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Greetings from Rockport, Texas

Cyndy Keesler and I have been on the road again, visiting four states in the Southwest United States: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico that share a unique border of right-angle corners where all four come together in what is known as the Four Corners.

For the most part, I took a hiatus from blogging about this trip, but in a series of four short blogs (this one and three more over the next few weeks) I’ll present a few highlights that pertain specifically to our trip.

As for the parks, natural monuments, and other places we visited, I’ve simply inserted a very short description and the links to lead you to online websites for the official copy and photos.

You can also view Cyndy’s pictures at her Facebook Mobile Uploads page.

October 13 to 17: Cyndy’s mom, Alice Giese, celebrated her 95th birthday with some of her family in Ft. Gratiot, Michigan, on October 12. Cyndy and I left Michigan on the morning of the 13th.

On Sunday, the 17th, we arrived in Moab, Utah.

We eschewed the interstates as much as possible and enjoyed a nice drive from Toledo, Ohio, to Denver, Colorado, on US-24 and US-36: no billboards, few cars and trucks, and lots of great scenery; no Indianapolis, no St. Louis, no Kansas City.

We camped on the cheap: At a city park in Gilman, Illinois, with special permission from the municipal office (free); on an earthen fishing pier, 80 feet by 16 feet, that pokes into Brown State Fishing Lake west of Highland, Kansas (free); at a very nice municipal park in Joes, Colorado, a city named after its several founders who were all named Joe ($20 donation); and in a Bureau of Land Management campground next to the Eagle River on the west side of the Rockies ($5).

We ate picnic lunches at a truck stop in Ohio; on a bank of the Mississippi River in Quincy, Illinois; at a roadside park in central Kansas; and in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Denver just before visiting with Anna McConnell, the widow of John McConnell whose biography I wrote, Peace, Justice, Care of Earth.

October 18 to 21: Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah. Arches was crowded, and on two days we had to wait to get in.

Canyonlands was better and more interesting as we drove on the road atop the Island in the Sky mesa and visited the less populated section called The Needles that features magnificent, towering rock spires. Going there also took us through Bears Ears National Monument.

Best hike was Cave Spring Trail in Canyonlands that took us past shallow caves where Native Americans and cowboys made their homes and camps.

We hired a one-hour helicopter ride with Pinnacle Helicopters over the land in between Arches and Canyonlands where there are more than 2,500 natural land arches, vertical-faced pinnacles and spires, and other fascinating land formations.

We also looked down on countless two-track “roads” populated by dozens of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) that make this area very popular for this sport. At the end of the day, these high-clearance, four-wheel-drive buggies create a long queue at Moab’s do-it-yourself car wash.

October 22: Picnic lunch and a stroll through Goblin Valley State Park that is populated by thousands of “stone gnomes” that have been sculpted by the forces of nature.

October 22 to 26: Capitol Reef National Park is a truly unique place, a geologic monocline—or “waterpocket fold”—created by sedimentary deposition, uplift, and erosion. The name was derived by massive formations of Navajo Sandstone that emulate the US Capitol Dome and ribbons of land that are like ocean reefs.

Best hike was through a slot canyon on the remote Headquarters Canyon Trail that we learned about thanks to a park ranger and found by driving 35 miles on the mostly bumpy, dusty Notom-Bullfrog Road.

October 27 to November 1: Still in Utah, we base-camped at and hiked in Kodachrome Basin State Park, which features 67 monolithic stone spires called “sedimentary pipes” that reveal 180 million years of geologic time.

The name Kodachrome, named by National Geographic with permission from The Eastman Kodak Company, represents the color and beauty of this place.

From Kodachrome, we drove to and hiked in Bryce Canyon National Park, Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

For us, a key feature of Grand Staircase-Escalante was Grosvenor Arch, a unique sandstone double arch, named after Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, a president of the National Geographic Society.

On the way back from the arch, we took a two-mile walk on a wilderness trail that we found by spontaneously turning off the “main” gravel road and driving for several miles and through dry washes on a remote two-track. 

Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon, but is a series of bowls or amphitheaters rife with a sea of captivating hoodoos that the land’s original people, the Paiute Indians, believed were their ancestors.

This fantastic area is named after Mormon “serial homesteaders” Ebenezer and Mary Bryce who settled there in 1876 before moving on, per church decree, to establish 12 Mormon settlements in Utah and Arizona; they also raised 12 children to adulthood, a tremendous feat by frontier standards.

At Red Canyon, Cyndy and I hiked five miles on the Buckhorn Trail and the Goldenwall Trail that took us through stands of ponderosa pines and up and down elevations to the towering bluffs and spectacular views of the canyon below.

At the intersection of these two trails, the directional signage is poor, and we turned the wrong way on Goldenwall.

Up we went on a narrow passage at the crest of a ridge with long drop-offs on both sides until we came to the “trail end” sign.

Back down we went, being especially careful due to tiredness and a deep respect for heights. 

~~~~~ ~~~~~

Thank you for reading my stories. Six Weeks in the Four Corners states, Part 2, will come your way in about a week.

Robert (Bob) Weir sits at the opening to a cave in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. This cave, reached by climbing a wooden ladder, was used by the members of at least 23 tribal nations as a kiva or ceremonial place.