Mesa Verde in Colorado, is national park with a number of Anasazi settlements. The Anasazi are the Native Americans who were cliff dwellers until about 600 years ago, when they abandoned their high-rises and became the pueblo Indians. The Navajo, who came down from Canada after all of this, called them "The Old Ones." The pits are called "Kivas" and are the identifying structures of the pueblo Indians. They were used for religious ceremonies -- the hole at the bottom is the portal to the world of the dead. Our ranger told us the story of someone who brought along a Didgeridoo, which is designed to summon the spirits of the dead. The tourist tried to play it in the Kiva, but the moment he started, lightning came out of the slightly cloudy sky and struck the valley below. They decided that was enough of tempting the spirits.


So this is the closest thing we have to 1,000 year old castles in the USA. There's a village nearby that's been continuously occupied for 2,000 years. I know that's common place in Asia and it happens in Europe, but it's sort of odd here.


More Mesa Verde. It's so dry that the wood lasts through the ages.



The rain came in 15 minute shifts. You could see it on the edge of the sky. The rainbow appeared to be only a few hundred meters away.



11/2/2002 08:54:55 AM

This is from Arches National Park. The rock on top has sufficiently compressed the sand beneath it to make a platform. Which should be toppling sometime soon.



Isn't she CUTE! I love this woman. This picture taken in the south end of Moab, UT.



Another Arches shot. I keep hoping that one of these rocks is secretly hollowed out and acts as a HQ for a superhero organization of some kind.



11/2/2002 08:30:03 AM

This is Monument Valley, a national park. Of the Navajo nation, that is. And no, that's not a UFO. That's dust. All the MV pictures were taken during a fairly intense windstorm.

11/1/2002 05:17:06 AM

Sunset at Bryce, as it starts.
11/1/2002 05:10:17 AM

This is hidden in a small canyon in Arches National Park.
Just north of Moab, Utah, which is one of the coolest towns out west.
I assume it's got some kind of avian name.

10/31/2002 10:48:16 AM

See, Mom, some of my pictures have people in them.
But yes, you're right, my photography tends towards things.
Now all I need is a woodshop in the basement to make my own frames.
10/31/2002 06:18:00 AM

An army of Hoodoos. Sometimes you see a rock balancing on a hundred foot high needle. This happens when rocks falls onto sand and compress it so that it erods less than the sand around it. A few thousand/million years later, you've got a rock sitting on a pile of stone. I'll find some close-up pictures of this soon.
10/31/2002 06:12:30 AM

A castle in the air. Bryce Canyon, from a Helicopter.
10/30/2002 06:37:09 AM

Lake Powell.
Things learned out west: A mesa is wider than it is tall. A Butte is taller that it is wide. A needle is, well, a needle.
We think they measure height from where it becomes straight rock, but we're not sure.
That would make this a cube.

10/30/2002 06:34:39 AM

They show this on TV every Sunday morning.
We were there for the live taping.
And no, it's not from the Rocky Horror set -- it's the Mormon Tabernacle Organ.

10/30/2002 06:25:42 AM

This is the begining of "The Narrows" at Zion Canyon.
The walls are 300 meters high, and four to six meters apart.
10/30/2002 06:17:38 AM

Monument Valley.
10/30/2002 06:09:55 AM

This is on the planet Earth. Sorry it's so big -- but otherwise you wouldn't see the houses in the foreground. (Also Monument Valley.)
10/29/2002 09:58:49 PM