Author: wwducat

Home now.

Started the day off yesterday at the Grand Canyon.

Took some photos but I’m not very pleased with the results. Some days you have it… and some days you don’t.

It was a long drive home. We ran into a couple of storms that were incredible. In addition it looks as though I’m going to have to have the front of the car repainted. 

That’s another blog post entirely, suffice it to say that water based paints on automobiles SUCK! (Thank you Kalifornia VOC regulations, and also many thanks to the unregulated gravel carriers running on California roads.)

I can say this. The car loves road trips and ran really well with the exception of 1 tank of marginal gasoline. It even ran well on 90 octane which i was dubious about.

Now it’s time to get busy cleaning up the aftermath of the travel and get on with the projects at hand.

I think I like the Grand Canyon in Fall rather than in the Summer. There are a couple of reasons. 

First, the temp is a lot more comfortable. It was blazingly hot walking along the canyon rim.

Second there isn’t a haze, or at least not as much of a haze. I’m thinking that the next trip out there will be in the Fall.

This morning it’s cool here at home. The sky is grey and there’s the possibility of rain. The other thing is that it’s quiet and I’m enjoying the sounds of the birds and other animals around the place.

I do need to get busy with the weed whacking and several other gardening chores.

I also need to hang my dreamcatcher.

It’s the first one I’ve ever had, given some of the nightmares I’ve had recently… I’m willing to give it a shot.

 

So this morning we got up bright and early and High Tailed it out of Santa Fe. 

We stopped in Albuquerque at the ballon museum

This was a cool place. I had no idea about most of the history of Ballooning. The museum has many of the capsules that have completed or attempted round the world fights.

There’s a lot to it and even the construction of the Balloons is a lot more involved than I ever would have imagined.

Later in keeping with the spirit of being offbeat we stopped at a cultural center in Gallup, NM.

This cultural center has a museum of Native American artifacts on the second floor the ground floor has a working train station and a great little cafe. Where we had lunch.

There is a bronze statue honoring the Navajo Code Talkers from World War II. 

In addition, there are examples of sand paintings and beautiful examples of Kachina dolls with great explanations about the meanings / symbology of the various Kachinas.

We finished the day at Meteor Crater in Winslow Arizona.

Again not really on the usual tourist stop but I’d been there many years ago and it was interesting. All my original photos were lost in the fire. So It was nice to get back and take more photos. The funny thing is that years ago I’d been there in the rain, and just after we began wandering around the exhibits it began pouring. 

Seems my luck is still great! If I didn’t have bad luck I wouldn’t have any at all.

Here are a couple of photos from the museum and the crater.

Tomorrow, It’s the Grand Canyon and then home.

I’m looking forward to the Canyon although I wanted to see the North rim, that was canceled due to fire and the 4th of July crowds. 

I could have gotten to Zion and the North Rim but it was a long detour, and I didn’t have the time.

Hopefully there will be some good photos to share tomorrow.