Zion National Park

As much as Bryce Canyon is about looking down into canyons, Zion is about looking up.  Up at shear walls of rocks created by the Virgin River working its artistic hand over million of years.

While there, we took two hikes to get up close and personal with the rocks.  These pictures were taken from the Riverwalk hike.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park is a scenic wonder.  It is amazing what the wind and rain can to to rocks over time.  The main feature of the park are rock formations called Hoodoos.  These are formations caused by a hard top layer of rock - usually dolomite or Navajo sandstone with red wyngate underneath.

The hoodoos look like tall very thin people generally with grey hair - the Navajo sandstone.  The 16 mile trip through the park is dotted with overlooks where you can look down on the strange and remarkable rocks.  Sometimes you wonder how the hoodoo remains standing.  A hoodoo does have a 'life' because when it looses it white top erosion will eventually cause it to crumble.

Capital Reef National Park

Yesterday we spent the day exploring Capital Reef National Park.  It is located on the way from Arches/Canyonlands NPs to Bryce Canyon NP.  It has some very interesting rock formations and some petroglyphs from the early Fremont people.

This rock formation is named 'The Capital Dome' because it resembles the Capital Dome in Washington DC.  It is also the name sake for the park.  The Reef comes from some of the early explorers who were seafaring men and when the rocks presented a barrier to them crossing they call the rocks a 'reef' and the name stuck and Capital Reef was born.

We were also able to observe some early petroglyphs from the Fremont People who lived in the area from 800 to 1300 AD.

Steve thought maybe these drawings were done by some teenagers just like those today who do spray paint drawings.  I do hope that some of those spray paintings are not around 1000 years from now.



Just as last year, we had to climb our mountain.  Last year it was Whistler's Mountain, this year it was Hickman Natural Bridge.  It was a 2 mile hike to see the bridge and most of it seemed to be up hill. 



It was in a very remote area by was really something to see.  It is awesome what water can do over time.

These are a few photos from the mountain.

It will be interesting to see what our 'mountain' looks like next year.





Moab, UT

Moab Utah is the gateway to both the Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  We spent one day exploring Arches.  The Arches is to the northeast of the town of Moab, UT.

This is the Delicate Arch - the trade mark of the Arches NP.  If you look very closely you will see people standing underneath the arch.

This is Balanced Rock.  It has a path you can hike right up to it.  It looks like it will come down on top of you at any minute.  (I can't figure out how to turn the picture so...I will leave it up to you to twist your head :)  )

The Arches is a beautiful NP with arches and pillars of rock everywhere.

To the northwest of Moab is the Canyonlands NP.  This NP is one with wide vista from high overlooks into ancient eroded basins and river eroded land.

Everything in both the Arches and Canyonlands is desert, rock, limited plant life - mostly plants that require minimum water.  We have yet to see anything moving except......

AND.......



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La Junta, CO and Trinidad, CO

As those in the family may remember, there has always been family history about Grandma Hank's grandfather Washington Winchester King and his ranch in the La Junta, CO area.  We couldn't resist playing Sherlock Holmes to see if we could find where the ranch was located.

We went to the library in La Junta to see what we could find.  After searching the information they had, the conclusion was that the 'King Ranch' was probably located in the county(Las Animas)  just south of Otero County where La Junta is located.

While at the library in La Junta, Steve found some interesting information about the area; about a large cattle company called the J J Ranch who hired many men to herd and care for their cattle that roamed on 'free range'.  This company was probably who WW King was working for before 1900 when he came to the area.

We went to Trinidad, CO. about 70 miles south of La Junta in Las Animas County to investigate the land.  At the courthouse in Trinidad we found some of the land records for WW King, his sons Urton(Lawrence) and Harry and his daughter Lulu(Lula).  Located were original Land Patents given by the US Government to each family member. There were also other land purchases.  Many of these additional land purchases were in combinations of the names of the 4 King family members.  The original Land Patents gave them about 1400 acres and we found additional combined purchases of close to 1500 acres.  There may be other purchases because we did not take a lot of time to thoroughly check all available information.  The first land was acquired in 1908 and purchases continued into the 1920s.  It sounds like a lot of land but out here in this desert area it takes approximately 50 acres to match the plant growth capability of 1 acre in Ohio.  The cattle ranchers often purchased the land where water was found and used 1000s of acres of the Open Range for cattle grazing also.  Steve was able to identify the location of the the original Land Patent homestead of W W King in the northern section of Las Animas County with the other land purchases in close proximity.  Steve thinks the La Junta connection is because that is where there is an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad head and the cattle would have been driven there for sale and transport.  In addition La Junta was the closest town and post office to where they lived.  This railroad was also probably how the Kings got from Kentucky to Colorado.

If we run out of things to do sometime, it would be fun to go back and do a more in depth research of the land and their lives.

La Junta, CO

After being blown across Kansas, we arrived in La Junta (The Junction) CO.

We spent Sunday being tourists and visited the Old Bent Fort .  This was a trading fort build by two brothers from Independence MO.  Their main customers were the Indians who traded furs and buffalo hides for goods from the east.  The Fort operated from the 1830's through the early 1840's.  The Fort sat on the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe Trail and was the first stop for many traveler heading west.  The Fort was on the them US- Mexico border.  The Fort was later used as a staging point for the Us-Mexican War.

Is there an end to Kansas?

Well, we drove west  and we drove west some more and the wind blew and the wind blew and the wind blew some more.  This country is flat, barren of all life well most life except for cattle - 100's of head of cattle and fields of wheat.  This is truly the heartland.

We stopped at Pratt, KS.  Nice town with sightings of more people than cows.