House on Fire, UT

House on Fire, Mule Canyon, UT

Today I paid my $2.00 for a permit to hike Mule Canyon.  It is an easy hike of about 1 1/4 miles to the first ruin which is called House on Fire.  As you can see in the above photo, the name fits!  You do have to catch it under the correct lighting conditions.  Since I didn't know how difficult a hike it would be I left early and reached the site at around 9:00AM.  At that time the colors were not impressive:

House on Fire at 9:00AM

I took a few photos then continued up the canyon to the next ruin.  There are a number of them over the 6 mile length of Mule Canyon, but I stopped after the second at about 2.4 miles in.  I returned to House on Fire at a good time.  The sun reflects of the nearby canyon walls & lights the rocks above the ruin.  Later in the day the sun hits the cliff directly, and washes out the effect.  10:30AM is a pretty good time to shoot.

I also shot some photos along the canyon as well as the second ruin.  I'll post them to LakeshoreImages once 1&1 gets my website fixed.  I called them again today & the answer is "We have our highest level working on the problem." With the site down for 5 days, I am beginning to wonder how high that level actually is.

After the canyon I was wiped - not that much of a climb, but it is in full sun, in the high 80's, and very dry.  I drank a liter of water on the hike & was still thirsty when I got back to the car.  Came back to the campground, did laundry, and did nothing for the rest of the day.  

Tomorrow I'm heading to Moab for a couple of days.

Till then - 

Blanding, UT

Monument Valley Under the Stars

Wednesday, May 30 - Blanding, UT- 128 Miles Today, 4682.5 For the Trip

Still no LakeshoreImages website so I may start adding more photos here.  I did get up to the Monument Valley Overlook/Parking Lot a little after dusk.  I took a series of photos, most at ISO 1600, f:2.8 & 8 to 15 seconds.  There was enough moonlight to show the formations, yet allowed enough of the stars to show to make it interesting.  It would have been better if there was a power blackout - the parking lot has lots of lights.  There are a few images with lights from returning cars, and airplanes, but overall it worked OK.

I washed the trailer & RAV4 on the way out of Gouldings Camp Park.  The water spray didn't remove everything; the bugs need an actual scrubbing, but at least the first layer of red dust is gone.

It was a short drive to Blanding, UT & the Blue Mountain RV Park.  I'm in site 8, a shaded back in that just fits the trailer & RAV4. After setting up I plan to drive out to the location for the trail to House on Fire.  It is too late in the day to properly photograph it - I'll do that tomorrow.

I did drive out to the trail head, and also stopped at the "Official" Mule Canyon Ruin Exhibit, about 1/2 mile west of Arch Canyon road, the entrance to the trail head. Laurent Martres, who's 3 books "Photographing the Southwest" have been my guide to many locations feels that the exhibit was built to keep down traffic in the canyon.  I'll have to agree with him - it is far to new looking to be realistic.

Mule Canyon Ruin Exhibit

Mule Canyon Ruin Exhibit

After that it was back to the campground by way of the local grocery store & some barbecued chicken for dinner.

Until Tomorrow -

Valley of the Gods and More

Mexican Hat, UT

Tuesday, May 29 - Monument Valley, AZ, Day 2 - 172.5 Miles Today, 4554.5 For the Trip

Alright, I'm now getting annoyed with 1&1, my web site host. They still don't have a fix for why my pages don't work. Even links on oother sites to photographs on my site are getting the "not authorized" or must log on message. Seems like they should be able do something in 2 days.

As to today, I drove down to Kayenta so I could take a few photos of Agathla Peak along US 163, and pick up a few supplies. After that it was north to Gooseneck State Park on UT 316, then to the Valley of the Gods, a 16 mile gravel road that goes between UT 261 & US 163. It is a pretty drive with many formations. Not as striking or familiar as Monument Valley, but a much better road & no where near as crowded.

Alas, it was another boring sky day with the sun often in the wrong position so I'm not all that impressed with most of the images, but that doesn't matter, because you can't see them at LakeshoreImages!


Back at the trailer I made a pizza for dinner - chicken, onions, mushrooms & peppers! I've got the toaster oven down pat now - the pizza came out perfect. I'm going to relax until dark, then drive up to the valley to see if there is the right combination of starlight & moonlight to take some photos.

Until tomorrow (or when ever 1&1 gets things working again, at least for lakeshoreImages)...

Monument Valley, AZ

Monument Valley, AZ

I started out the day talking with 1&1 about why no one, including me can access my web pages.  They told me the same thing they did last night - they are working on it. Oh well, at least the Blogger page works!

I drove US 160 to CO 41 which turns into UT 162 into Bluff, UT, then south on US 163 to Monument Valley.  I'm staying two days at Gouldings, Site 26 to explore the area, then plan to move north to Blanding, UT for a couple of days. After setting up I tried the web page again, same result.  This time I tried sending an email trouble request.  I'm not sure why it is taking so long to fix it since the last time this happened about two weeks ago they fixed it in an hour.  Maybe it wasn't really fixed?  Anyhow, this is all you get.  I'll write the LakeshoreImages pages, but won't try to post them until I find out what the problem is.

I drove the Monument Valley road for about 5 miles - is is in even worse shape than last year.  I think they avoid doing much maintenance on the road so people will take the tours rather than drive their cars, although I saw lots of low clearance, standard cars on the road.   Probably rentals! In any case, the RAV4 did fine, although it is now caked with red dust.  I'm not at all happy with the photographs - nice color with the setting sun, but I'd really like to have a storm, or at least a cloud or two - the plain blue sky isn't all that attractive, and it is what I had last year.  Oh well...

I'm again having problems with the refrigerator.  Boy, I wish I had stuck with the smaller refrigerator - maybe it wouldn't have given me as much grief.  This time the electric heater stopped working.  I haven't checked to see if it is burned out or the electronics are messed up.  I did make sure the breaker was on & it was plugged in, but I have to take the top grill off to actually check that there is AC at the plug. It runs fine on gas, but most of the frozen stuff got warmer than I'd like before I discovered the problem.

So, until next time!

Mesa Verde National Park, Day 2

Shiprock, NM

Sunday, May 27 - Day 2 at Mesa Verde National Park, CO - Miles Today, 4085.5 For the Trip

Well, for those concerned, I did manage to grill a hamburger & steam some green beans for dinner. It was still windy, but not enough to blow the grill off the table. I also found I can get both a Verizon & an AT&T signal here at the campsite, although both are fairly weak & slow, even with the exterior antenna & amplifier. The campground WiFi is satellite, which doesn't work all that well with Dreamweaver. In any case, I got the pages uploaded & went back to the trailer to make dinner. Met a couple & their cute baby in a truck camper in the next site that had also driven up from Arizona - they really didn't like the wind & dust!

As I expected, there was no need for the air conditioner yesterday or today. In fact, last night I dug out the electric blanket & electric space heater. That was after it hit 37°F at 9:00PM. At 4:00AM it was 27°F. I may be a wimp, but that heat felt wonderful!

It warmed up to the low 60's fairly quickly. I headed out for my 10:30 tour of the Long House, and stopped for a bit at Park Point Overlook, the highest part of the park (8572') . Took a panorama, but didn't include it. I did include one image of part of the view & one of the fire lookout tower as well as many other photos of many stops throughout Mesa Verde in  today's LakeshoreImages Page. Unfortunately, until I can get 1&1 to fix my pages, you probably won't be able to look at them.  For some reason, all the pages are requiring a password.

After that I finished the drive to the tour. We had the greatest tour guide I've ever had on a National Park tour - Ranger Paula Wolfe should get some kind of award for her tours. After touring the Long House I made short stops at a couple of other sites Wetherill Mesa area, then shot the Kodak House from the overlook.

I wanted to revisit the Spruce Tree House, the self guided tour that we took on our last visit in 1996. Being Memorial Day weekend, it was much busier than the last time but I took a few photos. I also stopped at the overlook for Cliff Palace & the hike to the overlook for Balcony House.

After the trip to the Mesa Top Loop I stopped back at the trailer to add the photos to the computer, then headed to Shiprock to take a photo. Shiprock is a wonderful structure, however the weather did not cooperate. No dramatic clouds, no color to the sunset, and a haze probably caused by the numerous wildfires in the area. So, nothing special, but one of them is today's photo.


I stopped at the Shiprock McDonalds to upload the images, but it was so slow I gave up. I had better luck at the McDonalds in Cortez. After that it was back to the campground to put the actual pages together. The pages are being loaded here in the campground over the slow Verizon connection, but since the images are much larger than the pages I need a fast connection for them.

Till tomorrow -