Ready for School?

Not me. Not yet, anyway. The week before students arrive is almost too exciting, but it still seems far away, even though it's already August. Right now I am really enjoying getting ready for the new school year. Rebecca and I have been reading books and meeting to talk about them and our plans. Next week I'll be attending the Algebra Institute, learning from Cathy Fosnot and Maarten Dolk. The following week I'll be at Teachers College in New York, learning from Lucy Calkins. It's wonderful to know that my brain will be bursting when I next see you.

Home again

I spent the last days of the trip in pursuit of petroglyphs, and mostly finding them. I was horrified to see the vandalism done to some of the ones around Moab. Another reason for people to be closemouthed or vague about the locations. Fremont and Barrier Canyon figures danced in my head pretty much the whole drive back; they are that haunting. Loathe to leave the Colorado, I followed it while it kept company with I-70. Back in Chicago, I spent the morning having the oil changed and the new rattle checked in my old Honda. Laundry and other chores await. Yesterday I dropped off a large box of rock samples at Ancona. Next week I'll spend the afternoons cataloging rocks and photos from the trip. I'll upload photos into the appropriate points in the blog after the weekend, but the main use of the photos will be to illustrate my geology website. I'll have that finished sometime next month and post the link here and on the classroom site when I do. I'm thinking about whether or not I will suspend the blog now that the trip is over. When I was in middle school, my mother gave up teaching art to university students and opened an art gallery. I asked her why she stopped teaching, and she said that she had run out of things to say about art. Knowing my mother, this seemed implausible, yet sensible if true. I hope that I can follow her example and know when to stop adding to planetary noise.

Courthouse Wash petroglyphs in Arches National Park

Watch(ing) the river flow

The view from my campsite along the Colorado River, which is muddier than Lake Michigan, but no warmer.

In Moab for espresso and Internet, the Dylan song playing in the cafe is spot on. I'm camping beside the Colorado, just outside of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Glimpses of both were amazing yesterday. Sunset turned the red rocks gold, then the Milky Way spilled out and the river lulled me to sleep. I'll be hiking and looking at petroglyphs until it's time for the drive back to Chicago. I'll post at least once more when I get back to the city.

Balanced Rock at Arches National Park

Trilobites!

The end of my trip is coming fast. Today I made one last collecting attempt, but I was already pretty happy with the variety and amount of rocks that I had so far. Utah has a lot of agate and jasper, and I am bringing back some of it for the students. You can collect hundreds of pounds of most rocks on BLM land without a license, except for those places where someone else has a mineral claim. Where there are valuable or good quality samples, people will often pay the government for the mineral rights for a period of time. I went today to U-Dig Fossils, which has had a claim outside Delta for years. I found a few interesting things in my time there (segmented worm!) but Bevan Hardy there sent me home with a trilobite for each student in the third and fourth grade!

I spent yesterday and the previous day on beautiful UT 12 and 24. On Wednesday I saw bristlecones and hoodoos in Bryce but slept in Kodakchrome Basin among the bizarre rock formations. A Western Scrub Jay came over to my picnic table and stole some leftover noodles while I was just a few feet away.

Bryce Amphitheater is on my list of places to come back to hike.

Western Scrub Jay with noodle

Kodachrome Basin really was named in honor of the film.

Cryptobiotic soil was everywhere, along with the no-see-ums, who seemed to love the juniper trees as much as I do. Further down the road I stopped at Capitol Reef, which has days of trails. Instead of staying, I spent the night in Goblin Valley State Park. The ranger there directed me to a cave above the goblins from which I watched the sun set. He was from Peoria, Illinois and considered me a neighbor.

If I watched more science fiction movies, I'm sure I'd recognize a lot of the formations as stand-ins for Mars and other faraway places.

Rockhounding on Kolob Terrace

Spent yesterday in and out of Zion NP, looking across the peaks which I strained to see from the bottom of the canyon yesterday. I collected several kinds of rocks, including one volcanic rock which was much harder than my pick. It was too hot to touch, so I bounced it across the road towards the car. It made a metallic clank- ironbearing?

I could tell when I was out of Zion by how the roads are maintained.

Last night I made camp at Point Supreme, in Cedar Breaks. On the way up I talked with some cyclists, who caught up with me on the mountain just before the sun set. Cold enough for my hat, fleece and gloves, and they provided lots of wood for a fire. Beautiful and aromatic cedars, an amazing amphitheater of hoodoos, and a bristlecone pine that's at least 1600 years old. Heading down from the ski town of Brian Head (free wifi!) to Bryce today.

The air here was sweet and clean.

If you look carefully, you can see the arch in the bottom left quadrant of the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, that's snow you're looking at.

Hiking the Narrows of the Virgin River

Yesterday I spent about seven hours walking the riverbed of the Virgin River. Because of the dangers of flash floods, this can only be done a few weeks of the year. It starts off on a crowded path in Zion, which has a south rim feel. With the crowds and amazing number of sunburned children, I was reminded that it was a holiday weekend. But looking up from the wide canyon at the red, white, pink and black sandstone cliffs that rose 2000 feet, I felt alone. After about three hours of hiking, sometimes in waisthigh water, the crowds had fallen away and the canyon walls had narrowed so that sunlight only penetrates a few hours of each day.

I used the stick to see how deep the water was and avoid twisting my ankle.

Even though the day was forecast to reach 104, I was glad of my longsleeved shirt as I waded through the sixty degree water. Walking against the current was tiring, but each bend was more beautiful than the next. The little river coursed noisily through the dark close walls of the canyon. Large boulders were nested in pockets of the wall overhead, and I had a sense of the power of this river during the spring. This was without doubt the most stunning day hike I've taken. Exhausted at the day's end, I fell into bed without eating dinner, calculating that I'd consumed over 1 1/2 gallons of water. Today I will increase my salt intake!

I was afraid I'd drown the camera, so I took too few pictures. Next time I'll bring a throwaway camera.

Wupatki, Sunset Crater and North rim

I camped night before last by a creek outside of Zion National Park. I know this, but I'm still constantly amazed to see the difference water makes to diversity. There were lots of tiny flying insects chasing one another, and iridescent turquoise damselflies and a couple of kinds of dragonflies chasing them. Down by the water there were fingernail-sized toads. Swallows, redwinged blackbirds, some mergansers chased about. Later a fairly large bat swooped efficiently as the stars came out. It was hard for me to sleep; there was a toad whose call sounded like a distressed child.

Annoying toad

Day before yesterday I walked some of the Grand Canyon's north rim, which I really prefer to the south rim. I am starting to 'get' the rock layers now, identifying them during the drive and checking myself later. It feels a little like the first time you dream in a foreign language.

Trying to hide from the sun on July 4th at the North Rim.

At Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument I looked from the cinder cones around Flagstaff to the Painted Desert. Wandering among the Sinagua ruins there I saw something described as a blowhole. It turned out to be a crack in the earth which pushed out midfifty degree air. Refreshing since the day was hot, even at that height. Cracks in Kaibab limestone no doubt exploited by water to create underground passages through which air moves as pressure changes. Ancients described it as the breath of the earth. Camping at nearby Jacob Lake was my favorite tent spot so far. Surprisingly, I had no trouble sleeping at 7300 feet. I was tired, and the wind in the pines lulled me right to sleep.

This Ancestral Puebloan site was built about 1050-1100 and included a ball court.

 

I loved the way some of these trees look like they are growing in asphalt.

You have to be tough to colonize a volcano.

Hopi Art and petrified wood

I spent the early morning hours looking for petrified wood. It surprised me that the pieces I found had been tumbled by an ancient river so that they were rounded and covered with calcium carbonate so that many were cemented together in chunks. At the bottom of steep hills the individual rocks had eroded out of the matrix. I collected enough samples for students to crack open this fall.

Silicated rock, but is there petrified wood here?

I spent the afternoon yesterday at the very fine Museum of Northern Arizona for the Hopi Festival. The permanent galleries were very well done, but my favorite exhibit was a retrospective of a contemporary Hopi artist. I'm going to a Hopi Festival back at the museum next, and then it's off to camp. I expect that the next time I post it will be from Utah.

Kiva by Michael Kabotie, Lomawywesa (Walking in Harmony)

Sedona

Since leaving the Acoma Pueblo I've been staying in Sedona, courtesy of a generous Ancona family. The lizards and plants are interesting, but the rocks are what I came to see. These late Pennsylvanian/early Permian rocks are at the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Lots of people come to see the beautiful red rocks, which are oxidized limestone and sandstone. I did a few solo hikes on the Red Rocks trails and spent a lot of time driving around the area. I especially liked swimming in Oak Creek with a view of the Cathedral. Amazing views just getting groceries. Best Sedona wildlife sighting: a pair of roadrunners with ten chicks atop Airport Mesa. Wednesday I drove my own family to Phoenix and saw them onto the plane for Chicago. Since then I've been doing more serious rockhounding, including collecting samples on BLM land. Yesterday I went to Montezuma's Castle (which has nothing to do with Montezuma.) This group of Sinagua cliff dwellings was located on a permanent creek. The creek allowed them to irrigate their fields for several hundred years. I had taken the name the Spanish gave to them at face value! No one knows why they left, though Hopi legends suggest that they moved to their pueblos. Time now to go prepare for more rockdigging tomorrow.

This twenty-room building is 900 years old!

Sky City

For me, the overwhelming theme of this trip has been gratitude. The kindnesses of so many people have made this trip possible in the first place, and daily my life is deeply enhanced. Yesterday Ancona grandparents Miriam and Robert welcomed my family into their lives. I am not going to be able to put into words right now the significance of the time spent with them. For now I'll just say that we were all deeply affected. I can say that they helped me to understand experientially, rather than intellectually, the importance of place. Walking on top of the Mesa at noon was hot until the first real rain of summer started to move in. We watched the storm clouds move across the open sky as we walked down the stone steps, pointing out lightning to one another. As we descended the steeper section, I put my hands in the holds carved in stone by someone who thought to make the way easier for those who would come after. The narrow path widened suddenly to show huge rosecolored boulders, and my heart opened like a flower. Comfortably quiet in Miriam's truck later, we saw a snake sliding across the wet road. A little later we were sliding down the road ourselves.

Albuquerque

I hope to eventually get to a computer and catch up, but for now I'll plunge in and attempt to text, which is a skill I'll have to acquire as I go along. Tonight old Chicago friends took me to dinner in Old Town. We ate in a building that was over three hundred years old. It was fantastic to see Wendy and Lawrence, and they showed me so many things that I wouldn't have seen, even in subsequent visits. I spent the afternoon at Petroglyph National Monument, where there are hundreds of petroglyphs visible from the trails. Petroglyphs are pictures carved into rocks. These are carved into the basalt boulders around which the trail winds. There are animals, people and geometric designs. The spiral designs reminded me very much of the petroglyphs I saw on the Big Island of Hawaii. There they marked the birth of a child and the place the umbilical cord was left. I do not know the meaning of the symbol for the people here. It is a haunting place, and amazing to drive minutes from there and find myself again in a city. Tomorrow I travel to Sky City, and then to Sedona.

Mothballing Room 210

Every June it's time to move again. We collect boxes from 57th St. Books and fill them with the contents of our classroom. We find sitters and move pets and plants to their summer quarters.  We are appalled at the amount of items on our desktops, virtual and actual, and restore both to pristine condition. After the checklist is completed, it's time to look around the ghostly room one last time. It's time to close the door on all that was, all that might have been, and head out to see what's next.