Josiah True Langley

DAY THIRTY-THREE: I've been caught up today in sending things to the Epsom, NH Historical Society webmaster.

Josiah True Langley is my children's great-grandfather, the father of my late wife Shirley's mother, Florence Langley Harris. According to a memoir that Florence wrote, her father was a photographer, sculptor and inventor, and something of a genius in his own right. He owned and ran a photography studio at 780 Elm Street, Manchester, NH, for many years, and produced beautiful portraits. Here are some of his family:

JOSIAH TRUE LANGLEY

HIS WIFE, KATE TOWNSEND

HIS TWIN DAUGHTERS, FLORENCE ISABEL AND GRACE EVANGELINE

If my memory serves me correctly, I was told that Josiah sculpted the bust of the then Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. I have no idea if that is true, and if so, where that bust is today.

As an inventor, according to Florence, he invented the equipment needed to photograph snowflakes, but he refused to take out a patent on that invention, or any of his other inventions. That's very interesting, because the credit for that achievement traditionally has gone to "Snowflake Bentley," i.e., Wilson A. Bentley of Jericho, Vermont. Bentley photographed his first snowflake in 1885. Josiah was 29 at the time. I don't know when Josiah made his invention.

Florence relates that in 1902, Teddy Roosevelt was a national idol (having become President of the U.S. the year before) and was coming to Manchester. Her father "invented" the comic souvenir postcard for the occasion - a portrait of a furry black bear, labeled "The Teddy Bear." They sold very well. Her family went to meet the President, but when Teddy bounded toward Florence, who was four years old and in her mother's arms, all she could see were those famous teeth, and she shrunk back in horror. "Someone else got the historic handshake," she writes wistfully.

Josiah died of pneumonia in 1916, when Florence was a freshman in college, his lungs having been weakened for some time, she says, by long exposure to photographic chemicals. He was only 59 years old. I wish we knew more about him, but what we know makes me want to believe that he was related to Samuel Pierpont Langley (see the post titled, "The New Astronomy.")

Trip to the Park

DAY THIRTY-TWO: Today has been a quiet day so far. I've discovered the Epsom, NH Genealogy Website where there is a lot of information about Shirley's family that I do not have - somebody has traced back her Langley and Locke ancestors much farther than we had information on. But they also were lacking some things that I have - like photos and more detailed biographical data. So I've been sending them information. I'm taking advantage of having WiFi at the house! Today is also my brother Stewart's 84th birthday! Happy Birthday Stewart!

DAY THIRTY-ONE: Friday we went with Max over to Idaho Falls, which is about a 70 mile trip. Ellen needed to go to her bank, and the closest branch is in Idaho Falls, but we decided to make an outing of it. We took Max so that he could enjoy playing at the playground in Tautphaus Park. This is the same park where the zoo is that we visited a couple of weeks ago. The drive over to Idaho Falls is beautiful, and it was a gorgeous day, balmy and sunny. Max took a nap much of the way, but woke up when we had to stop for construction and the last ten miles were noisy with the sound of loose stone hitting the underside of the car, due to a new road surface.

While Ellen did her bank business, Max and I hung out at a small city park nearby, where we shared the playground equipment with a playschool class. Max was fascinated with them. Then we headed over to Tautphaus Park where there was an abundance of playgrounds. Max had a wonderful afternoon trying out a variety of slides, climbing equipment, swings, etc. I was sent on a mission to find lunch food, and when I came back, we had a little picnic under a tree. Nearby was an elaborate skateboard facility which was being used by a large gathering of teen-age boys. Max loved watching them! As did we - they were good!

MAX ON THE SLIDE

Then it was time to go home and we had a lovely drive back; Max took another nap in his car seat. We had a nice supper on the deck, prepared by Jenny, and watched the Friday evening news for a bit. Today (June 24th) is Betsey's birthday. Happy Birthday Betsey!

Here are a couple of photos from Thursday's trip to Teton National Park:

JENNY LAKE AND CASCADE CANYON

THE GRAND TETON

The New Astronomy

DAY THIRTY: Yesterday was a mild flu day for me and I took it real easy. However, I did feel up for doing some editing on the book of stories I'm working on. It's getting there!

Last night Ellen and I watched a PBS program, Journey to Palomar which was a fascinating documentary on the development of the large telescope in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely under the influence of George Ellery Hale. It began with the Yerkes Observatory - a 60-inch mirror - in Wisconsin; then the Mt. Wilson Observatory in Pasadena - a 100-inch mirror; and culminating in the 200-inch scope on Mt. Palomar, south of Pasadena. The vision, the effort, the challenges, trials, failures and triumphs of this whole story were riveting. Hitherto I knew very little about George Ellery Hale, but he has to be regarded as one of the heroes of modern science, and his influence on our present-day understanding of the universe is incalculable.

That program led me back to my favorite scientist of that era, Samuel Pierpont Langley. S.P. Langley could be called the first astrophysicist; his invention of the balometer, which measures the heat from a star (imagine that!), was a great breakthrough. He founded the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory and devoted much of his life to study of the "solar constant," i.e., the question of how much energy from the sun reaches the surface of the earth, and whether that energy is relatively constant, or whether it varies significantly over time - an issue still hotly debated (no pun intended) in the whole global warming controversy.

He became "famous," when he turned his attention to flight. He was the first to achieve steam-powered, heavier-than-air flight, in 1896, with a large model airplane which remained aloft three minutes, flying almost a mile at 80-100 feet. Subsequent efforts by him to achieve manned, powered flight ended in failure; the last effort, in which the plane was catapulted over the Potomac River, December 8, 1903, was nine days before the Wright Brothers flew Kittyhawk. Had he been successful that day (and there are some who say that if the catapult had worked properly, he would have been successful), Langley's name would be a household word today.

Langley first came to my attention because Shirley's mother was a Langley, and the family oral tradition is that S.P. Langley is in the family tree somewhere. My son John has put considerable time and energy into researching Langley, and regardless of his failure in manned flight, we Crocketts regard him as one of the great scientists of the 19th-20th century. He deserves to be better known than he is. I hope that someday, someone will do a PBS documentary about him. His life and work are certainly as riveting, and possible as important, as Hale's, I believe.

Langley wrote a book, The New Astronomy in 1884, with several subsequent editions. The book was his effort to summarize for a lay audience the astounding developments in astronomy which were taking place a that time. It is beautifully written and well worth reading even today. It is filled with observations, about the sun especially, which are fascinating, lucid, and remarkably prescient. Here is an excerpt:

THE ENERGY OF THE SUN AND THE FINITE ENERGY OF FOSSIL FUELS
from The New Astronomy, by Samuel Pierpont Langley, written in 1884 – almost 130 years ago

…..From recent measures it appears that from every square yard of the earth exposed perpendicularly to the sun's rays, in the absence of an absorbing atmosphere, there could be derived more than one horse-power, if the heat were all converted into this use, and that even on such a little area as the island of Manhattan, or that occupied by the city of London, the noontide heat is enough, could it all be utilized, to drive all the steam-engines in the world. It will not be surprising, then, to hear that many practical men are turning their attention to this as a source of power, and that, though it has hitherto cost more to utilize the power than it is worth, there is reason to believe that some of the greatest changes which civilization has to bring may yet be due to such investigations. The visitor to the Paris Exposition of 1878 may remember an extraordinary machine on the grounds of the Trocadero, looking like a gigantic inverted umbrella pointed sunward. This was the sun-machine of M. Mouchot, consisting of a great parabolic reflector, which concentrated the heat on a boiler in the focus and drove a steam-engine with it, which was employed in turn to work a printing-press, as our engraving shows (Fig. 58). Because these constructions have been hitherto little more than playthings, we are not to think of them as useless. If toys, they are the toys of the childhood of a science which is destined to grow, and in its maturity to apply this solar energy to the use of all mankind.

…. It is pregnant with suggestion of the future, if we consider the growing demand for power in the world, and the fact that its stock of coal, though vast, is strictly limited, in the sense that when it is gone we can get absolutely no more. The sun has been making a little every day for millions of years, — so little and for so long, that it is as though time had daily dropped a single penny into the bank to our credit for untold ages, until an enormous fund had been thus slowly accumulated in our favor. We are drawing on this fund like a prodigal who thinks his means endless, but the day will come when our check will no longer be honored, and what shall we do then?

The exhaustion of some of the coal-beds is an affair of the immediate future, by comparison with the vast period of time we have been speaking of. The English coal-beds, it is asserted, will, from present indications, be quite used up in about three hundred years more. Three hundred years ago, the sun, looking down on the England of our forefathers, saw a fair land of green woods and quiet waters, a land unvexed with noisier machinery than the spinningwheel, or the needles of the "free maids that weave their threads with bones." Because of the coal which has been dug from its soil, he sees it now soot-blackened, furrowed with railwaycuttings, covered with noisy manufactories, filled with grimy operatives, while the island shakes with the throb of coal-driven engines, and its once quiet waters are churned by the wheels of steamships.

Many generations of the lives of men have passed to make the England of Elizabeth into the England of Victoria; but what a moment this time is, compared with the vast lapse of ages during which the coal was being stored! What a moment in the life of the "all-beholding sun," who in a few hundred years — his gift exhausted and the last furnace-fire out — may send his beams through rents in the ivy-grown walls of deserted factories, upon silent engines brown with rust, while the millhand has gone to other lands, the rivers are clean again, the harbors show only white sails, and England's "black country" is green once more! To America, too, such a time may come, though at a greatly longer distance.

Does this all seem but the idlest fancy? That something like it will come to pass sooner or later, is a most certain fact — as certain as any process of Nature — if we do not find a new source of power; for of the coal which has supplied us, after a certain time we can get no more. Future ages may see the seat of empire transferred to regions of the earth now barren and desolated under intense solar heat, — countries which, for that very cause, will not improbably become the seat of mechanical and thence of political power. Whoever finds the way to make industrially useful the vast sunpower now wasted on the deserts of North Africa or the shores of the Red Sea, will effect a greater change in men's affairs than any conqueror in history has done; for he will once more people those waste places with the life that swarmed there in the best days of Carthage and of old Egypt, but under another civilization, where man no longer shall worship the sun as a god, but shall have learned to make it his servant.

Samuel Pierpont Langley

Flu?

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN AND TWENTY-EIGHT: A little bug is going through the house. Jenny had it first, Paul had it over the weekend. Now Ellen has it. It's a "feel lousy, ache-all-over, unsettled stomach," sort of thing. It seems to pass fairly quickly, if Paul and Jenny's experience with it is any guide. We'll hope that Max has natural immunity. I'm taking Echinacea and hoping for the best.

Mountain Days

DAY TWENTY-FIVE Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to Alpine Mountains Days, a local fair. Compared to last year it was a disappointment. There were many fewer booths and events. The ice-cream guy said this was not due to the economy, because fairs such as this are actually up in attendance nationwide. It's because the people who manage this particular fair don't treat vendors very well, he said, and they are boycotting it. But we had a good time anyway because it still had what Max likes.

He got to play in the "Bouncing Room" -

Ride the teeter-totter

Try out the jungle gym

and watch the Native-American Hoop Dancer

Last night it rained hard and was cold. The attendance at the fair must have been way down, it must have been miserable for the few vendors who were there, and I can't help but feel that the fair was a financial disaster.

Last year was much better; there was a man there giving horse and buggy rides - he wasn't there this year. That was in the midst of the oil gusher in the Gulf. Remember? It got me thinking about bringing back the horse and buggy as a mode of transportation. I still have fantasies about that when I see the Amish people riding along the side of the road. I wish we could bring that mode of transport back. But maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic. I'm afraid that a year after that Gulf Oil Disaster, our society is no closer to any solutions to the problem of what oil is doing to life on this planet, both with regard to global warming and the pollution of the oceans.

DAY TWENTY-SIX Today Jenny was in Red Lodge, MT with friends, Paul was feeling sick, Ellen and I went to church with Max, I got Father's Day greetings from both John and Betsey. Max is taking a nap. A quiet sabbath.

Momentary Bliss

DAY TWENTY-FOUR, SECOND HALF: After our morning adventures, Ellen and I went out on to Jackknife Road this afternoon for a little walk. Jackknife Road starts out as Creamery Road in Wyoming, but becomes Jackknife when it crosses over into Idaho, and you go up into National Forest. What a beautiful spot. The sun is warm on your back, there are wildflowers alongside the road and blanketing the sides of the hills, a stream is gurgling nearby, the birds are singing, and snow-capped mountains are in the distance. It was bliss. Photos cannot really capture such a moment, but maybe they'll give a sense of it.

JACKKNIFE ROAD VIEW

WILD IRIS

VIEW WITH LARKSPUR

Momentary Panic!

DAY TWENTY-FOUR Well, this has been an interesting day so far! Paul went off to work in Jackson early, Jenny took Max to his day-care group with Laura and then went on to the ranch, and Ellen and I had the place to ourselves. A quiet, lovely morning to lie in bed, read, do stuff on the Internet, whatever. Ellen reported that that dripping I might have heard earlier was in fact frost, melting off the roof. "Uh-oh," I thought. I knew I had put Jenny's little tomato plants out on the deck yesterday so they could get more sun, but had forgotten to bring them in last night. I hadn't really anticipated getting frost on June 15th! But when I went downstairs, and sure enough, it looked like they had all been nipped. Oh dear! Then I went into the kitchen to fix myself some breakfast, and in cleaning up, I used the garbage disposal. As soon as I turned it on, there was loud "metal-on-metal" noise! I turned it off, reached inside, and pulled out the metal paddle from the bread-making machine (battered but ok). Someone had evidently cleaned out the pan, and hadn't noticed that the paddle had fallen out and gone down the drain into the disposal. OH DEAR!! I ran water and turned on the disposal again to see if it was okay, and it seemed to be working. Whew!

I went upstairs and reported all this to Ellen, who said she was probably to blame about the disposal - she's the one who had earlier cleaned out the pan. I went downstairs again and noticed that the rug in front of the sink was very wet. Hmmm, had I done that? I opened the door under the sink and was shocked to find water everywhere. Then I saw why - the pipe connecting the disposal to the drain pipe had sheared off at the disposal. Evidently when the disposal encountered the metal paddle, it vibrated so violently, it twisted and broke the pipe. Omigosh! We were proving to be disastrous guests! So we called Jenny to find out who their plumber was, but had to leave a message. We felt awful.

But then there was someone at the door. It was Paul's friend, Shaun, who had dropped by to pick something up from the shop. I told him our situation, and he came in to take a look. Shaun is in the lawn-sprinkler business, so he knows something about plumbing. He took one look and said, "Looks like basic log cabin work to me." Easy to replace that little pipe. He had some errands to do, but he said he would go by Jenkins, the local hardware, pick up the part, call Jenny to let her know what he was doing, and be back in an hour or so and fix it. Talk about "angels hovering 'round!"

So, after we got everything cleaned up from the flood (and learned that we couldn't run the dishwasher because it empties into that same drain!), I went to the Post Office to get stamps for my mailing to retired ministers in Vermont. Coming out I noticed that next door, at Jenkins, they seemed to have a lot of plants out front. I investigated and - voila! - healthy tomato plants! Only $1.75 a 4-pack! I bought three 4-packs and one more nice big one for good measure, and came back triumphant. And while I had been away, Shaun had come and replaced the pipe! We were in business. I got to work, and by a little after noon, all the tomatoes were replanted and looking good!

We are blessed!

A Lovely Week

DAYS TWENTY TO TWENTY-THREE This has been a fairly quiet week. I've done some work on projects: e.g., I downloaded the Bach Cantatas that the Chorale is singing in October in a memorial concert for Blanche Moyse, got them printed up, and am now rehearsing them with the help of an amazing website called CyberBass which plays the Cantata and highlights the bass choral line.

I've also put together a mailing to all the retired ministers back in Vermont who I keep in touch with in my role as Annuitant Visitor for the Pension Board of the United Church of Christ - just to let them know that I'm on this trip and how they can reach me.

Ellen and I have taken several short walks in the neighborhood, including several with Max up to a nearby horse arena where local folks board their horses. Max loves the mud puddles along the way and also likes feeding grass to the horses (well, that's a little scary for him - having a big horse eat out of his hand - but he's sort of fascinated by it too). As you can see, this is a wonderful spot in which to take a walk!

One day we visited the place where Jenny works. It is a ranch on the Salt River being developed as a mecca for fly fishermen. The couple building it live in California, and have hired Jenny to be their on-site manager, to oversee and coordinate the various aspects of the project. They have already built a large car barn; their house is almost completed; there is already a greenhouse, which has its own manager, and a fly-fishing shack (an old settlers' cabin that was moved and reconstructed on the site). A Day Lodge is in the works. There will eventually be a gourmet restaurant. The river is at flood stage right now, so there is no fishing. But later this summer, things could be hopping. That was an interesting excursion, and I'll post some pictures from there later.

Yesterday, we took a bit longer walk up the nearby McCoy Creek Road, where the wildflowers are beginning to be spectacular. The Balsamroot is at its peak, and Ellen counted c.30 other varieties on our walk: Western Valerian, Oregon Grape, Hoary Puccoon, Sticky Geranium, Serviceberry, Nutall's Violet, Prairie Smoke and Western Groundsel are some that come to mind. I got what I hope are some great close-ups with the Yashica, using the Macro setting on my 300mm zoom lens. I'll post them if they turn out well, but since it is film, it will be a while before I can get them developed.

Life in Alpine

BIRTHDAY AT THE ZOO: DAY NINETEEN Sunday, June 12th, was Max's birthday and we went to Idaho City to the zoo. Idaho City is about an hour's drive from Alpine, maybe a bit more. It is not a particularly attractive city, but it has some nice neighborhoods. The zoo turned out to be fairly nice. I have mixed feelings about zoos, but this one had some interesting features. It was organized by region of the world, with an African section, an Asian section, etc., and with sort of an anthropological dimension to it, i.e., it provided information about the importance of the animals in the cultures surrounding their usual habitat. It also made an effort to rise consciousness about the plight of animals in the wild. It was fairly small, just about right for a 3-year old boy. It gave me an opportunity to use both my cameras: the digital Canon and the Yashica film camera. Here are some pictures:

After the zoo we went to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner. I'll have to say that the name "Chuck-a-Rama" does not inspire confidence, but the food was pretty good. There was certainly a lot of it!

It was an "all-you-can-eat" sort of place, and I would guess that the amount of food dished up there in one day would feed an entire village in many parts of the world. Maybe Max's face is as good a comment as any.

After dinner we went to a park and dropped off Ellen, Jenny and Max at the playground while Paul and I went to Sam's Club. It was unbelievably crowded. So this is what the people of Idaho Falls do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon! I thought I might find some omeprazole at a good price, but it was more expensive than Rite Aid with a coupon, so I just looked around.

On the drive home the day turned dark, we went through a heavy rain storm, and then suddenly the sun came out and we were treated to a rainbow that was closer to the ground than any we had ever seen. I grabbed the Yashica and took this shot through the windshield as the car was moving:

It was a lovely climax to a very special day.

Alpine, WY

DAY SIXTEEN This was mostly a "get there" day. We left Green River, UT and went up through Price, UT and then over to I-15 north toward Salt Lake City. Looking at the map, I decided that SLC looked like a mess to be avoided. So as navigator I made the decision to go off I-15 at Provo and head over to Heber City, UT. It was a good decision. Provo is an attractive city and we went by the campus of Brigham Young University. The size of its football stadium was a testament to what is important there! Well, that probably isn't fair. But it is huge. Heber City is attractive too. This route took us past the entrance to Sundance, of Film Festival fame, and also this lovely Bridal Veil Falls:

Then we took I-80 up to Evanston, WY, and went north on U.S. 89 along the Wyoming-Idaho border, up to Alpine. The temperature dropped steadily as we drove along and we were surprised to discover fresh snowfall near Afton, WY -- see the photo below. We got to Alpine at about 5:20p.m. and were warmly greeted by Paul, Jenny and Max, who wasn't shy at all.

DAY SEVENTEEN Friday, we got settled in. Paul is working on a remodeling job in Jackson, so he left early for that. Jenny took some time to go to her work place - the "ranch" where a trout fishing lodge is being built. So we had time with Max, who has grown both physically and mentally since we last saw him in February, and is still amazingly full of energy. I guess you could say he is "all boy" - e.g., anything remotely shaped like a gun becomes a gun, and he loves making explosive sounds with his mouth. He is also very loving and can melt Ellen with his "I love you, Nana!" Then in the late afternoon, after Paul returned, he and Jenny left for Pocatello, ID, and Ellen and I had charge of Max for the evening and overnight. It all went well.


DAY EIGHTEEN: We are baby-sitting Max today while Paul and Jenny are in Pocatello, ID. Paul is taking a 3-hour test this morning to obtain a General Contractor's License. He and Jenny left yesterday evening and stayed at a motel in Pocatello so he could be at the test site by 8a.m. Jenny is doing some shopping - tomorrow is Max's third birthday!

Here's Max in one of his favorite places to play: our car! All kinds of things to get into!

It has been a cold and wet spring in Alpine. We were amazed to find fresh snow on the ground as we were driving up the valley to Alpine on Thursday - it isn't like we were going over a mountain pass, where you might expect it.

JUNE NINTH IN WYOMING












We are now getting some sun - yesterday was warm and beautiful, but it gets cold at night. Good sleeping weather. Very different from the 100 degree plus weather we experienced in Arkansas and Oklahoma!

I'm gradually updating the past few days. It takes a while to upload photos and such.

We got a call from Paul: he passed the test!

National Parks Day

DAY FIFTEEN: Wednesday, June 8th, was a stellar day, despite a bad beginning. We had spent the night in an America’s Best Value Motel, in Farmington, NM. Our room had one bed, but the room clearly had originally been outfitted with two beds – there was the usual two-lamp fixture which was originally between two beds. At some point, they had removed a bed and put in what amounted to a kitchenette, but it was just a frig, a microwave, a cabinet and a table (no sink). The remaining bed was close to the window and to the air conditioning unit. Unfortunately, this meant that the person on the window side of the bed (that was me - I’m always on the left side of the bed, from the perspective of the foot of the bed) was just a couple of feet from the air conditioning unit. It was a hot night, the outside temp was in the high eighties, and the room was stuffy. So we had to turn on the air conditioning. If there is one thing I dislike, it is air blowing right on me when I’m trying to sleep. I like fresh air in a room; I like a room cool for sleeping; but I dislike having a fan blowing right on me. I like the fan to be indirect, moving the air, but not right on me. So, I couldn’t sleep. Finally, I turned it off, but then I was too hot. (Ellen was sleeping all through this). At about 2:30am or so, I got up and took a sleeping pill. I left the air off, but was able to sleep with no covers. However, I was not in the best of moods the next morning. I reflected on the fact that the room would not have had to be set up like this. When they put in the kitchenette, they could have moved the bed to the opposite wall. Then the air unit would have been a good distance from the sleepers. Maybe most people don’t mind, but some do, and when you’re in the motel business, you need to think about things like that.

Anyway, we got in the car and started off. Of course, the car was hot – it had been sitting in the sun in the motel parking lot. Ellen (who always drives and controls the heat/air), turned on the air conditioning, and she aimed the vents right at me so that I would get the full benefit. It was an act of kindness, but after my tussle with the air conditioner the previous night, I took it badly. So we had to work through that, which we did, thanks to Ellen’s unfailing patience.

As we drove north into Colorado and approached Mesa Verde National Park, the beauty of the scenery drove out all negative thoughts.

MESA COUNTRY


MVNP is a spectacular place, in terms of geology and scenery, but even more in terms of cultural significance. This area was home to a group which are now referred to as “Ancestral Puebloans,” a.k.a. Anasazi people. The new term reflects the fact that present-day Pueblo Indians feel a deep kinship with these earlier people, and believe themselves to be their descendants, whereas the former term, “Anasazi,” is a Navajo term which means "ancient enemies." I’ll have to say that I am impressed by the way the National Park Service tries to respect the feelings of various groups, although I’m sure it seems to some of those groups to move at a glacial pace.

About 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished there, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, in the late A.D. 1200s, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away. The reasons for that move are not well understood. A long-standing drought and soil depletion are often mentioned as reasons, but there is no certainty. The earliest settlers lived in simple pithouses. Around 750 C.E. they began building houses above ground made of poles and mud. By 1000 C.E., they had advanced to skillful stone masonry, and large villages were built, some of them on the tops of the mesas. Around 1200 C.E., a shift was made to stone masonry built in caverns under huge overhanging rocks. These are the so-called cliff houses, and that is what we saw. (One could spend days at Mesa Verde and not see everything). The cliff houses are spectacular. One, called Spruce Tree House by the Park Service, is open for a self-guided tour. It gives one a sense of the construction and the communal life of the people.

SPRUCE TREE HOUSE

In another part of the park is a larger community called Cliff Palace. This can be accessed only by a guided tour with advanced reservation. It is popular and we did not have time to make that tour. However, Cliff Palace can be viewed from afar and I got a good photo of it using my telephoto lens:

CLIFF PALACE











ARCHES NATIONAL PARK
We left Mesa Verde at about four in the afternoon and drove west into Utah, heading for Arches National Park. By the time we got to Arches, it was evening, and the light of the setting sun had the effect of exaggerating the color of the red rocks. We could do no more than drive through Arches and stop at two spectacular sites: the Balanced Rock and Delicate Arch, but, Oh! what a place! It was a wonderful time to be there. There were very few people. The light was magical. It was majestically quiet. It was awesome.

BALANCED ROCK

DELICATE ARCH

Phenomena like Balanced Rock and Delicate Arch are created, of course, by wind erosion, which cuts away softer materials, while harder rock remains. Eventually, the balanced rock will fall, and the arch will break, but probably not in my lifetime.

It was probably 9:30p.m. by the time we left Arches, and we headed north to I-70 and then west, hoping to find a motel along the Interstate. It was after 11:00p.m. when we found a room at a Super 8 motel in Green River, UT. It was the last non-smoking room available, and it had three queen-sized beds. It was big enough for a family reunion! It cost $74, about $20 more than the average of what we have been paying for a room, but it was worth it, because we were tired after a long and wonderful day of spectacular beauty. And tomorrow night, we'll be in Alpine!

New Mexico Day

DAY FOURTEEN: Springer, NM, where we spent last night, had a certain attraction. We took a long walk in the fading light of late evening and noted that the grocery store, the drug store, the bank, the church, the auto repair shop, were all within easy walking distance. It has a community college. It has some attractive historic buildings and museums, and the surrounding scenery is beautiful. At an altitude of 5600 feet, the climate is mild year-round. Despite these attractions, it appears to be struggling. Some businesses are closed. There is no hospital. But it was fun to imagine living there.

Our room in the Oasis Motel was spartan but spacious and comfortable. It looked like an older motel had been upgraded by new owners.

THE OASIS MOTEL IN 2007 (Thanks to Debora Drower's Flicker page)

We slept well, and in the morning we drove to a large 24-hour truck-stop about 3 miles north, and had our breakfast. The gift shop there seemed to have been built around four classic cars from the 1950s. I couldn’t see any way to get them out, without taking out a wall.

We drove on from there through the Cimarron Canyon to Taos, NM, where we have visited before. Our friends Charlie and Susie were away on a trip this time, so we did not linger in Taos. We learned later from them that they had left town to escape the smog from a large fire in Arizona. We noticed it was pretty hazy, but didn’t know why. From Taos we drove down the high road to Chimayo and stopped at a place we love and have stopped before: El Santuario de Chimayo, NM. It rests on tierra bendita, “holy dirt,” and thus receives 300,000 visitors a year, many seeking healing. It has been called the “Lourdes of America.” The shrine was built in 1816. It is a lovely place to sit quietly.

EL SANTUARIO DE CHIMAYO

From there we turned north toward Abiquiu, NM, the home of Georgia O’Keeffe. It was getting late by now, so we didn’t stop to investigate her home, which is open to the public, but went on instead to Ghost Ranch, where she lived and worked for a while in the 1930s. Today, Ghost Ranch is a conference center owned and operated by the Presbyterian Church, USA, and it is a beautiful spot. The rock formations and the red and yellow cliffs are unusual and strikingly beautiful. The Center hosts large groups (350 Friends were holding their Yearly Meeting that week), but also welcomes individuals, and sponsors literally scores of courses on a wide variety of topics. It is a place we might just return to.

GHOST RANCH

A mile north of the Ghost Ranch is the Piedra Lumbre Visitor Center and Paleontological Museum, which was closed by the time we got there. There is a tower there which affords a view of O’Keeffe’s house at Ghost Ranch. Maybe we can take this in the next time. We continued on to Charma, NM, and looked for a restaurant we ate at in 2006 and liked. But despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find it, and concluded it had closed. We saw 5 or 6 other closed restaurants. We ended up at the only open one we could find; food ok, but not great. By now it was late evening but still very light, and cool. It was beautiful. We continued on to Farmington, NM and using a coupon, we found a room at an America’s Best Value Inn at about 10:00pm.

The Canadian River

One of the geographical features we have encountered frequently on this trip is the Canadian River. It seems ironic that we would have to travel to Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to learn about the Canadian River. I had never heard of it before. It is not included in my favorite The Rivers of America series which was published in the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, it is an important river. It is over 900 miles long, with its headwaters near Raton, NM, north of Springer, where we spent last night, from whence it flows south and then turns east through the Texas Panhandle, on pretty much due east through Oklahoma, and into Arkansas where it flows into the Arkansas River near Fort Smith. The Arkansas River then flows southeast across Arkansas and empties into the Mississippi about a hundred miles north of the Louisiana line. So I guess that the water that I poured out of a bottle outside our motel will end up in the Gulf of Mexico (well, it will evaporate, but you get the idea).

Nobody seems to know just how it got its name – a few theories have been offered: (1)it is a corruption of a Spanish word; (2)It was discovered by French Canadians or (3)early pioneers thought it originated in Canada.

I’m sure a great deal of fascinating history has taken place along the Canadian River! I guess it's great for fishing too.

Hot Springs National Park and west

DAY TWELVE: Sunday morning we awoke in Hot Springs, AR, had breakfast in the room, got in the car, and after a brief period of disorientation, found the Hot Springs National Park Visitors Center, which is the old Fordyce Bathhouse, shown below.

Hot Springs is a unique National Park which celebrates both a rare geological feature and a fascinating cultural era: the era of the American Spa where the wealthy went to “take the waters,” or “quaff the elixir” as they used to say. The water comes out of the ground at Hot Springs at about 143 degrees F., not because of volcanic activity (like Yellowstone), but because the water has percolated deep into the earth, warming 4 degrees for each 300 feet it descends, (and dissolving minerals as it goes); then it has worked its way to the surface again and has come out in 47 separate springs, from which the park collects 700,000 gallons a day. For decades, these waters were believed to have curative powers for a variety of illnesses: e.g., liver ailments, stomach disorders, rheumatism, arthritis, even syphilis. Others came for general improvement of health and fitness, or just for relaxation. At its peak, a million visitors came annually, and they were served by a dozen or more opulent bathhouses along Bathhouse Row.

I first came to Hot Springs in the spring of 1954 when I was returning to Drury College in Springfield, MO from a trip to Mexico. I have a vivid memory of going into a auction house in Hot Springs and being both fascinated and appalled by the sight of very sick-looking but very wealthy elderly people bidding $10,000 on a diamond. What I didn’t know then was that I was seeing the beginning of the end of the glory days in Hot Springs. In the 1950s, changes in medicine, as well as transportation, brought a rapid decline in water therapies and spas. By 1980, only one bathhouse was still open, and only two are in operation today. The Fordyce Bathhouse was one of the grandest that closed, and it has been fully restored by the park as a museum and provides a real glimpse of this rare slice of life.

Pictured below is (1)one of the beautiful tile therapy tubs, (2)a Tiffany window in the Ladies Cooling Room, and (3)a group of Zander Mechanical Physical Therapy machines, the creation of Dr. Gustav Zander, a Swedish Physical Therapist, who was about 100 years before his time.

From Hot Springs we drove west through the Ouachita (pronounced wash’-ee-taw) National Forest, a very scenic drive. In Royal, AR, we came upon a café, Patty’s Down the Road, which isn’t in Roadfood but should be. We had very generous servings of catfish, slaw, mashed potato and hush puppies, tasty and all for $5.99 each. Following Route U.S. 270, we entered Oklahoma and went all the way to Oklahoma City (taking a little detour through Norman, OK). Because it was Sunday, we listened to a tape of a Guilford Community Church service made on June 1, 1997. It was a treasure: a special Sunday on which three trees that had been planted outside the church were dedicated, a service I had forgotten; and, I am ashamed to say, I had also forgotten about the trees. An ash was dedicated to Anton Erickson, who lived to the age of 100. A lilac was dedicated to Shirley and me by a couple in the church in honor of our ministry; and a blue spruce was given by Shirley and me in memory of her brother, Ladd, who had died in 1960. These trees were never labeled, and when we get back, I’ll want to see if they are living, and if so, make sure they each get a plaque.

We ended up in the evening in a Budget Inn in El Reno, OK. It was pretty budget, e.g., no bed lamps to read by. But we slept ok.

DAY THIRTEEN: We got up in fairly good season, and by 9a.m. we were showered, packed up and ready for breakfast. Our primary reason for staying in El Reno was to go to Johnnie’s Grill, a Roadfood restaurant. It lived up to its reputation. It isn’t much to look at from the outside, but inside it is a fairly spacious restaurant with table tops covered with brightly colored business ads, the walls covered with photos of old cars and other nostalgic memorabilia, and a menu full of every combination of eggs, hash-browns, toast, pancakes, biscuits, sausage and gravy imaginable, all for reasonable prices. I had two over easy, with sausage and wheat toast; Ellen had a scrambled egg, hash-browns, biscuit, and gravy. The hash-browns were particularly good, well-done, light and not greasy.

From El Reno we drove north on Route 81, following the Old Chisholm Trail, a cattle drive route from Texas to Kansas, named after an entrepreneur who opened supply stores along the trail but didn’t live to enjoy the benefits. Our immediate destination was Enid, OK. I had known of Enid, OK and Phillips University located there, for 60 years or more, mostly since 1951 when I met folks that I really liked from Phillips U. at Association YMCA Camp in Estes Park, CO, where I worked for the summer. It was a highly regarded Disciples of Christ-related college and seminary. I say “was” because the University went bankrupt in 1998, and closed. The seminary survived, but relocated to Tulsa, OK. I had always wondered what it looked like, and I got to see it, because the campus was purchased by Northern Oklahoma College and most of the old buildings are still there, along with some new ones. Thus a long-standing curiosity was finally satisfied.

Here's how it looked in former years:

The town of Enid itself seems to be doing ok, but not great, judging by the appearance of buildings and houses.

From Enid we drove due west on Route 412, and suddenly, we were truly in the “West” - flat, empty, sage-covered land, few buildings, few people, vast sky, and hot temps – as high as 106 degrees. A woman I spoke with in Enid said that the heat was unusual for this time of year. 100 degrees in August, maybe, but not June. She was concerned. We went all across the Oklahoma Panhandle into eastern New Mexico, which was about as empty of human presence as any place we have ever been. The sky was beautiful, fields were yellow with wheat stubble, antelope crossed the road, the mountains were blue in the distance - it was magical. Tonight we are in Springer, NM, a small town trying to survive. We had a lovely walk all around the town in the dusk.

P.S. My son John sent us some photos of the rhododendron next to our house in Vermont. What a display! Here's one:

DAY ELEVEN: On Saturday, we said our goodbyes to Betsey and Rob and headed south to Little Rock. Our route took us down through Branson, MO, which Ellen had never seen, so we stopped for a quick look-see. Despite almost 100 degree temperatures, the town was crawling with tourists. We went into Dick's 5&10 which is a classic "old-timey" store. Quite fun, actually, but the aisles were so full, you could hardly move down them!

We also drove through the theater district of Branson, which is, of course, a country music mecca, rivaling (exceeding?) Nashville. But we only looked, we didn't stop to listen.

From there we went south into Arkansas and drove through Ozark National Forest. A very lovely drive, and almost empty of cars and people. We stopped to get a photo of the view and the stone work -- I'm a complete sucker for stone work!

Somehow we managed to get to Little Rock just about when we planned to! We were going to meet my grand-nephew Ryan McQuen, and his fiance Alicia, to take them out to supper. Ryan is an undergraduate at the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) in Communication, and Alicia is working on an M.A. at the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, part of the University of Arkansas For Medical Sciences (UAMS). They both have part-time jobs in addition to their academic work, and on top of that, Ryan is a copy-writer for the UALR Forum, the student newspaper. Boy, are they busy! We felt lucky to have supper with them! But you'd never know how busy they are from this nice relaxed photo!

Ryan drove us around UAMS and UALR, and we got to see where they have classes and where Ryan works. We got at least a little glimpse of their lives in Little Rock.

ALICIA'S SCHOOL

RYAN'S WORK PLACE