Goodbye to all that?

27 September 2018, Dillon (Colorado) to Denver airport (Colorado): 106 miles

Tucking in

We’re flying out at 7.30pm this evening, so we decide to treat ourselves to a cooked breakfast at a little diner close to our accommodation. Not for the first time on this trip, I succumb to the temptation of biscuits and gravy. To most British ears this must sound like a dubious pleasure, and quite possibly no pleasure at all (on this point, have a look at this brilliant YouTube video of our fellow Brits getting their culinary knickers in a twist.) In my opinion however, biscuits and gravy really are rather good. The biscuits are thick, white and soft – like a savoury scone – and the gravy is a salty white sauce flavoured with pork sausage and black pepper. OK, it’s not cordon bleu, but for God’s sake we Brits invented Marmite and deep-fried Mars Bars so we’ve bugger-all to be smug about, have we?

Anyway, I’m tucking into my biscuits and gravy, a trickle of white sauce dribbling down my chin, and Mrs P is busily wrapping herself around several rashers of crispy bacon when, totally unexpectedly, a hummingbird appears outside the window. For the last three weeks we’ve been on the lookout for these magical little birds, and on our last day one turns up. Amazing.

Broad-tailed hummingbird.  Photo credit: By Kati Fleming [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons

Sporting an iridescent green back and pale belly it’s probably a Broad-tailed Hummingbird, and weighs around four grams – similar to a British 1p coin. As we watch this tiny bird is flitting frantically between flowers in a planter next to the diner, tucking in like there’s no tomorrow, and who can blame him? He’s desperate to stock up on nectar, as any day now he’ll have to set out in his epic annual migration to Mexico.

Footsteps from the past

The plan is that on our way back to the airport we’ll call in at Dinosaur Ridge. This area is one of the world’s most famous dinosaur fossil localities where, in 1877, Oxford University-educated British emigrant Arthur Lakes found remnants of dinosaurs later known as stegosaurus, apatosaurus, diplodocus, and allosaurus. As a result, Dinosaur Ridge was to become one on the most important nineteenth century sites for dinosaur science in America. Half a century later some impressive footprints were found in the same area, and they remain some of the most easily recognisable signs that dinosaurs once walked the earth around these parts. Mrs P and I are not totally unfamiliar with dinosaur footprints – indeed many years ago in Utah I nearly broke an ankle by tripping up in a monstrous brontosaurus footprint – and we’re looking forward to seeing a few more.

We take a guided tour led by someone who really knows his stuff. Although there are a couple of people with us who are also familiar with the basics of dinosaurs and geology, some of the others are seriously, woefully ignorant. Rinker Buck, who wrote the book on the Oregon Trail that’s referred to earlier in this blog, says “Americans on summer vacation … are idiots, and haven’t read anything in years. Their every cranial neuron has been completely erased by watching Fox News.” Of course in many parts of the USA it’s illegal to teach kids about evolution, so maybe it’s expecting too much that the Americans in our party will be able to get their heads around stuff that happened tens of millions of years ago, and processes that took millions of years to complete. Whatever, at least the guys in our little group are trying … my God are they trying.

A confusion of iguanodon footprints

The fossil tracks themselves are pretty good. There are a number of footprints of iguanodon, a duck-billed plant-eating dinosaur that could walk either on its two hind legs or all four. They date from around 100 million years ago, when the animals were migrating along the shore of an ancient inland sea. The tracks have been shaded slightly to make them easier to see from a distance, but even without this the distinctive three-toed indentations in the rock would be easily visible. Intriguingly there are some smaller tracks running alongside one of the lines of larger footprints – this is thought to be the fossil record of a young iguanodon walking alongside its mother. There are also tracks of a much smaller, meat-eating dinosaur, reckoned to be about the size of an ostrich and therefore no threat to the iguanadons, adults of which were over 40 feet long and weighed more than three tons.

Early 20th century (slightly inaccurate) illustration of an iguanodon.  Image credit: By Heinrich Harder (1858-1935) (The Wonderful Paleo Art of Heinrich Harder) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Even more fascinating, in some respects, are the ‘dinosaur bulges’. These are a side view of depressions in the land’s surface made by the weight of the dinosaur’s foot. As the animal walked across soft sand, its weight depressed the soil, creating a bulging hole in the underlying layers. Sand then filled into the depression forming a new layer, which has become the fossil. When it’s explained it all makes perfect sense, but the guide tells us that it took decades before some bright spark worked out the exact sequence of events that created the bulges. The dinosaur in question was a big bugger – even by dinosaur standards – quite possibly a brontosaurus or one of his cousins. It could have been up to 90 feet long and 40 tons in weight.

Dinosaur ‘bulge’ forced into underlying strata

Other interesting features from the site include fossilised ripple marks from an ancient beach, isolated dinosaur bones including those of a stegosaurus, and the tracks of a prehistoric crocodile estimated to be about 40 feet long, which is twice the size of any croc alive today.

This could be the last time …

Dinosaur Ridge has been a fascinating place to end our trip, but now we have to get to the airport for this evening’s flight. We reflect on an outstanding trip: we’ve had brilliant weather, hot, dry and sunny. The wildlife watching has been superb, including brilliant views of grizzly bears, our first ever sightings of wolves and Californian condors, and more bison and pronghorn than you can shake a stick at. The scenery has been as majestic as always, and the geothermal landscapes have been spectacular. And there have been some special treats, including the Oregon ruts, a heritage railway and today’s dinosaur footprints. A great time has been had by all.

But at times it’s been tough too. We’ve been on more than a dozen road trips to the USA in the last 25 years, driving well over 50,000 miles, but this one feels the most demanding of them all, more traffic than ever, the rules of the road consistently baffling, the roadworks apparently endless, the signage more bizarre than any sane man can cope with.

A few days ago we were listening to Hippie Radio FM (no, I’m not making it up) when the Stones came on, Mick Jagger belting out The Last Time:

“Well this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I don’t know, oh no, oh no.”

Farewell and God-speed.  Photo credit: By Milojacks [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons

And it made us think. The time will come when we have to call it a day, to give up on driving the States, and to take things a bit easier, to confine our travels to places a lot nearer to home where they drive on the right (by which I mean the left) side of the road. On this trip we’ve driven 4,432 miles across seven States in 23 days, and I know in my heart I can’t do anything quite so ambitious again. Time catches up with everyone, I guess, even the Platypus Man.

As we reach the outskirts of Denver airport, we spot in the grass to our right the unmistakable humps and bumps of a prairie dog town. Several prairie dogs are sitting on their mounds, watching the world go by. Then one of them spots us. In a gesture typical of the species he rocks on to his back legs, throws his arms high in the air and his head far back, and utters a call that we can’t quite make out above the noise of the engine. It feels like a final salute: so long, he says, thanks for visiting us in our homeland, for coming here to get to know us all, for marvelling at our lives, and for appreciating our funny little ways. Farewell and God-speed.

Where the wild things are

The flight is OK, as flights go. Our broken suitcase has survived the trip, so we are spared the indignity of retrieving from the conveyor belt any spilled underwear and bars of soap we’ve liberated from our hotels along the way. We pick up the car from Long Stay and head for the M25.

Plenty of jams, but no bison.  Photo credit: Gerald England / Westbound Traffic Jam via Wikimedia Commons

The drive home is the worst ever. It should take no more than three hours, but it ends up being double that thanks to the combined impact of accidents, the weight of Friday afternoon traffic heading north out of London, and road ‘improvements’. Although we’re pleased to spot a couple of Red Kites flying over the M25, they are the only wildlife to be seen. Six hours at the wheel, and almost nothing worth seeing in all that time … oh, we’re so pleased to be back in the crazily crowded, monstrously polluted, concrete and asphalt jungle that we call home. Don’t you just love it?

I can’t bear the thought of never again getting up close and personal with the wildlife of north America. So I’m thinking, surely, if we plan it right and don’t over-stretch ourselves, we can manage just one more trip to Yellowstone, our spiritual home, our favourite place anywhere on the planet other than Orkney. Yellowstone, after all, is our sort of place, the place where the wild things are.

Grizzly Bear photographed by Mrs P, 13 September 2018, in Yellowstone National Park … where the wild things are

The last leg

26 September 2018, Antonito (Colorado) to Dillon (Colorado): 249 miles

Lenny and Peanut

Lennie (l) and Peanut (r)

Today is the last leg of our trip, before we head back to Denver airport tomorrow for the flight back to Heathrow. We begin with a leisurely breakfast at the Indiana Jones B&B. This is the first B&B we’ve stayed in on this holiday, and it adds a new dimension to the experience. When the host is friendly and wants to talk, B&Bs can be a great way of getting to know the locals a bit better. This one’s no exception. We chat amiably with Sabra about films and books, and the best way to cook bacon. We learn about the weather here in winter (pretty horrendous) and the community spirit in a small, fairly poor settlement where the majority of the population have Hispanic or Native American roots. It’s also a chance for me to get up close and personal with the B&B’s two dogs.

Lenny and Peanut are big and friendly, and want nothing more than to have their ears rubbed and to be given the leftovers from breakfast. To be honest, the breakfast’s very good and there wouldn’t normally be any leftovers, but how can I resist those big, brown, doleful eyes staring at me so intently? So I save them some French toast and Mrs P does the same. Lenny and Peanut are in heaven, and so am I.

• A ‘lovely couple from England’

Back on the road again

Cano’s Castle, Antonito

Eventually I tear myself away from my new best friends, and we head off down the road to Cano’s Castle. The USA has its fair share of oddballs. Some of them even run for President, but others use their time more effectively by building castles out of scrap metal. Cano’s Castle is decorated with scrap metal such as beer cans, wire, hub-caps, grills and old bits of bicycle. It was built single-handedly by Donald Espinoza, a Native American veteran of the Vietnam War. His work is obviously quirky, but good fun and entirely harmless; sadly this is not true of every American oddball. But that, as they say, is another story.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Conejos

Just a mile down the road from Antonito is the historic Catholic Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Conejos. Built in 1858, it’s Colorado’s oldest church. The interior is attractive, with pews made from a pale-coloured wood and unusual stained glass windows. The exterior is said to have inspired the design of elements of Cano’s Castle.

We drive on to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, which we spotted in the far distance from the train yesterday. Due to a particular coincidence of topography and climate, this area hosts the tallest sand dunes in America. They cover an area of around 30 square miles, but as our car doesn’t have four-wheel drive we have to admire them from a safe distance, which is fine by me. They are certainly an impressive sight, with the tallest of the dunes being around 750 feet high. Some brave souls decide to climb them, and from where we watch they are just tiny specks against the vastness of the sand.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Conejos

Just outside the National Park we stop at the San Luis Wildlife Management Area. The centre point of the Area is a shallow lake. There isn’t much standing water around here, so it attracts wildlife. There are hundreds of ducks out in the water, and loads of waders on the shoreline. We also spot a couple of coyotes working their way around the lake. Just like us, they need their lunch.

The Great Sand Dunes

Colorado tends to be associated with mountains, but a lot of the state is a flat plain – albeit at around 8,000 feet high, lying between mountain ranges. As we leave the National Park we drive out through just such a sagebrush plain, and can see Blanco Peak towering above us at around 14,000 feet high. The road we take through the plain is completely straight – I don’t think there is a single kink in the road for at least 30 miles. The arid plain just goes on and on, and even the sight of a few pronghorn in the distance can’t hide the fact that monotony rules, OK.

Coyote, San Luis Wildlife Management Area

Finally we start climbing through the mountains, and achieve the highest elevation of our entire holiday – a little over 11,000 feet – before finally arriving at our destination of Dillon.

Things fall apart

Check-in at the hotel goes smoothly, but 30 minutes later I find myself locked out. We’re staying in an annex, Building D, some 100 yards or more from reception in the main building. They’re obviously concerned about security here, and the door to the annex has swipe-card access. Very sensible, of course, always assuming the bloody door opens.

I pop down to the car park to retrieve something we’ve forgotten, and when I return to main door I find my swipe card doesn’t release the lock. I try two or three times but still no luck, and then resort to the tactics that any sane Englishman would use, and start hammering on the door and yelling. But the door doesn’t give, and there’s nobody around to hear my hollering or witness my anguish. Our room is on the second floor at the front of the building, so I go round and see if, by some miracle, Mrs P is peering out. She isn’t.

I return to the door and give it another damned good thrashing. It doesn’t open, but at least I feel better. At last a young guy appears on the other side and lets me in. He’s also experienced problems with the door, and has already reported it to reception. I go up to our room, where the swipe card works fine, so it must be the locking mechanism on the main door rather than the card that is faulty.

A bit later we go out for dinner. As we exit the building I try the lock again to see if it’s been fixed yet, leaving Mrs P inside, just in case. Good job I did, as the door handle comes off in my hand, and part of the mechanism crashes to the floor. We pick up the bits and take them round to the reception desk.

“I think somebody’s reported the problem with the door to Building D?”, I say brusquely.

“Yes,” she replies “a man’s on his way to fix it right now.”

“Well I expect he’ll be needing this,” I say, dropping the handle and locking mechanism on to the desk in front of her. At least she has the decency to look just a bit embarrassed.

By the time we get back from dinner the door the Building D is propped open, with no sign of the handle or locking mechanism. It looks like we’ll be a bit short on security tonight, but at least if I have to nip out to the car again there’s no danger that I’ll need to spend the night sleeping in it.

Maybe this is just a minor irritation at the end of a busy day. But, on the other hand, perhaps it’s a metaphor with a much darker meaning. Just like the Platypus Man, this hotel’s beginning to show its age, bits of it failing to work properly and even dropping off altogether. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes …

Drivers of the purple sage

24 September 2018, Jacob Lake (Arizona) to Antonito (Colorado): 464 miles

Vermillion cliffs and California condors

Today we face the longest drive of our trip, a wearisome 450+ miles eastward trek to Antonito, Colorado. As we drive away from Jacob Lake three mule deer emerge from the woodland to bid us farewell, waggling their ears at us in a final salute.

We join the Vermillion Cliffs road, which runs parallel to the spectacular red escarpment. The road drops around 4,000 feet in 40 minutes, towering red cliffs to the left and endless sagebrush plains to the right.

Vermillion Cliffs, Arizona

We park up at the Navajo Bridge, which spans the Colorado. In fact there are two bridges, the original (opened in 1929) and its replacement, which was dedicated in 1995. Between them these two bridges, one historic and one new, represent one of only seven crossings of the Colorado for 750 miles.

Navajo Bridges: historic (l) and new (r)

The historic bridge is now a footbridge affording excellent views of the new crossing, and sitting on one of the massive steel struts that underpin it is an amazing sight: a California condor. With a wingspan reaching 10 feet, the California condor is the largest flying bird in North America. They were on the verge of extinction in the late 20th century, but a captive breeding programme has saved them. The bird we’ve seen bears the identification tag L3 on its wing, and when I look it up I find that the bird is a female that was born in captivity in 2011 and released the following year. She’s one of the best wildlife sightings we’ve had all holiday.

California condor on new Navajo Bridge

The Navajo and Jacarilla Apache reservations

As we leave the Navajo Bridge we cross into the Navajo reservation, which we’ll be driving through for several hours. It’s huge but sparsely populated – at 27,413 square miles it’s more than three times the size of Wales, but in 2016 had a population of just 356,890, compared with 3,170,000 people in the ‘land of my fathers’.

The vegetation in the reservation is as sparse as the population, mainly sagebrush struggling to survive in this Arizona furnace. The monotony is broken by the occasional rock formations erupting from the plains, improbable spires and pinnacles and tables and towers, which bring to mind the cowboy films of my youth. The land is fenced for stock, but we see very little, just occasional steers, a few scrawny ponies and one small flockette of sheep, all eking out an existence on the parched plains.

Entering the vast Navajo reservation

Shortly after we join Arizona Highway 98 a vehicle overtakes me at speed. I glance in my rear view mirror and spot a gleaming white State Trooper patrol car steaming up behind me, red and blue lights flashing angrily. My heart’s pounding, I’ve done nothing wrong but that doesn’t necessarily count for much around here. But the Arizona State Trooper whizzes past me and pulls over the driver in front. I drive on, unclenching my buttocks, watching the speedometer like a hawk as my heart-rate slowly returns to normal.

We cross into New Mexico: different state, same old landscape, same old sagebrush. We’re still on the Navajo reservation, and soon we see Shiprock rising up from the flat, dusty, New Mexico desert. The rock was sacred to the Navajo people, who called it the “Tsé Bitʼaʼí”, or “the rock with wings”. According to legend, it’s all that remains of the giant bird that carried the Navajo from the north to New Mexico.

Shiprock, New Mexico

Eventually we emerge from the Navajo reservation, and briefly we’re in a town, but pretty soon we’re back in the desert, with only the sagebrush for company. It’s a plant that’s perfectly adapted for this environment. It has a deep taproot 1–4 yards in length. This, coupled with roots spreading from side to side nearer the surface, allows sagebrush to gather water from both rainfall and the water table several meters beneath. It adds a dull, purplish tinge to the landscape.

We cross into the Jicarilla Apache reservation.  It’s pretty small (1,364 square miles), about the size of Cornwall and in 2000 had a population of just 2,755.  Wikipedia tells us the reservation is unusual in that

“all land on the reservation is held by the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, one of only two reservations in the United States where land is not owned by individuals but by the tribal nation as a whole.”

Sadly, in another respect, there’s nothing unusual about the Jicarilla Apache Reservation. Quoting from the Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country: Economic Profiles of American Reservations, 2005 edition Wikipedia observes

“the cost of food at local grocery stores is higher than found near larger U.S. cities … High unemployment and poverty level income rates have resulted in high crime rates, greatly contributed by a high incidence of [alcohol] abuse.”

There’s almost nobody around as we drive through the reservation, but an unusual rock pinnacle briefly captures our attention.

Rock formation in the Jacarilla Apache reservation, New Mexico

At last we turn north into Colorado. We briefly lose the sagebrush as we climb to a mountain pass at around 10,000ft, but as we drop towards our destination of Antonito it’s back. It’s been with us for ten hours and 464 miles; today we’ve been the drivers of the purple sage, and God are we sick of it.

Loads of salt, not a lot of lake

21 September 2018, Antelope Island State Park (Utah): 62 miles

All creatures great and small

Causeway to Antelope Island, viewed from the island

We spend the day at Antelope Island, close to where we stayed in the northern outskirts of Salt Lake City. Antelope Island does just what it says on the tin: it’s an island (on the Great Salt Lake, connected to ‘mainland’ Utah by a causeway), and it has plenty of pronghorn ‘antelope’. We get good views of a group of six pronghorn, a group of five females, and one male who is doing his best to keep the ladies under control. A couple of times we see him chase after one of his women, who is apparently considered to be a flight risk. It’s evidently a hard life being a male pronghorn, but doubtless he’ll get his reward in due course.

Male pronghorn, about to round up his ladies

We also spot a single Mule deer as we drive around the island, but much more common are the bison. This is a conservation herd, established in 1893 when the species was on the brink of extinction. Although the bison can roam freely across Antelope Island, the whole of which is a State Park, the herd is actively managed for conservation purposes. New animals are introduced from off the island from time to time to increase genetic diversity, while excess animals are moved on when necessary. We see several small groups of a dozen or two bison each as we drive around, but in contrast to the situation at Yellowstone there is thankfully no evidence of them causing traffic chaos.

Bison herd on the shores of Antelope Island

The State Park is justly proud of its bison herd, and at some point has commissioned the creation of several sculptures to celebrate it. This is the one we like the best. The sculptor has obviously had lots of fun with it, making several cut-outs in his body in the shape of bison. In the photo, behind the sculpture, it’s possible to see part of the Great Salt Lake, beyond which is ‘mainland’ Utah.

Bison sculpture, Antelope Island

The area of Great Salt Lake around Antelope Island is an important staging post for birds on migration. They call in to refuel before continuing their journey north or south, feasting on the brine shrimps and other invertebrates that live in abundance in the lake’s salty water. What birds you see depends on exactly when you visit. We are lucky enough to see huge numbers of American Avocet. In the photograph, note the upwards curving bill which the birds sweep rhythmically from side to side in the water to catch their prey.

American Avocets

Of course the wildlife in Antelope Island State Park comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s easy to overlook the smaller critters, but one dragonfly seems anxious to have his photo taken, continually returning to the same spot next to our car and posing on a dead plant. Mrs P is only too pleased to oblige him

Dragonfly, Antelope Island

Water, water everywhere?

We’ve visited Antelope Island before, at almost exactly the same time of year in 2013. Today we are shocked to see how much less water there is in the Great Salt Lake now compared with our earlier visit, and how much bigger the salt flats are. There are two major factors influencing the amount of water in the lake, precipitation and extraction. It’s safe to say that man is having a negative impact on both, and is therefore significantly contributing to the falling levels of water in the lake.

Shrinking lake, growing expanse of salt.  View from the Island

It’s been an exceptionally dry year in this part of the USA, and insofar as this is due to the emission of greenhouse gases rather than to natural variations in rainfall patterns, then man must take the blame. Climate change deniers are alive and well in the USA, and there is little if any commitment at the highest level to tackle this issue. This is not encouraging for the future of the Great Salt Lake.

More worrying still is the huge quantity of water extracted from the rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake. Salt Lake City is built in a desert, but you’d never know it. Damming rivers to provide water for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes has made Salt Lake City and the surrounding area what it is today, and it’s impossible to envisage a situation where politicians say that this is a bad idea and we must stop it, or do less of it.

Shrinking lake, growing expanse of salt. View from the Island

Rainfall patterns are changing and precipitation in this part of the continent appears to be falling, yet the demand for water is insatiable. On this basis the Great Salt Lake may in the longer term be doomed as a permanent expanse of water. If that happens, the future for the avocets and countless other birds that refuel there on migration looks bleak indeed.

National Museum of Wildlife Art

Life-size bison on the sculpture trail.  Behind them, across the road, is the National Elk Refuge

While we enjoy a good museum every now and then, they’re not normally high on our list of must-visit attractions in the USA. However, we’re pleased to make an exception for the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which is truly exceptional.

Sculpture Trail: Bald Eagle

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, isn’t an obvious location for a major gallery, but for an art museum focussing on images of wildlife it’s an inspired choice. The original museum opened in 1987, and moved to its present, purpose-built premises, on the outskirts of the town in 1994.  It overlooks the National Elk Refuge, where wapiti from Grand Tetons National Park spend the winter months.

The stated Mission of the National Museum of Wildlife Art is:

“To collect, display, interpret, and preserve the highest quality North American wildlife art, supplemented by wildlife art found throughout the world. The Museum enriches and inspires appreciation and knowledge of humanity’s relationship with nature.”

Sculpture Trail: Sleeping Bear

Its Vision reads:

“As the premier museum of wildlife art, the National Museum of Wildlife Art is the significant resource for organizations and individuals interested in the connection between art and wildlife.”

Sculpture Trail: ‘The Emperor’

Sculpture Trail: ‘Isis‘

It should go without saying that this place, with its unique – in my experience, anyway – combination of culture and wildlife, is right up our alley. In particular, we fall in love with the outdoor sculpture trail. There are some fabulous pieces here, including representations of many of the animals and birds we’ve seen on this trip, all displayed in a breath-taking setting.

They can’t stop you taking photos of the sculptures on the trail, but amazingly neither does the Museum mind if visitors take pictures of the sculptures and paintings on display inside. Well done to them for this enlightened attitude.

Our favourite image from the Museum is Canadian artist Robert Bateman’s 1997 acrylic-on-canvas depiction of a bison. ‘Chief’ brilliantly captures the dignity of a magnificent animal that was one of the stars of our trip to Yellowstone. Love it, love it, love it.

‘Chief’ by Robert Bateman

I don’t know if we’ll ever pass this way again, but if we do we’ll definitely make a return trip to the splendid National Museum of Wildlife Art.

‘Silent Pursuit’

Sculpture Trail: Monumental Barn Owl