Torrey, Utah

Wednesday 12 August

Left Durango on a relieving 48degF crisp morning.

1st stop Mesa Verde

its actually a cuesta, not a mesa, abruptly steep like a mesa one side, sloping gradually away the other

inhabited 1400 years ago by the ancestral Puebloans, (village dwellers), and by 1000AD began building in stone

2 to 3 stories high, in units of 50 rooms or more in alcoves under the cliffs.

They were great agriculturalists growing squash, corn and beans,

and trade was widespread with other tribes, extending to seashells from the pacific coast

turquoise, pottery, arrowpoints, and cotton frrom the south.

It all came to a mysterious end around 1300AD...

a 24 year drought indicated by tree ring study is thought to be the reason for the people migrating south to join kin in Arizona and New Mexico

and their arrival is recorded in the latter peoples tradition.

The place is larger than you'd expect, and like Yellowstone, you'd need to camp up there a week to do it all justice

which is what you see a lot of American families doing.

Have mentioned the vacationing Americans before

the place is alive with them, and the rural communities depend on it

the national parks cater so well for holiday makers

its nothing to see mega pick-up utes loaded with 4 wheeler quads, mum's, dad's, and junior's, and the parks provide trails for them, as well as hikers and MTB'rs.

Several times I've seen a retired mum and dad sitting on their foldaway chairs overlooking a lake or river, having a picnic, or just sitting taking in the vista, and often in the evening run down to our hotels, you can smell the campfires and tea cooking in the motorcamps.

Another thing I like about these American folk, is their dawgs, sitting up like jacky in the wagon, off for a holiday too.

I got passed on the Interstate the other day by a pick-up doing 90mph, with 2 big black hounds on back, faces to the slipstream, family members like in that movie recently, "Marley and Me"
well adjusted pooches that dont tear around half crazy and get run over.

Speaking of recreation, Durango have introduced a rule that cyclists can lawfully ride 2 abreast, you see cyclists everwhere, very impressive fitness adherents in this country,

but a report in the paper told of one antagonist pick-up driver who buzzed a morning cycling group so bad it put half of them in the ditch.

Then he did a u-ey and came back for a second attack, pulled up in the middle of the road, and read a sermon.

The cyclists didnt retaliate, he had a holstered pistol strapped to his hip

but the article said he was rounded up for it, now out on $5000 bail.

You shouldnt let this give you the idea America is a violent place...

its the same as you would asume from reading the news back home,

good news isnt news just as badly over here.

As I said before we've been in mormon territory for a few days

most shop-keepers have honest faces, and you dont feel like you have to tip.

We pulled up at a roadside burger bar in one little hamlet, were a bit non-plussed the man couldnt give us a coffee, until he ring-a-bell explained mormons dont drink it....., no tea available neither.

The people sharing the treeside tables as we ate offered kindly advice and safe wishes for our journey.

At another place, women almost amish in dress, floor length, shoulder puffs 'n all, and a tribe of kids with odd-shaped heads gawping at our space-helmeted selves, jes like out of Deliverance.

Four Corners

Onward...

through Cortez to Four Corners, where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet.

Its Indian land so there's a small fee to get to it, and a heap of stalls selling handmade stuff

from which the group stocked up on mementos, badges, indian flutes, you can even get arrows.

I got a fry bread, and was chuffed to find it was just the same as my mum's maori-bread floaters, only more like a fat bubbled up pikelet rather than our scone shape.

Monument Valley

Then the long swoop round to Monument Valley through Navajo reservation land.

I never got the rapport with Indians I thought I might, being a bit coloured myself,

the others think maybe I looked too something else, mexican, italian, latino.

A lot of people I saw you could plant in any maori group back home and they wouldnt look out of place.

I found them a bit sullen, disinterested, even a boy sitting on the back of a pick-up I was following wouldnt crack a smile.

Seems like the "assisted" few do OK, saw 3 or 4 duding it up in homologous new white Ford F150 pick-ups

and the real clincher for this was to ride past the Aneth (small rural community) Community Health centre, a 50 metre long modern building, lined each side with new vehicles.

Smattering of silently up-downing oil derricks around too, wonder who owns them.

Apart from that it was subsistence shack-ery, lone outposts in the desert, with or without beat up ute, and maybe a hoss

and evidence of much boozing, bottles strewn simply everywhere along the roadside

deeper littered at the turn-outs and laybys

something depressingly wrong here that wont get fixed by avenues of knock-up Indian craft stalls, languishing in the 100degF sun.

Members of our group are fair seething at the injustice of American settlement, blaming that for the plight we observe

but I dunno...

its an incongruous contrast with say, the South American indian, who, as Marley's high school Peru tour group found, despite a harsh environment, lived a happy existence.

Maybe its to do with being displaced or confined, into a pretty mean environment, that only formed a minor part of previous territorial roam space.

Well, I've been to Monument Valley and seen the icon, impressive in its own right, our tour leader has us somewhat pre-spoiled in the route he's prescribed.

Whereas Monument Valley's towers are formidable, they're distant...

on our route we've ridden beside the buttes and mesas, close enough to get off and touch, and in some cases the roads been driven right through.

R261

Left behind again from too much camera stop and general gawking...

I took a short cut from Medicine Hat to Fry Canyon, gassed up at the Med Hat shell servo, which was modern, clean, air conditioned cool, and...

run by Indians, communicative smiling ones, even the old girl, who looked like one of my Rotorua aunties, mopping the floor, nodded an acknowledgement

so there you go.....

life's all about flying on the lift of your own bootstraps, do you think?

The short cut, R261...

bit of a gas, 3 miles up the escarpment wall, no armco, no seal either, the pic only tells half the story

Fry Canyon

but up the top a welcome drop in temp, near 100deg, down to mid 80's.

And so down to scenic byways, 95 and 24, fabulous biking roads, escarpment one side, canyon the other, sweeping curves, and long straights between.

Pic of the day went to Richard, full screen shot of the speedo on his harley, 102mph on the clock

complete with upheld camera hand reflected on the chrome petrol-tank filler cap.

I've thought about how I might do this too, but give up.

Pulled into a historical site...

big steel board that at first looked blank, but up close, close-lettered done in welding

told the story of  a soldier and a cowboy in pursuit of some Paiutes got killed in an ambush

found a week later and here buried, knock up rock headstones complete.

Eloquent wording on the board concluded,

"a tribute to the epoch struggle to settle this great country"

to which some wit with marker pen had corrected "epoch" to "epic", and defaced "settled" to "steal"

I still like Americans

the little/middle people are great, amiable, like us.

I think the common bond is we're carefully going about our existence under a herd of elephants.

Nice stop tonight at Torrey, a one street town under huge spreading oak sort of trees

was too late for dinner with the gang, so bought a peach, a big red apple, and a banana, and was full satisfied.

5700 miles on the odo.

Near Fry Canyon

Another one of Monument Valley