Wonders and marvels, marvels and wonders

The time flies here. We've been here two months already and it seems we just pulled in. What I came back to do was clean up the park's servers. Just like anyone, including me I'm sorry to say, when they get a new server, it's a matter of migrating everything on the old one to the new one, junk included. This is not helpful. One of the problems they face is that employees label folders with their own names; what the Admin officer here calls "the Tommy, Susie, Billy files," which is also not helpful when Tommy, Susie, and Billy leave and two generations of employees later on have no idea who they were.

Well, when I got back at the beginning of February the new server wasn't here yet, but there was plenty of other work to do, work I didn't have time for before I left last year. So I fiddled around with that for a while until the Chief of Interpretation, Richard, asked me if I'd clean up the Interp files, preparatory to the move to the new server. Interpretation, as it relates to parks, was a term completely unknown to me before I came here but they're the people who make sense of what you're looking at when you gaze over the Painted Desert or hike the Blue Forest Trail. They're the folks who staff the visitor services desk, answering questions about what's good to see; the ones who use the scientific knowledge of the paleontologist and archeologist and head off to Newspaper Rock or Puerco Pueblo to explain the importance of the petroglyphs and Pueblo IV era ruins; they're the permanent and seasonal Rangers who lead hikes along old Route 66, into the badlands, or to the solstice markers in June, impressing on visitors why this place has meaning. They prepare the newspaper, design and publish fliers and the signs (called Waysides) at the stops along the road, build the website, map out new hikes, develop programs for school groups, and are the face of the park. They also have lots of files spread out over two drives with a plethora of duplicates everywhere. My mission: clean it up. It amounts to a lot of sitting. Hours can go by before I know it, which makes getting out into the park and stretching my legs more and more necessary, so Sunday I headed to the Tepees to see what I could see.

I've parked at Tepees before but have always headed in the other direction, to the Tepees-Blue Mesa Trail, also known as the Blue Forest Trail. This time I headed west into the badlands.

This chunk of rock caught my eye right away. I don't know any answers to the important questions of what, why, how, or when, but it's darned interesting.
 
 











I've been spending way too much time on Pinterest lately. If you know what I mean, you have my oh-so-knowledgable sympathy. If you don't know what I mean, save yourself and don't find out. Anyway, one of the topics I follow on that he-devil website is knitting patterns. I'm not actually going to make any of them but that doesn't stop me from looking, and this eroding Tepee-side looks very much like feather knitting patterns I've pinned.

Once I'd climbed up and over the hills and made my way down narrow gullies, I came to a fairly wide wash. By this time I'd lost my bearings but had the idea I was going in more or less the right direction. Plus, I figured I'd have to find one end of the wash or the other, so being the fearless adventurer I am (and having the GPS the hitchhiker gave me safely carabined to my pack with the directions to my wheels plugged in) I just walked. This part of the park doesn't have the spectacular formations and deep ravines I've seen in the Painted Desert, but it was still good. What was wonderful about the wash was the line of bobcat or coyote tracks that I followed from one end to the other. Sigh. I love this place.

See? Lesser formations, different, but interesting. I see these things and always wonder, why? Why are these small lumps still here? Why aren't they scoured to the ground like everything around them?

Here are a couple more oddities. The difference in color and rhythmic shapes are so at odds with the surrounding terrain.

Mud patterns continue to fascinate me. I thought this would be leathery but it broke in my hand when I tried to see how much flex there was.

What's interesting to me about this is the sudden change in texture about a third of the way down. When the hill continues to erode, will there be a hoodoo of loose, jagged rock left standing, or will the bottom third remain relatively smooth as it is now? I feel like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!

I love these scrappers. How they hold on against the odds is a lesson to me. It really is.

Make note of the fissures in the earth. More about them in a bit.

Another treat was the critter tracks and other evidence of two-to-eight-legged life. When I left the wash I got into an area of sand that held onto lots of prints. Nearly every Tuesday the hitchhiker and I ask the Chief of Interp, Richard, and recently the Chief of Maintenance, Kevin, to come for dinner. These are two married guys who wives work elsewhere. I feel really bad for them when coming to our place is the highlight of the workweek, but that's the way it is. I was subjecting them to some of these photos when this next one came up and immediately one of them said, "spider." Could very well be.

I'm not sure about this but it could be a porcupine getting into an ant hill.

This is definitely something going after the ants, but there weren't any prints here.

This is from a trip I took into the Painted Desert a few weeks ago. I showed this photo to the museum's Collections Manager, who has a degree in Zoology, to get an ID - porcupine. The large, smooth footpad and long, curved claws that touch the ground only at their tips make it distinctive. This is what probably dined on the ants.

I'm thinking a lizard, with a little drag to its tail. They were darting everywhere. How do they live?

Maybe a bird? I love this one. Look how the tracks come in from the upper left, get all confused and jumbled up, and make a sharp veer off to the lower left. That is, if I read them correctly.

This is one of my favorite views from the day. The color, the shape, the texture, everything.

It never fails to amaze me.

 More, impossibly balanced.

And more.

There's not a lot of petrified wood in this area, but what I found was pretty.

This patterning is unusual to me; I just haven't seen a much of this.

And then I came across this. I was so immediately smitten, unreasonably charmed, with this anomaly. I texted the hitchhiker to get shoes, hat, and water ready, I was on my way to pick him up. I had something to show off.

I have never, ever, seen anything like this. Remember the fissures I said to take note of? This is what was coming out of many of them - gypsum shards. Delicate, fragile, lovely minerals eroding from the earth. How gorgeous is this?

 The sun shining through.

When I saw one line, I saw them everywhere. Straight lines, like an arrow, splitting the mud.

Except when it breaks to go around obstacles or, as Kevin theorized, the obstacles here took advantage of a break in the surface crust to put down roots.

Isn't it just amazing?

How do they erupt from the dry, hard crust without breaking into crumbs?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. But they do.

I'd come full circle at the Tepees. It was such a lovely day, rich with discoveries. Y'all need to come to Petrified Forest and spend time on the ground. There are wonders and marvels everywhere.

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Thought of the day:

Being creative makes you a weird little beast, because everything is so bloody interesting for some strange reason. - via Pinterest, of course.

The long, long trailer

Today was a day off for me, it wasn't blowing a gale out there, and the sun was shining, so the hitchhiker and I decided to be tourists right here near home. There are several tourist-trap kind of places near the park along I-40 and we headed out when it was about as warm as it was going to get.

We hit four spots and the best one was this place, Stewart's Petrified Wood. 

OK, a school bus at the top of the hill is eye catching, but if that's all you're seeing, you're not paying attention:

Oh, the dinosaur!! you say. Yes, but look a little closer. Now we're talking.

This is a hint of the fun and interesting things Stewart's has to offer, like feeding their ten ostriches, but my favorite thing here is glass.

Lots and lots of gorgeous glass.

It's brought in by the barrel-full from Arkansas. We were told it comes from a cave and is naturally-occurring.

The colors are brilliant and rich and many pieces are loaded with texture, like the striations in the one below.

Or this one, where the bubbles are below surface.

I, who acquire next to nothing because I live in 31 linear feet, had to have a piece. Just a little one.

What a dilemma. It's impossible to compare any of them to another. 

I couldn't understand how all these colors came from one spot, so I did a little googling. It's not naturally-occurring at all, but is slag glass from steel foundaries, the product of silica removal from iron ore. Slag.... Knowing that doesn't make it any less beautiful.

The article I found said the glass is popular for aquarium use. I can believe it. With all the clear glass areas, the specks and swirls of color would appear to be suspended.

How to choose, how to choose?

This is not the one I bought and in fact haven't even taken a picture of it yet, but when I processed all the photos I kept saying, why didn't I buy this one... or this one... or this one? Does this look like the ocean or what?

According to the article I read on Rockhounding Arkansas, blues and greens are the most common; red, yellow, and orange less so.

Here's a a forest in spring.

Champagne, anyone? Complete with bubbles.

I felt like Lucy in The Long, Long Trailer. I wanted about 80% of everything I saw, but space is a reasonable excuse for exercising restraint. And the weight of these pieces. The mpg on the truck is bad enough, and it burns diesel to boot.

I came home with a little piece. It sells for $4 a pound and mine came to a little over $5. That's pretty small. Maybe I'll go back and get just a couple more.

Say good bye to T-Rex. Never mind they didn't even exist in the Triassic era.

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Thought of the day:
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. --- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/elisabethk119810.html#3BXA3LpO2jPQVkdK.99

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/elisabethk119810.html#3BXA3LpO2jPQVkdK.99

What a distance a year makes

One year ago today I left my house for the last time. It was the darkest day of my life. I was terrified of being alone, of having something go wrong with my van, of the horizon-less unknown, of not having enough money, of some unimaginable disaster crashing down on me, of ultimately having nowhere to go. I had been betrayed by someone I trusted and should have been able to trust. I was lied to, cheated on, threatened, and bullied. I was disoriented to the point of suicidal depression. I, who never met a meal I didn't like, completely lost my appetite and 20 pounds in the space of a few weeks. I was thought so little of that I was not worth telling the truth to. He was so eager to get rid of me that he was willing to pay nearly anything to see me go, except the price of the truth.

That was then.

I talked to my very good friend in New Jersey recently, the one who said to me last year, "Kathleen, he's lying to you" over and over until it penetrated the immobilizing blankness of my mind. When I talked to her last week she asked me what I was going to do to celebrate my anniversary of going on the road. Celebrate?! Was she serious? Indeed she was, and her question turned my attitude from dread to thoughtful.

Much has happened in the last year, but not one thing, not one bad thing to hobble my slow but steadily forward progress. I've had hard days, sure. Sometimes a sadness sidles up softly (funny, I can "see" it and it never comes from behind or head on) and settles in my heart like a weight that will never be moved: why wasn't I good enough? But as softly as it comes, other thoughts of how much I like my life just the way it is nudge their way in. Twice in the past week people have told me that I look younger now than I did ten years ago, and that I've never looked happier in all the time they've known me, so something must be going in the right direction. I must be doing the healing things.

So I've been reflective since my conversation with my friend and have concluded some things, the woulda, coulda, shoulda, and the dids.

What I would have done differently:

Been smarter about all the evidence staring me in the face. I trusted and I shouldn't have. He'd cheated on me twice before that I know about and I was blind to the signs. What an idiot.

Gotten a better lawyer. If you live in North Kitsap and need a lawyer, let me know and I'll tell you who to avoid. I had to tell this guy how to do his job, he still didn't get it right, and it ended up costing me money.

Kept the motor home we had instead of buying the van. I wanted to avoid towing a car because it was so hard to put the car on and off the trailer. What I could have done instead was buy a small manual-shift car that could be towed flat without a trailer. That would have saved me a lot of money. I know this in retrospect but at the time it seemed like the right decision.

Not pulled money from my IRA for a purchase I shouldn't have made. Not only did it reduce my nest egg it cost me a bundle in tax. I told the ex-husband of my hesitancy and was bullied into doing it anyway.

What I did just right:

Snooped his email when things were just not adding up. Yes, I did, and a darn good thing; I otherwise would not have learned about the girlfriend, his Mei Chi, his "I've been looking for you for 40 years." Whatever.

Got a lawyer, even a lousy one, when I found evidence of the girlfriend instead of trusting him to do the right thing about everything I was to be "given."

Found a five-month volunteer job in my field, in a great location, with wonderful people around me. It let me rest my heart and my mind and build some confidence again. It gave me a place to "be" in more than one sense of the word.

Denied him financial assistance when he asked for it. His overextended finances are not my problem.

Lived frugally but not miserly. I have no debt and my vagabond life has allowed me to actually save money.

And finally, the things I've done or not done that I'm proud of, even though they may seem insignificant.

I have done nothing I can't hold my head up about. I have cheated no one and/or on no one, lied to no one, been more courageous than I ever thought I was capable of, and feel pretty steady on my feet.

I have been productive even if not for money, as he rudely pointed out. I have volunteered nine months out of the last twelve, for more than 1100 hours, and I wasn't just twiddling my thumbs.

I have traveled about 14000 miles since I left my house, through 18 states, and have visited 30 national parks, if I've counted right.

I have pulled a 31' trailer with a 6-speed manual transmission pickup (I sold the van last year when I picked up a hitchhiker) through Kansas City mid-day construction, through Houston, the highway to the Florida Keys, up mountains, and across deserts, shifting about 7000 times.

I have snorkeled in the Caribbean, camped in the desert, and hiked hundreds of miles. At the end of long days I've parked the rig in the woods, along the road, in too-expensive campgrounds, in casino and church lots, and at Walmart.

I overcame the catatonia-producing terror of the early days through sheer grit and pride.

I have stopped every-damn-where I wanted and never had to explain, rationalize, or apologize.

I have allowed myself to love and be loved by someone who will never cheat on me, never cause me to have to edit what I say or do; someone who supports, encourages, and pushes me out the door to do the things I want and need and have to do; someone who challenges my brain like I've never been challenged; someone who delights in being with and doing things - anything - with me; someone who loves the woman who was buried for a long, long time.

The ex-husband doesn't have a lock on finding that one someone after looking for 40 years; I just had the grace to wait until I wasn't married anymore. My hitchhiker, my fascinating, loving, thoughtful, gentle, and kind hitchhiker was the bounty on the other side of the barren land that was last year. My life has been changed to wonderful.

Thought of the day:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession

P.S. Among the flow of lies from the ex-husband's mouth were two inadvertent, glimmering diamonds of truth. One, that he is a bad person. Two, that I deserve to have the kind of life he couldn't give me. Yes. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Can I hear an Amen!