During the five days we spent exploring southern Utah with bits of Colorado and New Mexico thrown in, we stayed in Bluff, Utah. Bluff is a little town built along the San Juan River that wants to be a tourist town. Unfortunately it is located between tall bluffs that block any cell signal and the …
Needles District of Canyonlands National Park
Everyone who does the Grand Circle in Utah and Arizona goes to Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Arches. Sometimes those tours will include a lesser-visited but still gorgeous national park called Canyonlands. Canyonlands National Park has three districts: Island in the Sky, Needles, and the Maze. Most people who go to Canyonlands visit Island in …
Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico
Aztec Ruins National Monument is another Ancestral Puebloan site. But it is a little different from the ones Tom and I had previously seen. The other ruins were dispersed, with some of them in out of the way places, such as cliffs or canyons. They represent the later Ancestral Puebloan period when the ancient people …
Yucca House National Monument and Mesa Verde
After visiting Canyon of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado, Tom and I continued our exploration of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings. Our intention was to visit Yucca House National Monument, the next closest collection of dwellings to Canyon of the Ancients. However, visiting Yucca House is more difficult than you might expect from a National Park …
World War I: 100 Years Since Armistice Day
100 years ago, on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, fighting ceased between the Allied forces and Germany. Although the Treaty of Versailles would not be signed until the end of June, Armistice Day was the official end of the fighting. Thus ended one of the bloodiest conflicts in human …
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
After visiting Hovenweep, Tom and I continued on to Colorado where we visited Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. Because Canyons of the Ancients is a Bureau of Land Management Monument, it is open to various uses. National Park Monuments are much more restrictive. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument encompasses 170,000 acres bordering Hovenweep …
Hovenweep National Monument in Utah and Colorado
As I mentioned last week, when I wrote about Navajo National Monument, Tom and I spent quite a bit of time viewing the ruins of Ancestral Puebloan people in October. Shortly after visiting Navajo, we visited Hovenweep National Monument. Talk about the middle of nowhere! Hovenweep National Monument is on the border of Utah and …
Goosenecks State Park and Sand Island Petroglyphs
Whenever Tom and I venture into a new area, we like to ask the locals what we should be sure to see or do. We get a variety of interesting answers and then we check out the ones that interest us. One of the highly recommended places to visit in southeastern Utah is Goosenecks State …
Busiest Gas Station on the Planet
During the six days we were stranded in the QT parking lot, Tom and I didn’t have much to do. We didn’t want to detach the truck because it would look like we were abandoning the RV. So we couldn’t go anywhere. We put out the living room slide so we could walk around in …
Peculiar United Methodist Church, Peculiar Missouri
Last Sunday Tom and I attended Peculiar United Methodist Church. If this sounds like a strange name for a church – it is! But it is also the name of the town in which it is located, so lots of things are peculiar around here. We really enjoy being back in the land of United …