Co.

When we first arrived we had elevensies in Turtle and watched a teen girl’s softball tournament; that was great, and the best part of Steamboat as far as we could see, since the town seems to be mostly about boutique shopping and real estate, neither of which interest us. The weather was deteriorating by the minute and we were told not to attempt Rabbit Ears pass after 3pm. We looked all over town for unsecured wi fi and failed, went to the overcrowded library (bad weather drives active people into the library) and finally decided on such a day there was nothing for us in Steamboat. We decided we’d try the pass and give Steamboat a chance another day. We had wet snow and slush at the top, but nothing to worry Turtle. Not what I had in mind for my birthday, but things improved on the other side of the pass. We found a fine quiet boondock in Walden, along our original Zippy (tandem bicycle) route around the U.S. in 1975, and shared memories of that very special time in our lives. We has a special dinner and slept well. June?

June 8, we met with disappointment in the fading village of Cowdrey. The small coffee shop/music shop/ lunch place we were hoping to enjoy again, had made it until three years ago and failed. On another cold June day in 1995, after an even colder pass from Wyoming, we’d found steaming mugs of herbal tea, a radiant woodstove, some cakes, wonderful classic jazz and the conversation of a lovely 17 year old girl, about to be married and head off to college. It was nothing special really, but somehow, at the right moment in the early stages of our first big adventure together, memorable, very memorable. Now we wish we could know where the parents went, did the girl’s marriage go well, was college a success for them, did they indeed move to West Virginia? We’ll never know, like so many lives that have somehow enriched us, we’ll never know the rest of the story; but maybe that’s not so bad, we can write our own: the girl and her new husband moved to West Virginia for cheap land and cheap education and found both. But soon, he found the hills oppressive compared to the openness of the West. She began a garden and learned to quilt, set down roots. They began to fight… No I don’t like that beginning. Needs work.

Dinosaur National Monument Surprise

Panorama in Dinosar NM (you should see it large)

We parked at an overlook near the top of Douglas pass, and after a run-in with a curious cow butting Turtle on the grill, had a peaceful, cool night in aspen country. The next day we spent the morning of June 4, hiking and photographing Freemont rock art of Canyon Pintado for a future story. Then we drove to Dinosaur National Monument Canyon Area visitor center and decided to explore the Harpers Corner road and hike the trail to the Green/Yampa River overlook, a truly spectacular vista of colorful rocks and deep gorges. It was nice to change the sagebrush juniper scents for the pitchy scent of pinon pine and crisp air of 7,000 feet. There were new wildflowers, or perhaps stunted versions of familiar ones; the globe mallow that grows to four feet in Tucson and was maybe four inches here. I would consider this canyon section of Dinosaur NP to be a real hidden gem of the park system. Most people go to the Vernal, Utah entrance where the dino bones are kept, and though nice, it is not as spectacular or remote in feeling as the Canyon District. Having BLM nearby for bush camping is a plus.

At the overlook we conversed with a pleasant couple from Virginia out for a fast-paced three-month trip in their new class-c. When the subject turned to age, the man and I (we expect an email with their id’s any day) turned out to have the same birth date of 6.7.44, or the day after D-day, the beginning of the end of WWII. Neither of us had ever met anyone born on that day, so we posed for our wives. After that long busy day, we found a county road onto BLM land, drove a couple of miles and had yet another million dollar view for a bush camp (boondocks are in parking lots or on main road, bush camps are hidden on public lands). We had some spectacular clouds that had us wondering about getting stuck, but got only a few sprinkles. The cows left Turtle alone. BLM bush camp among the sagebrush and cows. Clouds provided only a few sprinkles, thankfully.

June 5. Craig. Colorado.

The library has no wi fi, but we found a hot spot at a local hotel, and parked across the street. We tried to find the manager of the Moffat County Fairgrounds, but failed; we stayed anyway but felt we should leave early. Avoiding those RV parks takes a lot of work sometimes. June 6. Craig. High winds and the local Hot Shots are busy chasing down small fires from lightning and winds are gusting to 50mph. Following this is a cold front our weather radio will take night temps down to the mid 20’s; from summer hot to winter cold in two days. It’s springtime in the Rockies! We were going to ride Rabbit Ears Pass east of Steamboat Springs, but snow and cold are forecast for several days. Bummer. We will work here a couple of days and see what comes next.

Colorado National Monument & McInnis Canyons Arches

Claire examining an arch; good thing she's a lightweight!

June 1. Colorado National Monument. One of our lesser known national monuments, it overlooks Grand Junction and Fruita, Colorado and the Grand Valley, former name of the Colorado River here. The Colorado River flows lazily though the valley, irrigation pump sucking at it as thousands will do, and a small river of it gets ditched to Phoenix and Tucson, and much more to California, until it reaches the Mexican border, and disappears. We are too early for the peaches, and of course the wine grapes are tiny and green; some other year. Wonderful sunset last night over Wedding Canyon, looking very much like Southeast Utah. We decided on the rim road bike ride today. Nice, except for the road construction, canyon edge riding and a detour to a crossroads store that was probably very nice one time, but now only sells scented candles, chips and beer. Must be all the ageing hippies moving in to build funky houses and horse corrals, all with a view: been there.

Tomorrow we will try another mountain bike ride, and hope it’s not another sand epic as the one in Arches. The second largest collection of arches in the US, outside of Arches National Park, is supposed to be at the end of about a 22-mile mountain bike ride from the rim road. It’s outside the national monument in a newly (to us) designated McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, that runs all the way into Utah. It is divided into zones of usage: mountain bike and ORV, horse and hiking, and river running, and areas of trail-less wilderness. I wonder if it is an experiment in separating the, sometimes competing, groups of public-lands users from each other? June 2. McInnis Canyons arches mountain bike ride.

No epic mountain bike this time, just a couple of challenging climbs, and lots of wildflowers to cheer us on, the scent of sage and the expansive Colorado Plateau vistas that we love so much. The arches were fun, if nothing compared to the ones in Arches NP, but the hike from the end of the track was pleasant, and one sliver-rock arch was a hoot; we felt like kids, inching up on the thin part, teasing about causing it to collapse. I told Claire to tell all my friends my demise was, if premature, spectacular. What a treat to return to Turtle for a warm shower and icy drinks from the refrigerator. We are spoiled.

Grand Junction, Co.

May 31. Grand Junction.

The town sort of grows on you. There are negatives: The library wi fi is slow as molasses and there is some kind of red sign local ordinance posted in both Wal*Marts; we pretty much ignore them. The pulses are that the slow wi fi is free and unlimited for those with laptops, and if you get your pictures uploaded before noon, it’s not too bad. The no overnight parking ordinance is usually a sign to us that we are not wanted and we go elsewhere, but there is no where else to go, except back to Moab, and the ordinances are mildly written and apparently not enforced. We went to Safeway, otherwise spend money only at Wal*Mart. We certainly wouldn’t go to an RV park here, since they are always behind the no parking at Wal*Mart ordinances. We would use RV parks once in awhile, if they were decent and charged a reasonable rate. They charge $25 for a dangerous electric pedestal, a filthy, poor draining sewer hookup, water hookups far from the pad, poorly maintained toilets/showers, neighbors tight on both sides and surly help. What do they expect? We have our own electricity from batteries, and can use our generator, we can go for a week without a dump and almost that long on water. Duh. And they want to force us to pay for what we don’t need. No way. When they provide a service we need, just parking, for a reasonable rate, say $5, then maybe. That’s about how much profit we drop on Wal*Mart each night we park in their lot. I’m surprised more big box stores don’t welcome Rvers. There are several million of us traveling the US at any given time. The space sits empty, Rvers actually provide some security, and we buy our essentials from them: milk, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream etc.

The downtown of Grand Junction is in fine revival, sculptures everywhere, traffic calming and lots of places to eat and walk. We took a break from working all day (third day) in the library and walked around downtown taking pictures of sculptures for a story on NW Colorado for an RV magazine.

On the way to our fourth overnight here, we saw a man crossing the street in a powered wheelchair and he had a fluff duck in his pack. We like people who like fluff animals. Good folks. It takes guts to show your fluff-head buddies in public.

Arches Epic and New Friends

Arches National Park, May 27, 2007

We were at the park visitors center at 6:30am to make sure we got one of the few remaining campground sites. There were seven available, and we were number three. We drove to the end and picked the site we wanted, it was still occupied by three people in two tents. Their car looked nearly loaded, so we parked to wait for them to leave, not wanting to hurry them. After a few minutes we walked to the site to put our daily reservation on the post, so someone else wouldn’t get the really spectacular view site. We talked to the people there, who turned out to be from the south of France. They had arrived at 2am and slept in their rental car (filled with camping gear and food) They were very disappointed to learn of the system, and that they would loose their site. We offered to share our site with them, and enjoyed talking to them both days they were with us. They tried to share the cost of the site, but we refused; we have been on the receiving end of the kindness of strangers (sometimes very poor strangers who didn’t speak our language and we had been told wanted to kill us) that we could not take money from them. They have nearly a month in the States, and are going to see more of the West than most Americans will ever see. Their English is fantastic, and we had some interesting political and social discussions. They like Americans despite the anti French press they have been hearing the past few years. One thing we all agreed on was that people who travel are much less likely to harbor hate for other peoples and cultures; once you have looked in a stranger’s eyes, and broken bread with him/her, it’s hard to hate him or his kind.

Nancy, Pasqual and Daniele (forgive our spelling)

We had a long and enjoyable visit with the campground hosts, Gary and Francoise who are looking to move out of Phoenix; she has asthma and can’t take the air anymore. I can relate, and attest to Tucson’s clean air. They had heard about Far Horizons, and we gave them our pitch. I think they will visit in the fall and maybe move there. They would be a great addition to the park; they are full of energy and social.

Our first day in Arches we took a short hike, enjoying at least one, new to us, arch and the beautiful wildflowers and cactus arrayed against the coral pink sand. Sunday we took, what we thought would be a moderately strenuous mountain bike ride of about 30 miles. The first seven miles were easy, showing us lots of different wildflowers and only a few corrugations. Then the ---- hit the fan. First it got steep, then the steep turned to sand. We thought we might have a couple of miles of pushing our bikes, but it turned out to be an epic of seven plus miles of deep sand and hills.

A bicycle is an awful burden to push through sand, and we couldn't even pedal the downhills the sand was so deep. Good thing the flowers were blooming.

We ran out of water and food near the end and felt the big bonk: To bonk is to run out of glycogen in one’s muscles from exertion and not have food to replace it. It is very unpleasant, particularly when you do not have any choice except push on. Each step is a struggle to force your muscle to do work it is really incapable of doing, and every muscle in your body makes you pay in pain for making it move when it only wants rest and food. We finally made it out of the sand and to a motorhome parked in an unusual place. The very pleasant young man from California, was the “mo ho” (California speak for motorhome) manager for a company that supports film and still photo shoots. The photographer, assistants and model were off doing their shoot. He gave us water and that made a big difference; we only had to push our muscles without food for another nine miles. The photo shoot was for French Vogue magazine and the model was wearing Pocahontas, and other Native American inspired dresses. Claire thought they came to the red rocks of Arches, and not the more famous Monument Valley because of the fake Indian theme. I can imagine the Navajo would not be angry, but only too glad to take their money, and laugh at their absurd vision of Native Americans.

The light was lovely at sunset and we clambered over the slickrock taking pictures and enjoying the truly spectacular location. Arches never disappoints, though this time we could have done without the epic part of our mountain ride!

Claire against the sky long after sunset