Blue Goose ~ Day 157

November 2, 2014 ~ Vernal, UT to Ogden, UT

It was a cold Sunday morning and I didn't hurry out of town. Because this was an extraordinary Best Western, the breakfast was also delicious with variety and no plastic. The girl at the desk told me the attached gift shop was soon to be an expanded lobby and a pizzeria with a chef "from New York," which is a great idea. Who wants to stop for the night and then have to seek out a place to eat?...not me, for sure.  The unexpected positive experiences on trips balance the bad (...no room in the inn for you....sorry ma'am).

On the way to Ogden, Utah

The drive to Ogden continued to be impressive and dramatic on a large scale with unsettled weather - some spitting rain, sunshine, clouds and dropping temperatures, which meant that there was a possibility of snow at the higher elevations as I approached Ogden. All the mountains around me had snow down to a certain level, but other than a few flurries, I was fine. I have no idea how this Dodge handles on ice and snow and just want to avoid having to find that out. I am pushing my goal of traveling where it is "50 degrees by noon." The nights have been below freezing, but then, I've been between 5,000 and 10,000 feet for several days.

I decided to work and found a hotel in downtown Ogden on Priceline. It was one of those old historic pricey hotels but with very few customers on this Sunday night, so the darling girl at the desk gave me a corner suite on the 6th floor. Nice.... and I had a delicious curried chicken salad for dinner downstairs.

Ogden from the Ben Lomond hotel

There was a moment of consternation when the waiter / bartender didn't want to let a coffee cup out of his presence so I could finish it in my room. "We only have a limited number of these," he said. This was after I had to get another credit card from upstairs as they didn't take the one I had, and couldn't/wouldn't put it on my room. ("We're separate from the hotel.....") But this is the small stuff....

On the road today, I drove on by the turn off for the Golden Spike National Historic site, where tracks for the first transcontinental railroad from the east met and joined those from the west. Another missed attraction.....

Blue Goose ~ Day 156

November 1, 2014 ~ Grand Junction, CO to Vernal, UT

This was a day of driving through the awesome landscape of western Colorado and eastern Utah...through rocks in all imaginable sizes, forms and colors. There were a few small towns but it was mostly the open road through natural beauty.

Heading for Utah from Grand Junction, CO

I stopped for gas station food in Dinosaur, Colorado, and realized the pump area was spotless, rare at gas stations. I only noticed it because I got my cherry tomatoes out to wash and half of them spilled. The bright red dots were the only litter on the clean concrete.

My destination was Ouray NWR, 14 miles off the main route, between Vernal and Roosevelt in Utah. I wish I had more adjectives to describe these places as they almost all have a unique loveliness and a feeling of sanctuary and peacefulness. Ouray had more Sandhill Cranes. I kept trying to make a couple of them into Whooping Cranes but they weren't.

Sandhill Cranes on Ouray NWR - UT

The Green River runs through Ouray, and the auto route was intermittently very near the river. In one place, if I had been driving on my side of the road, on the ragged river edge, I'm certain I would have ended in the river. The current obviously keeps working at the banks, and I was actually surprised the road (at least this small section) was open. The managers usually warn travelers about adverse contingencies or close roads. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as it looked.

The tall trees were nearly bare of leaves which had collected on the dirt road and rustled as I drove over them. The sky was dramatic with clouds and sun. Old silvered trees, the river, sandbars and islands, a few horses, the cranes and geese and ducks, the sun low on the land - elemental restorative nature...

Ouray NWR - UT

I went on to Roosevelt via back roads stopping there at a Best Western because I had points to use but:

1. The girl at the desk said point rooms had to be reserved online.
2. I sat down in the lobby and called Best Western reservations.
3. Reservations told me that this motel had no rooms left for point people (me), and told me that each motel is different; it is up to the individual managers to determine how many rooms are available for points, BBB.
4. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, and the sweet desk girl (this was certainly not her fault) admitted that their occupancy was currently 40%.
5. I left in a huff.

I drove around but couldn't find anything else, didn't want to pay $100 for a marginal room and just did not want to sleep in a tow-away parking lot (city ordinance), so I drove the 28 miles BACK to Vernal and got one of the best rooms (using points) I have had so far with no problem. I read and played Two Dots on my phone. I am up to Level 50 something.

The whole room had little extra comforts; the bathroom had two tiny dinosaurs since the Dinosaur National Monument is near here, created by President Woodrow Wilson in 1915 after a paleontologist (Earl Douglass) "excavated thousands of fossils" for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Wikipedia states that there are also petroglyphs but locations of these are not publicized due to "problems with vandals."  Now I wish I had checked this all out, but didn't. It's one natural attraction that kids would find interesting, although getting there would tax their minuscule patience quotient.

Blue Goose ~ Day 155

October 31, 2014 ~ Durango, CO to Grand Junction, CO

I woke up (as usual the past few weeks) in the cold and dark and first found my way downtown to an open McDonalds and then to the Steaming Bean a few block away. I struggled with the parking meter for 10 minutes trying to use a credit card but finally got some quarters from the barista.

There was the usual table of older men carrying on in McDonalds, gregarious, good-humored, catching up on their respective 24 hours since yesterday morning.  In the Steaming Bean, one of the staff and a few customers wore Halloween costumes. I had exceptional coffee and a veggie curry sandwich that was also delicious so was content and ready to hit the road by mid morning.

 Leafless aspens - US 550 north of Durango - CO

It started out fine. I was to drive north on US 550 through Silverton and Ouray, eventually coming to Grand Junction. Sunshine, blue skies, mountains everywhere, a million trees with yellow to bright orange leaves, which were dazzling in the morning sun. It was cool but not cold and there wasn't much traffic.

And then I came to a warning sign, but I reasoned, this is a major road and nowadays, how bad can it be? All these mountain passes now have guardrails. Later I learned that USA Today considered this one of "The World's Most Dangerous Roads."

US 550 north of Durango - CO

Here is a recent blog post I found on the Internet:

In planning our trip to southwestern Colorado - I had several people tell me how beautiful and spectacular the views from the Million Dollar Highway are. They are correct - the views are magnificent!  

However, I'm just wondering why no one ever told me that in order to enjoy the views - you are taking your life in your own hands! Winding, twisting, turning, narrow, steep roads - with miles and miles of no guard rails. I might even be able to live without the guard rails - but what got me was the huge sections of road - with NO SHOULDER! Literally the asphalt ends where the white line is - and after the asphalt/ white line there is a cliff straight down hundreds or thousands of feet. And of course, there were a few chunks of the highway where even the white line was missing (had fallen away to the abyss below). Basically, this road allows ZERO room for error! Very scary! 

This road is certainly for the adrenaline junkie - and adrenaline you will get - whether from the fright of the road or the awe-inspiring views. 

It was an amazing couple of hours. I did wish I had a stick shift rather than an automatic though.

US 550 between Durango and Montrose - CO

And of course I crept along. At the most treacherous mile, I was on the inside but smack next to steep vertical cliffs with the potential for rocks and boulders or half the mountain to fall on the car, but that was better than the other lane which was a sheer drop-off with no guard rails or shoulder. What I could not imagine is driving this road in the winter as it is plowed and kept open. And who would want the plowing jobs!!!! I went over three passes; the highest and trickiest was Red Mountain at over 11,000 feet.

All part of the grand adventure....

I stopped at one point and saw Gray Jays. The views, even with overcast skies, were spectacular. I do doubt this road is one of the world's most "dangerous," though, and it doesn't have a horrendous death record, probably due to very slow and careful driving. I now wish I had taken more photos as there were plenty of pull-offs, but I just wanted this to be OVER!

Unfortunately, the aspens were bare and ghostly grey now, but I could imagine how their incredible yellows brightened the mountainsides only a few weeks earlier.

And then, north of Ouray, the most rugged of the Rockies were in the rear-view and I had arrived in the canyon country of Colorado and Utah.

Along US 550 - CO

I stayed in Grand Junction and worked this Halloween night but got candy at the front desk where a spooky witch was singing and swaying in the corner, eyes bright orange.

Silverton and Ouray were pleasant little tourist towns with the usual commercial establishments and people walking up and down the sidewalks as some shops were still open. Historically, much of Colorado is mining country and there are also side roads up into the mines, or guided tours.

Backcountry explorers always have the chance of finding a lost mine, and panning for gold is also a seduction here in the mountains.

Near Grand Junction - CO

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Blue Goose ~ Day 154

October 30, 2014 ~ Alamosa, CO to Durango, CO

The breakfast in the motel in Alamosa had the usual offerings with the addition of breakfast burritos and green and red Tabasco bottles on the tables.

Off to Alamosa NWR first, about five miles east. It was silent and deserted. Not one visible vehicle at the VC and a "Closed" sign on the door. The Rio Grande run through this refuge as an unpretentious little river. Canals and ditches take some of its water. The described "wetlands" (at least now in late October) are so unlike the more eastern wetlands. I did see occasional wet spots and the water diversion ditches but very few birds. I surprised a female elk and then a coyote which was not at all unnerved by my presence.

Coyote on Alamosa NWR - CO

We looked at each other as I edged slowly forward until it disappeared into the brush along one of the ditches. Mt. Blanca was massive on the northeast horizon but with very little snow yet.

There was a sign posted at the kiosk explaining about the "noise" at the end of the nature trail, which stated that, "The neighboring landowner completed building a structure to be able to access his water right in the historic ditch. Water flows are limited past the town of Alamosa in part due to the drought, climate change and irrigation for the crops, pastures and the wetlands on the Alamosa NWR." Hmmmm..... The story all over the west...water, water rights, water conscience, water conservation, water greed, aquifer depletion, water diversion, water priorities, water restrictions, no water.... There were several recent negative comments from visitors regarding how "dry" this "wetland" was when they visited. But also some positive comments, and the land has what I call sagebrush beauty.

My first home is near a second refuge in the Valley. Of course I drove by and took photos. It is several miles southwest from Alamosa, a sweet little home meeting my criteria for what I like architecturally...a Craftsman style house. I knew of my young parents' delight in their first home and how they forever remembered the years in Colorado with great fondness. They were always under sunny or starry skies. It very seldom rained they would tell us. However, I am sure my mother's heart was  back in the Midwest, and that is where they spent most of their lives.

Monte Vista NWR was just a bit farther west, and on the way I had the thrill of watching and photographing a very cooperative Ferruginous Hawk atop a telephone pole. It sat quietly, would fly out and return. It turned around just as I was wondering what its back looked like (almost a spooky bird telepathy moment), and it certainly did not seem bothered by my proximity.

Ferruginous Hawk - Monte Vista NWR - CO

It was a sun-saturated Indian Summer day with yellowing leaves fluttering down or crackling and dry underfoot, warm and quiet under a lovely pure blue sky. The Sierra de las Grullas (Mountains of the Cranes) were on the western horizon, and in fact, large flocks of Sandhill Cranes were feeding here, along with ducks and C. geese and herons. Handsome Black-billed Magpies flew about, and I watched a single Song Sparrow in the tree across the road. I sat for an hour with my scope.

Sierra de las Grullas - Monte Vista NWR - CO

And then drove for several hours to Durango, CO, a much, much busier town than I remembered from a previous trip long ago. I had entered a different demographic here: one of coffee shops and shopping malls, old and not so old hippies, busy roads, a thriving tourist industry, outdoor enthusiasts...mountains towered above the town. The Walmart lot had young cottonwoods all over, which always enhances the car camping experience.

I ate at a Mongolian Grill; the food was superb - sizzling hot, fresh and tasty with enough for a second meal the next day.

Blue Goose ~ Day 153

October 29, 2014 ~ Las Vegas, NM to Alamosa, CO

Grateful for a nearby, warm, 24-hour McDonalds, I ordered a sausage burrito and coffee from a Hispanic man in his 60s, if not older. He was wearing a short black-denim jacket and was polite and soft-spoken, his black hair combed straight back. I love being able to say I was born in Alamosa out here. He said the coffee was the "best in the west.." and asked where I was from.

A young man, obviously hitchhiking, also came in from the cold and spent time on his screen, either a tablet or a phone. He had a backpack and another tied-up pack, along with a brown corduroy jacket and a few other essentials which he spread out on the table.

And this time of day, there is usually an early-riser group of local men, along with a few street people, although I often see signs at the tables about not loitering and only staying "30 minutes while enjoying your meal." So far, everyone has been quiet and unobtrusive, each minding his own business, using the bathrooms, stepping outside to smoke, but mostly just waiting for the sun I guess.

I DID detour to Rio Moro NWR and was at the closed gate when a truck pulled in behind me, a gentleman with keys, but "No, it is not open to the public....there is a grazing workshop here today..." and that is why he was going in. He was pleasant enough but didn't offer me an entry and locked the gate behind him.

Rio Moro (Wind River Ranch) NWR - NM

WWW.FWS.GOV

Formerly the Wind River Ranch, the refuge and conservation area are a continuation of the vision of philanthropist Eugene V. Thaw and his wife Clare E. Thaw who bought the Ranch in 1980 with the intent of protecting and restoring the land as a representative piece of southwestern ecological heritage. To that end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working to facilitate partnerships to provide protection and cooperative management within the Mora River watershed, the Rio Mora Conservation Area.


I drove about 10 miles further west and finally crossed the Rio Moro. It was early morning and bluebirds, meadowlarks and kestrels were out. Gorgeous country with a few ranches and junipers, golden fields and small sandstone cliffs along Rio Moro. A very occasional car passed. I often see signs warning of a "School Bus Stop Ahead" along these lesser roads.

While returning to the highway, I had stopped to take a picture, and a van pulled next to me, asking if I knew where the Wind River Ranch was and if I was looking for it. The two women in the car apparently wanted to attend the grazing workshop. I told her where it was (they had driven right on by) and told her the gate was locked and about the gentleman I had talked with. She said I should have just said that I wanted to attend the meeting; that's is what she was going to do. implying it was or should be open to the interested public. Like perhaps these are local people with an interest in what happens?  I am certain that the designation of a new refuge always has difficulty with the status quo in the first years.

Maxwell NWR was another 45 minutes north, off I25 only three or four miles. There was a deserted feeling at the VC, and a sign saying it was closed. Often these closed refuges have a note on their front door that that they are busy in the field or that, due to lack of funding, the VC is no longer open. But I wonder who makes those decisions.....

At least most of the always have the refuge pamphlets and bird lists and hunting and fishing regulations available even if they are closed, and the best ones continue to fill the bird feeders in their yards. There is a very noticeable difference in how managers ensure that the public is welcome. It's our land after all....

I drove around a large pond with hundreds of waterfowl and a few sandhills in the adjacent fields. I also saw two yellowlegs and some distant peeps but not many other shorebirds. However, I didn't get my scope out, so there may have been some I didn't see.

Maxwell NWR - NM

What I did do here was organize my van, while parked on a dike at the far end of the pond, in warm sun.

Driving out, I noticed a couple of hawks overhead. The first was a red-tail and the second a Ferruginous, a hawk I love to see as it isn't common. There is always something memorable at every refuge, something unexpected, great views of a particular bird, lots of birds or overwhelming natural beauty. For me, Maxwell offered up a Ferruginous. I had been asking about them wherever I was on the prairies and now in the west and was always told this hawk is seen "occasionally," whereas Swainson's, red-tails, kestrels and Northern Harriers are more common.

I figured I had time before dark to drive over the mountains to Alamosa, CO, which I did, heading west from Trinidad and over a couple of passes. The route was easy; the area of the Spanish Peaks especially scenic. As I came down into the 50-mile wide San Luis Valley, I went through the town of Blanca and realized that the mountain directly north was my dad's famed Mt. Blanca. He so often talked about how he noticed it every day. I think of him as a young man, newly graduated from seminary, from the urban East, moving out to this country. The phrase from Mattheissen's book came to mind: He was "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" here in this place.

It was going to be another cold night, dropping to below freezing, so I got a great Priceline deal on a motel, found a restaurant on Urban Spoon with the best Mexican food I've had in a long time, went back to the motel and watched the Royals lose the World Series.

A few days later, I overheard a coffee shop conversation where one of the men said, "Ya know what that Bumgarner gave his wife for her birthday? A cow...yup, that's what he gave her...he's just a farm boy..."

Blue Goose ~ Day 152

October 28, 2014 ~ Guymon, OK to Las Vegas, NM

I spent the day driving west to Springer, New Mexico, in sunshine, the land flat to the horizon until I got near NM when buttes and the distant Rockies became visible in the distance. The road had gentle hills and the land was more western than midwestern.

Panhandle of Oklahoma

I got gas in Springer at the slowest pump in the world. A large snake was on the main street, probably a rattler. All through the SW, the impression is of aridity. Lawns generally have no greenery and are either covered with a type of stone or just packed dirt, usually fenced, sometimes with potted succulents and always with trees. The leaves were dry, curled up and collecting on the ground so even more sun shone through.

I hadn't even thought about going to Las Vegas NWR, about an hour south of Springer, but it was closer than I thought and just off I25, a great Interstate. It isn't busy and runs north-south, kind of between the prairies to the east and the hills / mountains to the west. The topography is dramatic with earthy colors and distant slopes dotted with small dark-green pines. And, of course, the sky! So it was an easy decision to check out Las Vegas, to which I give the Refuge Zen Award, at least for the Visitor Center. I didn't expect it would be open as so many close by 4 p.m. or aren't open at all, but it was. The soft-spoken gentleman behind the desk was immediately helpful with no sign that he had anything more important to do. Often there is a bell which one rings if the office is empty: "Ring for Help," which I hardly ever do. But this office had a gong for that purpose which rang with one solemn heavy note. There were expensive spotting scopes set up by comfortable seats, at two different levels, trained on a pond with sandhills, herons, ducks and grebes. Two of the exhibits were especially compelling: one of birds' eggs and the other of grasses, tied in small bundles, standing upright on a high shelf and against a white wall, labelled and arranged by size, artistic and also informative.

Sandhill Cranes at Las Vegas, NWR - NM

The eggs were lovely: some speckled, some plain, in many colors, and generally egg-shaped, but with considerable size difference as would be expected. The Common Loon egg is a large, completely matte black egg. I thought of their nest, hidden in the wetlands at Big Star Lake with its two black eggs.

The refuge reminded me of Arapahoe in northern Colorado, out in the expansive open west with mountains in the distance. Almost all the grounds directly around the VCs are now planted with native species or, as here, pretty much left alone. (I think anyway; it looked like that).

The gentleman at the VC told me about a new refuge, Rio Moro, not far north and about five miles west of the Interstate. He said it wasn't open yet, but "the sign is up....perhaps you could go and see if you can drive around..."

And there were Mountain Bluebirds EVERYWHERE.

Mountan Bluebird at Las Vegas NWR - NM

When I  drove slowly, four or five would escort me, flying from fence post to fence post. For once, I was at a refuge late in the day and birds were more active, with dozens of meadowlarks and White-crowned Sparrows, a single Vesper Sparrow, Dark-eyed Juncos, occasional hawks and ravens....

It was, as I said, a zen place and I lingered as the sun settled in the west.

I found a Walmart on the north end of town, stayed there and woke up at 3:30. It was 28 degrees. Cold nights and warm days at this elevation in late October.

Las Vegas NWR - NM

Blue Goose ~ Day 151

October 27, 2014 ~ Elk City, OK to Guymon, OK

Off to Wichita (pronounced wash' i taw) NWR on a peaceful, very quiet sunny morning. I talked for 15 minutes with an attractive woman who greeted me when I walked in the office. She knew birds and told me about the variety with strays and regulars that come through her refuge.

Black-tailed Prairie Dog - Washita NWR - OK

I heard the cooing of Eurasian Collared Doves before I saw them. Yellow-rumps were moving through the trees at the VC deck overlooking the Wichita River Valley. This is a place where eastern and western birds can be (and are) seen, and is one more set-aside place of serenity and sanctuary. Of course, I do have the niggle that hunting is allowed on most refuges at certain times of the year, but I suppose this is also a management tool. Any endangered or threatened species are protected of course, and too many  elk or deer or geese or ducks can disturb the equilibrium of biodiversity. Still, the sound of shooting means killing which isn't exactly synonymous with "refuge." Trusting the government to do the right thing is tempered by unexpected consequences and sometimes outright duplicity. It is also true sportsmen contribute financially to support of the NWRs. Hunting is also allowed in Wilderness Areas where the first rule is to "Leave No Trace." As I mentioned earlier, there are currently 758 Wilderness Areas totaling over 109 million acres in the US. A cool map at: WWW.ECONOMICPOLICYJOURNAL.COM (search for "federal land percentage" on this site) has a graphic showing what our government owns / what you and I own. It's well over half of 12 western states, including Alaska.

My next stop was a slight detour to the Wichita National Battlefield, a sad place where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, in November of 1868, surprised a band of Southern Cheyenne. The number of deaths varies: the Natives say around 50; the government estimates over 100.  Four years before, another shameful and similar incident occurred at Sand Creek where over 200 (mostly women, children and the elderly) were killed. The web site: WWW. NPS.GOV has a brief overview of how, why and what happened at Sand Creek and Washita (search for Washita National Battlefield and then look under FAQs). A Cheyenne teenager named Magpie survived the battle and lived a long life; his story is also available on the Internet.

The museum at the VC is worth a visit. Along with exhibits of the battle / massacre on the Washita, there is a garden of native plants and restoration of a sod house with stories of the early white settlers, the role water played and the devastation of the dust bowl. The adjoining Black Kettle National Grasslands offices, managed by the USFS, are here also. These vast plains offer educational opportunities wherever one travels.

On the Washita National Battlefield -  near Cheyenne, OK

Because I stopped here, I then drove through Texas for most of the afternoon. Right over the state line, the speed limit changed to 70 on a narrow two-lane with NO shoulders and a stretch of steep short hills that were like riding a roller coaster. The land flattened out again when I moved north and then west. The whole staff and all the customers at a McDonalds along the way were Hispanic, generally enjoying each other, cheerful, polite, soft-spoken. A group of older men often spend an hour or two in most McDonalds I've been in, discussing crops, weather, Obama ("Yeah, now Obama wants Michelle to get paid; he think she should be on the payroll..."). They gossip a little and check out the scene. Their faces are weathered; they watch what goes by on the road.

                                 Near Guymon, OK

Optima NWR, a small grassland refuge, is just east of Guymon but the gates were closed. I did drive through it late in the afternoon, albeit briefly, so checked it off. The next morning, a talkative kid in the grocery store, who insisted on carrying my groceries to my van, said he never saw the gates open at Optima. He asked if I were going to Yellowstone when I told him what I was doing and said his father drives the pilot car for extra-wide loads and has seen Yellowstone, telling his son how impressive it was. "You need to go there; it's not that far," I said. I got the feeling it is entirely possible that going to Yellowstone may never happen in the same way that moving out of Guymon would be a high risk activity for him. These are the kids that stay and keep certain small towns viable. Of course, being on a main auto route helps also.
   

On Washita National Battlefield - OK