Spent the night in Cortez, NM, at the Sundance RV Park.  Woke to a beautiful, sunny Easter morning.  After breakfast and a short walk to a local coffee shop, we headed for the Anasazi Heritage Center, a ten-mile drive north of Cortez.  The Center is an excellent natural history museum with extensive collections of early Puebloan cultural artifacts that rivals any major natural history museum in the US.  We spent an hour enjoying the collection before taking a well-developed half-mile trail to the Escalante and Dominguez Pueblos, excavated sites that date from AD 1120.  One photo below from the museum shows a reconstruction of a "pitstructure," a type of habitation used by the Anasazi dating from AD 800.  After leaving the museum, we traveled to Moab where we will spend the night and watch some of the exciting women's basketball quaterfinals!

Pitstructure from 800 AD

Nike precursors

Ute Indians, descendents of Anasazi

Ute couple with baby

Rocky Mts. in background

Excavated site at Escalante Pueblo

We left Monument Valley after bidding goodbye to that very special place with fond regrets and the intentions to return once again in the future.  We then traveled east on HWY 64 across high desert (5,000 ft.) to Aztec, NM, and another site we had heard about: the Aztec Ruins National Monument.  About ten miles from Farmington, this World Heritage Site is another excavation of  an ancient indigenous site began in 1916 by Earl Morris, an archeologist with the American Museum, and completed about seven years later.  The site, misnamed as "Aztec," is actually the former home to the Puebloan people who lived in the area dating from about 1100 and then suddenly disappeared about the year 1290.  There are many theories about why they vanished (drought, war, disease, etc.) but nothing conclusive has been determined.  There is evidence of a culture with thousands of people living in a very complex society with an elaborate system of trade, crop cultivation, advanced achitecture and sophisticated spiritual and cosmological worship.  Some of the largest structures, called kivas, were circular, three-story centers for group assemblies.  They served as hubs for other rooms, in some instances over 500, which radiated out from the center.  Here are just some of the photos that attempt to give you a bit of the flavor of the place.

Column detail in main kiva

Roof timbers support enormous weight

Main kiva ceremonial chamber

Paula looking into kiva

A honeycomb of rooms

Many windows were precisely aligned with celestial events

Elaborate framing members

They must have been small people!

Some stones were a decorative green

Exterior of main kiva that is about 20 feet underground

Hundreds of excavated rooms

Main kiva chamber--walls were over 2-ft thick

Spent a relaxing day enjoying Monument Valley.  Took a couple of hikes: one in the morning into a box canyon that had sides about 200 to 300 feet high; and in the afternoon, we hiked to Arch Rock, an easy hour's hike behind the campsite.  Tomorrow we will head east to Aztec Ruins, about a four-hour drive, that is a memorial to the early Puebloan people who were misidentified by Mormons as Aztecs!  The area contains cliff dwellings and other signs of their culture that occupied the area in the 1100's.

Box canyon

Box canyon

Box canyon

Desert flower

Desert flower

Vegetation in cayon

Cactus

View from Arch Rock

Lichen

Gouldings Campground

Paula, Clifford under arch

Driving through Kayenta and into Monument Valley was a home-coming of sorts.  This is our fourth stay at Gouldings RV Park, and it feels like a return to an ashram for a spiritual retreat.  The surroundings are incredibly beautiful and never lose their freshness.  I am including a few photos that cannot adequately capture the beauty of the place.  We plan to spend at least two nights here and will try to take a self-guided tour tomorrow on a dirt road that circles through parts of the valley and brings the visitor closer to some of the monuments.

View from our campsite

One of the monuments

Another view from the RV Park

Our campsite

Drove from St. George to Kanab and stopped on the way at the Pipe Spring Memorial (several pictures are included).  This is a fascinating yet sad story of the Western Movement and the encroachment of the white man on the indigenous people.  There was a band of about 1,200 Kaibab Paiute Indians living in this lush valley near a good spring and gleaning native grasses, animals and vegetation as sources of food and material for clothing and shelter.  Then the Mormons arrived in the 1860's,  looking for a productive area to raise their cattle.  A large stone structure was built directly over the Indian spring, and the herds of Mormon cattle essentially destroyed the vast open grasslands that were so vital for the native tribe.  After only about thirty years, the original Paiute tribe was reduced to about 96.  We spent about an hour here listening to a diminutive ranger who spoke with a Tennessee accent, retelling the saga of the west. We then headed for the RV Corral. After a night in Kanab, we push on east to Monument Valley.

Typical Paiute Homestead

Workers lodge on ranch

Whitmore, the longhorn

Our Ranger

Typical Mormon table setting--they kneeled to pray first

Stove first used 1880

Cheese making room

Prairie left from cattle grazing

Winsor Castle--named after early Mormon 

Worker rooms with main "Winsor Castle" in background

Headed south on HWY 93 from Ely en route to St. George, UT.  The landscape consists mainly of rolling hills, juniper brush, and scrubby pines.  We met few cars, passing through quiet ranching towns like Pioche, Panaca, then on 319 to Uvada, Modena and eventually through the Dixie National Forest into St. George.  Finding a good cup of java was impossible.  This is Mormon country and coffee must be one of the elixirs of the devil.  We headed for Camping World to purchase a few RV essentials and then checked into Temple View RV Park with the local LDS temple visible in the distance in its alabaster splendor.

I've included a few photos of the interior of the Arcic Fox, our penthouse on wheels.  Tomorrow we head to Kanab and investigate whether the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is accessible.  After traveling for most of the last few days, we're hoping to spend a few days in one place.   Now we just have to decide which place that will be--maybe Kanab, maybe Monument Valley.  This is supposed to be relaxing, but so far we have been working way too hard.

After crossing Nevada via the "loneliest highway in America," we can attest to its bleakness; but, in fairness, it has a somewhat austere beauty which many have appreciated and noted.  We made a few stops along the way which is a characteristic of the way we travel: stretch, find the restroom, look for good coffee, etc.  I've included one picture of Austin, a town that was founded by a pony express rider who filed a silver claim in 1983 after discovering a rich vein nearby.  Thousands were soon to follow, and the town boasted a population of 50, 000 during its hayday.  It is also claimed that more than 50 million in silver was mined during its production years. Today around 4,000 live in the larger metro area, and they pride themselves in being "very independent," according to the local Austin flyer.

As a sidebar, I should give a brief review of the Ford 250 Super Duty Lariat Diesel 6.7 and the Arctic Fox 22 GQ.  Well, as a general caveat:  This is not an economy vehicle.  Pulling the 7,500 pound trailer, we have been averaging 12 mpg.  However, we have learned to rationalize and are beginning to forgive its thirst.  As for performance, it more than makes up for its excessive drinking habit.  The Ford is a pleasure to drive: very powerful, very comfortable, very smooth. We are very happy with our choice of truck.   As for the Arctic Fox, after enjoying the coziness of the Sprinter Van, we are luxuriating in the roominess of the Fox.  I will send interior pics in a later post.

Traversed the Sierras on Sunday, climbing up HWY 50 through Placerville then around the east rim of always beautiful Lake Tahoe and over the Spooner Summit to Carson City.  We stayed at the Comstock RV Park near Bodine's Casino.  The weather was balmy in the afternoon (around mid-60's) then turned chilly (30) and breezy in the evening.  We gave the obligatory offering to the electronic "one-armed bandits" then tucked in early in our cozy Fox.  Looking forward to the drive along HWY 50 on Monday--the "lonliest road in America," which parallels roughly the Pony Express route.