Calf Creek, Escalante Canyons

East of Bryce Canyon and west of Capitol Reef national parks lies a large rugged region known as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A mosaic of BLM and state lands covering more than 1,500 square miles, it was the last area in the continental U.S. to be mapped. We had just one day to see some tiny portion of it. As always, a visitors center gave us great advice: we decided to hike Calf Creek in the Escalante Canyons area. It's a "moderately strenuous" in-and-back hike totaling six miles, with a 120-foot waterfall at the turnaround.

Calf Creek trail

As in much of southern Utah, the rocks and topography are spectacular.

Rock Wall, Calf Creek canyon

Calf Creek prominences

After three miles uphill in warm weather, through a lot of deep sand, the waterfall and pool were a very welcome oasis.

Lower Calf Creek Falls

You ought to give Iowa a try

Before our latest cross-country trip we had never spent time in Iowa. We didn't know what we'd see, except the Andy Goldsworthy sculptures near Grinnell and in Des Moines. I assumed in my ignorance that Iowa would be flat. It's not. And the rolling hills were lush with corn in mid-September, making for lovely landscapes.

Iowa cornfield

Iowa cornfield 2

We also visited the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, which preserves tallgrass prairie, oak savanna and sedge meadows. It too was very beautiful, and we enjoyed their educational center as well (did you know that some prairie grasses have roots 12 feet deep?). Wild sawtooth sunflowers combined with grasses and other wild plants to form a lovely mosaic. They use fire, seeding and, in one 700 acre enclosure, bison to reconstruct and preserve the prairie ecosystem. Very cool.

Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge

Bryce Canyon National Park

Our national parks are treasures. Each has unique and awe-inspiring features. So I hesitate to call any particular park "most photogenic", but Bryce Canyon certainly would make the short list. We were fortunate to spend two nights in the park (Susan reserved one of the last rooms months before we traveled) which enabled us to see more of its moods. Lovely weather prevailed before dawn and beyond.

Predawn, Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon sunrise

The park is known for its hoodoos, the vaguely person-shaped formations that result from weathering and erosion of rocks rich in calcium carbonate. The park experiences 200 days a year when nighttime temperatures are below freezing and daytime temperatures are above. All those freeze-thaw cycles contribute to the erosion.

Bryce Canyon hoodoos

Hoodoos

Our only "bad" weather was a rainstorm that conveniently occurred during our dinner in the lodge restaurant. The next morning brought a view of a sparkling stream in the bottom of the canyon and stronger scents of pine at the top.

Stream in Bryce Canyon

The canyon rim is above 8,000 feet, giving spectacular views of the canyon and the rugged Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument beyond.

View from Bryce Canyon rim

Three Arches

If rocks are the bones of Mother Earth, then we've seen a glimpse of her ribs. Arches National Park in Utah has more than two thousand arches, and we saw only a few during our single day there. The massive sandstones of the region were uplifted and fractured into vertical "fins" like the one Susan is about to hike up (look closely to see two other hikers near the top; hikes in this area aren't recommended for those "uncomfortable with heights". It was a little bit scary).

Sandstone Fins, Arches National Park

After the fins were exposed, erosion carved them into many shapes, including arches. The largest we saw was Landscape Arch, which suffered a large rockfall in 1991. These monumental forms are only temporary.

Landscape Arch, Arches National Park

Other arches aren't as large or graceful, but are still intriguing.

Pine Tree Arch, Arches National Park

And Arches Park is not the only place with them. We hiked to this one in Capitol Reef National Park, also in Utah. It's a strong sandstone above a more-easily eroded stratum, now gone.

Hickman Bridge, Capitol Reef National Park

Two Valleys

Continuing our tour of the incredible Colorado Plateau (which encompasses nine National Parks and 18 National Monuments), we visited iconic Monument Valley and the magnificently desolate Death Valley. Monument Valley is known for enormous buttes that tower over the landscape.

West Mitten Butte, Monument Valley

Butte, Monument Valley

According to the Park Service Death Valley is the hottest, driest, and lowest of the national parks. Located in the Mojave Desert, it also contains extraordinarily complex geology and land forms. We didn't know what to expect, but we were amazed and thrilled by all we saw.

Badlands from Zabriskie Point, Death Valley

Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley

Badlands and Red Cathedral Rocks, Death Valley

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Susan and I took our third cross-country drive recently. There's no end to the natural beauty in the U.S. We were delighted by landscapes as varied as the lush rolling cornfields of Iowa and the stark desolation of Death Valley. Last year we visited White Sands National Monument and loved it, so we included more dunes this year. The most magnificent are those in Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado, the tallest in North America at up to 750 feet. We were fortunate to be there for sunrise one morning. It was a very exciting time.

Sunrise, Great Sand Dunes and Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Even in full sun, the dunes are beautifully sinuous. Hiking on them isn't easy but gives you an appreciation of their size (you can see hikers in the lower right corner).

Great Sand Dunes National Monument

Great Sand Dunes 2

The effects of sand movement are also visible at small scale. This is a small "avalanche" of sand flowing down the lee side of a dune from the crest.

Sand Flow on Dune Crest

Only small amounts of vegetation exist in the harsh environment of the dunes.

Dune Plants

Off topic: working with wood

I've recently become interested in woodworking. It all started in 1986 when Susan and I thought we'd like to build a cherry fold-top bar cabinet from a kit. A friend had made a couple kits from an outfit called The Bartley Collection, and they looked good, so we mailed off $300 and received a very heavy package. We opened it, looked at all the lovely cherry pieces and the directions, and put it back in the box.

Thirty-two years later, in 2018, the box had moved with us to our current home where it spent 21 years in the garage. Susan felt it was time to get it done. I thought it was time to donate it. But I lost that argument so I unboxed it all again, read and reread the quaint typewritten directions, took several deep breaths and got started. Very slowly. I had no experience assembling furniture other than IKEA, and this wasn't cheap particle board: it was beautiful solid cherry.

Around that time we were thinking about the antique three-quarters bed in one of our guest rooms. A three-quarters bed is midway in size between a twin and a full, and very uncommon nowadays. Susan's mother had slept in the bed as a child, and so had Susan. The mattress and box spring were falling apart and I couldn't ask guests to sleep on it. So we reluctantly shopped the bed around to our local antique stores. They all said the same thing: "Has it been converted? No? No thanks." "Converted" means widened to fit a full size mattress. Buying a three-quarters mattress isn't easy or cheap, so I understood. I wondered if I could do the conversion myself.

Google led me to kits for exactly that purpose. They are simple metal plates that screw into the headboard and footboard so the side rails can be moved out. Easy! But a closer look at our bed burst that bubble. The bed is a solid wooden box with nice, permanently joined corners. No way was I going to take that apart, especially given its vintage. Now what? It occurred to me that foam mattresses don't need box springs. We sleep very comfortably on a foam mattress on our platform bed. Maybe I could build a platform to sit on top of the bed box and just hang over the sides a couple inches, then buy a foam mattress and be done.

That's what I did. I used a good grade of one-by-fours to make 13 slats, then made side rails of finish grade poplar. I screwed and glued the slats to the rails and put a beeswax finish on the rails. Platform complete. I didn't want to just let it float on the bed box...things could shift if someone sat on the edge or if occupants got bouncy...but I didn't want to make a lot of screw holes in the original wood either. I settled on using a single two-by-four rail running down the center of the bed box and supported by joist hangers on the inside of the headboard and footboard. The platform is screwed to the rail, and the only holes in the original wood are for the joist hanger screws.

That was a fun project and I learned a lot. For one thing, I knew I couldn't cut thirteen slats all exactly the same length by hand. I bought a relatively inexpensive compound miter saw and learned how to rig a fence extension with a stop for cutting all the slats the same. And I learned how nice it is to have a ping pong table as a large flat assembly surface.

Meanwhile the cherry cabinet needed final assembly with dowels and glue. The dowels didn't fit and had to be sanded to a smaller diameter. The assembly involved 10 dowels and six panels, all of which had to be glued, fitted and clamped before the glue set. I rehearsed that process more than once, using a ratchet strap from the garage as a clamp. I breathed a sigh of relief when that was done. But now finish needed to be applied. I decided to use a "satin" (i.e., not too shiny) polyurethane finish. Again I consulted the internet about applying polyurethane and found that opinions vary. It was winter and our garage was cold, but I don't like using solvents in the house so I gave it a try in the cold. Fortunately I started on the interior shelves. They came out a complete mess. 

I waited for warmer weather and also bought a space heater to warm up the garage. Finally all the poly coats were done, and the flaws are small enough to live with. Two projects, one simple and one not, were done. Yay!

Susan enters the picture again. She's been an artist forever. In college she loved wood carving. Some of her pieces grace our home. Three walnut logs left over from college graced our garage, too, until one day she decided to let them go. "We can burn them in the fireplace" says she. "Umm", says I, "could I try making something from them?" I had recently purchased an angle grinder and watched people on YouTube carving wood with them. Scared but intrigued I bought some mean-looking wood grinding disks and started making a lot of dust.

It's been fun. I carved a log into a small plant stand, then made three bowls. I've learned to use (and sharpen) Susan's wood gouges and a plane I forgot I had. I've tried different finishes. I've spent a LOT of time with sandpaper. Having read this far (thanks) you've earned a couple pictures.

Walnut plant stand

Three walnut bowls, plus onion

Bed conversion platform

Cherry cabinet, in process

Summer Solstice 2019

This year the summer solstice is at 11:54 am Eastern (15:54 UTC). Here are three pictures that make me think of summer.

Storm and Tree

Beach at Grand Turk

Lily

Nevis

I'd never heard of Nevis, one of the two islands making up the Caribbean nation Saint Kitts and Nevis. Susan and I spent several nights there at the spectacularly beautiful and peaceful Golden Rock Inn. Located on the site of a nineteenth century sugar plantation, it has been transformed into a glorious botanical garden through the vision of the owners, well-known artists Brice and Helen Marden. The lodgings and food are also first-rate. We loved it.

Mango Tree and Vines, Nevis

Philodendron, Nevis

Kapok Tree, Nevis

Green Heron, Golden Rock Inn, Nevis