Rockin' out

Is this horizontal or vertical?

Aerial view of something

I have always loved rocks, but I can't remember schist! Igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary I get, but then I hit a cliff at Cambrian, Permian, Ordowhatever. I have given myself permission to like rocks without knowing or understanding geology. I guess this could be called appreciating.

There's probably an app for identifying the rocks you look at, or the scenes that pass below you on a plane. The aerial view on the left was somewhere between Dallas and San Jose. Narrows it down, doesn't it?
 

Nature's gift-wrap

When I go to a beach known for its pebbles I just plain enjoy it -- the sights and the sounds of the waves shusshing among the pebbles. Every rounded stone is a work of art, sculpted and painted by God and all the angels. I want to bring them home with me -- I sometimes do smuggle a few.

ladybug on a rock on a hand at the beach

arrangement by tides

Shiny objects

What's the scale?

There's a lady in my neighborhood whose whole front yard is towers of graduated-sized rocks, balnced with no mortar. She's also the one who planted trees and inscribed paths on the flood-plain and rearranges the rocks in the creek so it will babble more! I haven't gotten this bad yet.


 

Here's how I classify my photos of rocks:
Rocks that stick up

lava tree Hawaii

Walnut Canyon AZ

Pescadero penis rock - now gone

 Rocks you can look through

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Window Rock AZ

 

        natural bridges Santa Cruz

 

 

                                            Rocks that stick out

 

Santa Cruz

Rocks that look back at you!

 

Rocks that look like maps

Rocks that look like cakes

   
 

Taking pictures of the mesas, buttes, and canyons on my trip was a case of "Look! There's another neat rock!"  And another, and another! The colors, the way the sunlight hit and reflected and shadowed; the wish again, like my pebbles on the beach, to take them all home with me. Some places did not allow photographs of people or cultural remains, but scenery was OK. It's not easy to shoot from the back seat of a van or from a jouncing 4WD!

Walnut Canyon

Canyon de Chelly overlook

I think White House is in the niche

Lichens at Canyon de Chelly

Driving along Chinle Wash into C. de Chelly

cat rock

natural bridge

Near the Zuni Reservation, NM

Why do they always change things?

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I just get used to doing something on the computer and then they go and "improve" it to the point where I feel I'm starting all over. This may be an advantage to some people, I'm sure, but not me. Isn't there an app or something called same-old-same-old, where you don't have to re-familiarize yourself with the formatting, the design, the functions, the settings every few months (or even weeks, it seems). Is it just me?Am I really an old dog? Facebook -- this means you! Blogger, you too!

When is a vacation not a vacation?

Ordinarily when I am on vacation I watch as little news as possible. Part of getting away from it all is getting away from politics. But this vacation was different because government shutdown happened on the second day. Everyone on the trip kept hoping for an eleventh hour Congressional sanity attack, and then we all hoped there would be work-arounds: Maybe OUR national parks would be exempted. Rumors flew: somebody would find a back door in. The organizers at Road Scholar held meetings on Plans B, C, D.

The first day, the first canyon (Walnut Canyon outside Flagstaff) was still open when we got there.

The Hopi Mesas were, of course, not part of the park system, so our day there was as scheduled.

 The next day Canyon de Chelly was visible from the state highway overlooks, but the gates were down; the visitors centers were shut. Luckily, the Navajos who live and farm in the canyon were allowed in, and the four-wheel-drive rides they guide were in operation, so we did get to see this magnificent place.





















But on days four and five we were unable to visit either the Hubble Trading Post or Chaco Canyon -- the latter being the main reason I came on this trip. We made do with Navajo Museum and Code Talker Memorial at Window Rock, and visited the Zuni Reservation, and shopped in Gallup NM.

It was a good trip, but disappointing. I know the Park Service employees and the local people who make their living from tourists were much more adversely affected than I was. I seriously need to go back to see Chaco Canyon, but when?