November 5, 2021 Bisti Badlands, near Farmington, New Mexico.

 70's and sunny. We went to the Bisti Badlands. I have been wanting to see this since we drove by last time we were here. 

The Bisti Badlands Wilderness. The highly scenic badlands of Bisti were created by erosion and weathering of interbedded shale, sandstone and coal formations into unusual forms. John hiking out into the Bisti.

Stone Wings area.  

The Cracked Egg area. 

Some Cracked eggs. 

More cool Cracked Eggs. Petrified wood logs. Bits of petrified wood were all over where we walked. 

Hoodoos. A petrified log hoodoo. 

Tall hoodoos

Hoodoos with The Eagles Nest in the background. Wing looking hoodoos. 

John with hoodoos to show you the size of them. Hoodoos with the Red 

Queen in between. 

Hoodoos. John heading to even more hoodoos. 

Hoodoo in front of a giant spire. John with hoodoos. 

Dark hoodoos. Banded hoodoos. 

Bumpy dirt, pile of petrified wood, a shrub with fall colors and blooming rabbit bush. Giant hoodoos. 

A rock with a donut hole. Hoodoos and a big spire on the horizon.

Clumped hoodoos. John at lunch in the shade. 

Hoodoos by our lunch spot. 

November 2-4 2021 Bluff, Utah

 65 and partly cloudy. I have given up taking photos with my phone and am back to a camera. The camera takes better photos, but mainly because the camera is smaller and fits in my pocket. And the camera does not randomly take selfies or movies when I try to take photos. 

Headed out a bit early this am to hike. The clouds were still burning off. 

Some mackerel sky over red rocks. Some pottery shards we found. Pretty cool. 

An unusual petroglyph. Spent the afternoon in my lawn chair in the sun working on my newest masterpiece. The center is a beveled, polished piece of dichroic glass I made. There are red and orange dyed pine needles and gold and copper metallic thread. It is about 5 inches in diameter so far. 

Sunset tonight. We drove through Colorado, The Navajo Nation, Arizona and New Mexico to get to Farmington, NM. 

John finally consented to go to the The Navajo Nation Four Corners Monument Tribal park. He would never stop before because he says it is not on the exact 4 corners spot. I always wanted to go, it is close enough for me. As one of the young Navajo men said, when they picked the spot they did not have the technology we have now. It is illegal to spread ashes anywhere on the Navajo nation. It is considered malicious desecration in the Navajo cultural belief. Here I am with limb in each of the 4 states. 

The Four Corners monument. It is surrounded by booths with Native Americans selling their artwork. The Shiprock High School. The rest of town from the highway just looked like any town USA with big box stores, chain fast food, etc. 

I traded some of my jewelry for handmade Navajo artwork. A beautiful beaded necklace and earrings, a hand painted rock, with a scene of the Mittens in Monument valley at sunset and an arrow with a hand knapped obsidian arrow.  We are now parked at the McGee Park/San Juan county fairgrounds. We are the only campers in this lot and we are right by a scenic lake. 

I worked on my masterpiece at a picnic table in the sun by the lake. It is now 6 x 5 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches. It is really hard to get a good photo of it. It is stitched with gold and copper metallic , black, and brown thread. The pine needles are dyed red, orange and dark brown. I am in the process of adding gold glass seed beads. The center is a piece of dichroic glass I beveled and polished that sparkles  coppery, gold and purple. Sunset over the lake by the campground. 

Sunset the next night behind fall colors and over the lake. A deer came by to check out the damage to the car caused by the buck. 

November 1, 2021 Moon House, Bears Ears , Utah

 In the low 70's and mostly sunny. We hiked into the Moon House Ruin. 

On our way driving across Cedar Mesa a 4 point buck leapt out the trees and ran into the side of the car. He got up, shook his head and walked off. The front fender, and both doors are dented and the rear view mirror got torn off. The good news is that we are ok and the car is still drivable, it is just hard to open the front door now.  We continued to the ruin. The trail goes almost straight down the cliff, then you walk across the canyon and up the other side.  This is taken from the ruin side of the canyon, the trail is where the  shadow and the sunlit area meet. It was pretty steep. 

There is one area of the trail where you basically slide down the slickrock to the ledge below. The first part of this photo is John sliding down. The two others are getting back up, it wasn't too bad after the first move. The ruin is in the shadow across the canyon.

John in the bottom of the canyon. John approaching Moon House Ruin. This Anasazi ruin consists of three cliff dwellings spread out along one quarter mile  of the canyon. With a total of 49 rooms it is one of the largest prehistoric dwellings on Cedar Mesa. It is very fragile and they only allow 20 people a day in. 

Moon house ruin. There are two different styles of building indicating that it was built by two different groups of during different periods of time.  The rock wall parts that are built by the early people, they then later abandoned it.  These pole and mud rooms were built at a latter date when different people moved into the vacant ruin. 

A long defensive wall was built in front of the ruin creating a courtyard area. We could go into the ruin, but not into the rooms to protect them. The white dots above the white stripe here represent the moon. Inside the room the dots are supposed to be the different phases of the moon. 

John in a shaft of dusty sunlight. A view from the outside of the Moon House ruin. 

The mud construction here has handprints of the ancient Anasazi builder on it. It is kind of awesome to look at thousands of years old handprints. Makes it more personal. A granary for storing corn. They think the granaries contain enough dried corn for two years of food for the dwellers. 

Farther down the cliff is this newer dwelling, nick named motel 6. It was built from stones that were taken from other older parts of the ruin and rebuilt here. 

Looking down the cliff from Motel 6 at the older part of the ruin, it is hard to see in the shadow of the cliff. 

Granary. This was built high up, John called it the loft apartment. 

Inside the Moon room. The white dots are said to be different phases of the moon, but it is hard to tell. John leaping off the cliff to the ledge below.  This trail is not for the faint of heart. 

John back on the canyon floor by the big rock. The Moon House is above on the ledge by the big hoodoo. Reflection of the big hoodoo. 

Looking back across canyon at the Moon House ruin. It is up on ledge below the overhang. It is well camouflaged. Some of the slick rock trail on the way back up.

A view of the breathtaking Moki dugway carved into the cliff face, which winds 1,200 feet straight down from top to bottom on three miles of graded gravel at an 11% grade with numerous switchback with tight turns. The views are fabulous as long as you don't look down from the edge of the road. Some of the rock images on the wall above the cliff dwelling, some decorative details, a shard of ancient gray corrugated pottery, the leaves on the tree at our campsite are turning yellow from the outside in. A closer up shot of the phases of the moon. You can see a few crescents, but the other phases are hard to discern. 

John cooked a great dinner for our friend Wanda over for dinner last night. We know her from Death Valley. She now works here in Bluff for the Bear Ear's education center. Fun to see her and dinner was excellent. We were going to eat out, but Bluff is a small town and all the restaurants are closed tonight. So John volunteered to cook. What a man! The light behind here is the flash reflecting off the car, but she claims it is her halo.