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

White Sands

Susan and I traveled west by car again this year, and once again were thrilled by the beauty of our country. One of our favorite spots was White Sands National Monument, in southern New Mexico about 50 miles north of El Paso. It's an area of 275 square miles of gypsum sand, including extensive dune fields, that defy description. The play of light over the dazzling white sands is serene and almost otherworldly. Even amidst the scenic wonders of New Mexico it is a standout.

Dunes and San Andres Mountains, White Sands National Monument, NM

Sand Strata and Yucca, White Sands National Monument, NM

Dunes, White Sands National Monument, NM

Patagonia Landscapes

The southern reaches of South American are remote and dramatic. Chile and Argentina contain enormous regions of fjords, ice fields, glaciers, mountains and steppe. The weather rapidly changes from sunny to rainy with frequent high winds unobstructed by any other land south of 50 degrees latitude in the southern hemisphere. The Andes run down the western side of the continent and turn east at the southern end. At the southern tip is Cape Horn, a notoriously difficult transit for mariners since the age of sail began. The landscapes reflect the rugged, elemental character of the area.

The sky, rocks, and water in the first image are a case in point. It shows Cerro Paine Grande from the vantage point of Grey Lake below Grey Glacier. It was windy enough to make standing a challenge at times, but our hike across the outwash plane and up and around the hill in the middle ground gave great views of the glacier and of the vegetation that hangs on in that environment.

Cerro Paine Grande, Chile

The breakers and whitecaps in this view of the shore of Grey Lake gives some idea of the wind.

Tree at Lake Grey Shore

Vegetation alternates with bare rock on this nearby hillside.

Hillside near Lake Grey