Tuesday Tour: to the sea

Take a land-locked country girl and show her a mighty ocean and she becomes mesmerized.

That girl was me. I was born and raised in a northeastern state that did not have a coastline, except for a bit along one of the Great Lakes.

My neck of the woods was rural, outside a small town, farther out from a big city. Sure, creeks, ponds, some lakes within driving distance existed there, and we crossed over rivers daily, but nothing compared to getting a glimpse of the sea.

My husband showed me the ocean – the Atlantic – for the first time before we said our I do’s. We showed our young daughters the ocean – again the Atlantic – for the first time several years later.

When we moved from the land-locked Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, we reveled in the fact that we lived about an hour from the massive Pacific Ocean, where our last-born, our son, caught his first ocean view.  

After settling in our new altered state (“Oregon, Things Look Different Here” – once a state slogan from the Oregon Department of Tourism) in the 1990’s, we were drawn back time and time again to that state’s Pacific coast.

The coast – not called the shore or the beach as we named oceanside in the east – became one of the places we always took those who came to visit us, from two sets of Midwestern friends to Papa’s mother and aunt who flew across the country to see us in our new home to my parents and sister who drove a very long way to see the west and us.  

And each time I couldn’t get enough of viewing the ebb and flow of those Pacific Ocean waves along the rugged coast and capturing as many photographs as possible with my trusty point and shoot 35 mm film camera.

Our first few ocean-side visits took place in summer or early fall months, and native Oregonians advised us to experience the Pacific in winter when it was often stormy, the waves violently slammed into the rocks, and when you might catch sight of southward migrating whales.

So that’s what we did. During our first year of residence there, we traveled to the coast shortly after Christmas to spend a few days. Our destination was a snug little cabin in a quaint harbor town called Depoe Bay, located on US Route 101. This town’s claim to fame is being known as the “world’s smallest navigable harbor.”

The late December weather was rainy and chilly, but it didn’t deter our mission.  We braved the elements to embark on a whale-watching cruise, but the only thing we encountered was a couple cases of seasickness, no whales in sight.

On another day, we watched diligently from the Depoe Bay Whale Watching Center, a state parks-staffed visitor center which stands next to the harbor entrance, to catch sight of the migrating whales, but still came up empty.

But our sightseeing certainly did not prove devoid and involved some first-time experiences for us. And I took plenty of photos to prove it.

Driving along the Oregon Coast on Highway 101 is breathtaking. The rocky coastline with Pacific waves crashing upon it does not disappoint viewers and travelers will find themselves stopping at every spot they can just to see the view.

One of the fascinating sights we observed while driving from Depoe Bay to Newport, Oregon, was located within a state natural area called the Devil’s Punch Bowl, a piece of land that protrudes into the ocean. This amazing place is actually a hollow rock formation shaped just like a gigantic punch bowl.

I imagine the devil got added to it because during stormy winter weather, waves slam into this bowl-like formation swirling, churning, and foaming away as if the brew inside is downright wicked. Speculation is this formation might have been created when a roof collapsed over two sea caves and subsequently was shaped by waves over time.

Shortly after we ate lunch at a picnic area near the Devil’s Punch Bowl, we experienced our first visit to a lighthouse. The Yaquina Head Lighthouse, located north of Newport, also fascinated us. For more information about this Oregon lighthouse, read my blog post here.

In Newport, we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium, newly opened in 1992, for the first time. What a delightful place it proved to be for our young family as we enjoyed both indoor and outdoor exhibits.

Situated along Yaquina Bay, this aquarium, open daily from 10 am – 6 pm, is now considered world-class and ranked among the top 10 aquariums in North America.

Check out the aquarium’s live camera (sharks, sea birds, or otters) here.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium became well-known in the years 1996-1998 when an orca whale named Keiko, star of the movie Free Willy, called it home before he was released to the ocean once more in Iceland.

Our trip down a portion of the Oregon Coast wasn’t our last because this area of the Pacific Ocean continued to compel us to visit.

During the years we resided in the Pacific Northwest, we traveled the length of the Oregon coastline through the southern part of the state and into northern California, but I’ll highlight that in yet another Tuesday Tour blog post.

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” ~Jacques Cousteau

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: mountain high, valley low

We lived in the valley.

When we moved from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990’s, we found a home in the valley – the Willamette Valley, between the Oregon Coast Range Mountains and the Cascade Mountain Range.

When a mountain presents itself, you should go explore it and that is what our young family of five set out to accomplish. Today’s Tuesday Tour gives you just a glimpse at some of the mountain peaks we viewed and I captured with my simple point and shoot 35 mm film camera, during our years of living in Oregon.

The easiest mountain to view from the Portland area is Mount Hood, a usually snow-covered dormant volcano and Oregon’s highest mountain (pictured above), about an hour’s drive from the city.

Snowboarders and skiers abound on this mountain which boasts six ski areas and nature enthusiasts enjoy camping, biking, climbing, and hiking in the Mount Hood National Forest with over 1,200 miles of trails.

The Mount Hood area can be a treacherous place though where hikers get lost and over 100 people have lost their lives in climbing accidents.

At an elevation of over 11,200 feet, Mount Hood is easily seen from Portland and on clear days, we could spot it to the east of us from a street bordering our suburban housing subdivision.

Shortly after moving into our new home in this altered state so different from where we’d previously lived, we ventured off to check out this mountain, which has been touted as Oregon’s most likely volcano to erupt in the future.  

One of the interesting spots on Mount Hood we often took visiting family and friends to was Timberline Lodge, not only a ski resort, which has the longest ski season in the country open year-round, but a major tourist attraction as well. Built during the Depression years of the 1930’s by WPA, the lodge is a National Historic Landmark.

Visitors can drive to the lodge, located at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet, via the Mount Hood Scenic Byway. Inside the lodge, one can view the furnishings provided by local artisans and craftsmen.

I regret that I don’t have a good photo of the lodge itself, but I distinctly remembered we climbed up the mountain a little at the lodge with our young children on a hot, summer’s day when there was very little snow.

Not long after our trek to Mount Hood, we ventured northeastward into Washington state to Mount Saint Helens, the famous volcano that blew off its top in 1980 when its eruption made world-wide news. The devastation that day in May killed 57 people, destroyed 200 homes, many bridges, railways, and 185 miles of highway.

Even though we visited Mt. St. Helens over a decade after the event, we could still see the destruction it had caused, particularly in an area called Lava Canyon.

That landscape, which had once been green and forested, looked like a barren wasteland. But amidst the scars, a little beacon of hope that the land might be replenished stood out to me when I captured this wildflower blooming.

In addition to those two famous mountains, we traveled to a scenic overlook called Bald Peak Scenic Viewpoint. Located in the Chehalem Mountains west of Portland, Bald Peak stands at an elevation of over 1,600 feet and if the weather cooperates and is clear, visitors can view five mountain peaks – Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount Saint Helens in Washington and Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson in Oregon – from the lookout point in this small state park.

The following photos aren’t the best because they were taken with a point and shoot camera and no telephoto lens, but it gives you an idea how amazing this vista truly is. Not only can you spy the mountains, but you can observe a panoramic scenic view of the Tualatin and Yamhill valleys, part of the Willamette Valley.

Mountains and valleys. We would not only observe those terrains during our years of residence in Oregon, but we would experience mountains and valleys in our personal lives as well.

Some years we encountered mountain top experiences, amazing times and sights we will never forget. Other times, we found ourselves in low valleys, facing challenging circumstances and decisions to be made.

But we wouldn’t change one thing about our time living there, a time that provided so many adventures, so many memories to keep, as well as long-lasting friendships that we still maintain today over 25 years later.  

And above all else, our six years spent in the Pacific Northwest caused us to grow spiritually and deepened our faith in God.

“You have to go through those mountains and valleys – because that’s what life is: soul growth.” ~ Wayne Newton

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Words for Wednesday: a berry good summer

If it’s summertime at our house, you can be sure of a number of aspects.

The front porch swing is prepared for visitors to enjoy a nice, breezy summer day.

The perennial flower bed and various pots of brightly colored blooms, including porch boxes, paint some brilliance among the green expanse of yard.

The vegetable garden flourishes with summer squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, green peppers, and sometimes peas and pumpkins.

The fence is to keep the deer from eating our veggies!

And there will be blueberries. If the weather cooperates, the Japanese beetles don’t attack, and our structured enclosure with netting prevents the birds from feasting, scads of blueberries await picking.  

We are in the throes of filling our pails with tasty blueberries right now. They commence ripening around the fourth of July every year often coinciding with our grown-up kids flying “home” to roost for an Independence Day celebration.

Last year, because of the you know what, Papa and I picked our berries mostly by ourselves with a little help from nearby daughter and grandchild, who loves blueberries. When she was just a toddler, she called them “blueies” and gobbled them up as quickly as she could pick them (and still does!).

This past Independence Day, our oldest daughter and son-in-love traveled northeast from their home to ours to celebrate with us for the first time since Christmas 2019.

Unfortunately, our son, daughter-in-love and two other grandchildren from the state next door were not able to make the journey this time and we missed having our entire family together again, which hasn’t happened since our all-family beach trip in August 2020. But we have high hopes for an all-family get-together soon.

In between gorging on picnic food, playing tons of games indoor and outside, catching fireflies, and watching our own little version of fireworks in our back yard, we enjoyed some blueberry picking over the July 4^th weekend.

It was hot and it was a bit sweaty, but the labor was worth the prize.

Fresh blueberries for breakfast on your cereal or in your pancakes, waffles, or muffins are delicious. Anything with blueberries is berry good just like this summer has been at our country home.

 “You’ll never regret eating blueberries or working up a sweat.” ~  Jacquelyn Mitchard

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: soaring west

You might say we followed Horace Greeley’s advice when he wrote this in 1837: “Fly, scatter through the country — go to the Great West.”

Our family adventure westward occurred 150-some years later in the 1990’s when we moved from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest. We traveled the Oregon Trail, but we did it the easy way, we flew from Kansas to Oregon.

As soon as we unpacked, we hit more trails in our newly acquired territory, but this time we traveled by car to explore our surroundings so different from those we had become accustomed to. I’m sharing some of those adventures on today’s Tuesday Tour.

As if to reinforce the reality of “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” one morning as we were preparing for the school day, something exciting happened.

Hot air balloons soared over our neighborhood subdivision. Our kids were thrilled to watch them while waiting for the school bus. And Mama had to snap a few photos with my trusty point and shoot 35 mm film camera.

Those balloons weren’t the only sights we would see soaring high in the sky. When the weekend rolled around, we were off to sightsee, driving west for one purpose – to get our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.

Our youngest child had never seen an ocean. Our two oldest had been oceanside on the Atlantic coast, but that was when they were too young to truly remember. Papa viewed the Pacific Ocean from the air when he flew overseas for military duty, but this Mama had never experienced the Pacific either.

Our first sight captivated us. The Oregon coast was like nothing we had seen before. Papa and I were used to mostly flat, wide, sandy and warm Atlantic beaches as far as the eye can see, but what Oregon’s Pacific coast offered were more rocky beaches, steep cliffs, forested areas, huge sand dunes, and ice-cold ocean water.

Our formerly landlocked, Midwestern-raised kids were enthralled with our first steps onto the sandy beach at Seaside, Oregon, a popular spot. They couldn’t wait to slip out of their shoes and play in the sand and even though the water was frigid, they dabbled their feet in it with shrieks of delight.

We traveled to the next enticing spot along the coast – Cannon Beach, a trendy area with shops and art galleries, but most famous for its Haystack Rock, mammoth in size.  

As we continued south, we entered another coastal town called Rockaway Beach, where we found several miles of uninterrupted shoreline. But a fun discovery there was a kite-flying festival in session. We spent the rest of our day there watching amazing kites flying high over the ocean, enjoying a little train ride, and devouring some tasty treats.

Even though we previously lived in the windy Midwest, we never had much luck flying kites. But right then and there at that Oregon coast kite festival, we resolved to purchase a kite at a gift shop. Observing how high our kite could soar on the Pacific coast became a fun, family activity.

We thoroughly relished our first trip westward to the Pacific Ocean, but it certainly would not be our last. Eventually, we would explore the entire Oregon coast marveling along the way, but that will be fodder for another Tuesday Tour.

“Sometimes just being on a beach with my loved ones is all the adventure I need.” ~ Guy Laliberte

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: the adventure begins

We hit the ground running. Eager to explore our new locale after our move from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest back in the early 1990’s, we settled into our brand-new house as quickly as possible.

Even though I wasn’t crazy about making a move farther away from our families back east — okay, I’ll be honest…in my mind I was kicking and screaming about going because as one friend remarked we couldn’t get any farther away from our home state without falling into the ocean — but I was determined not to show my hesitation and angst to our young children.

So, dredging up a positive attitude and plastering it on my face and in my speech, I focused on painting a picture of our new home in that altered state as an exciting adventure for our family. We bade goodbye to our friends, our neighbors, our home, church, and comfortable way of life and set off westward on the Oregon Trail, so to speak.

Excitement commenced immediately since we journeyed via airplane to our new home. Our children, then aged 10, almost 7, and 4 had not experienced flying before, so exhilaration was high. Add to that, a fancy hotel stay for a few days, until our household goods and our family car caught up to us, was definitely out of the norm.

When the movers arrived at our new house with all our belongings, it was unseasonably hot. Not only were we surprised by that, but we were also a little miffed that folks told us we would not need central air conditioning. However, humidity proved low and evenings cooled off significantly. Eventually we did upgrade to A/C but didn’t utilize it that often.

Because a few weeks of school remained at our children’s new public school, we enrolled the two oldest and I located a wonderful preschool for our youngest to attend in the fall.

Our wise principal at our former Midwest school (where I had served as PTA President) recommended it would be easier for our girls to be the ‘new kids’ during the school year than at the beginning of the year when all the students in a classroom were new to the teacher.

He was right! Our girls settled in nicely with their new surroundings, teachers, and classmates and were welcomed with enthusiasm. Each morning, Papa headed out to work, the girls rode the bus to our neighborhood school, and our youngest “helped” me put our home in order.

But every weekend, we jaunted off to discover more about our new residence in this state so diverse from the one we had just left. Our first excursion was along the Columbia River, the largest river in the Pacific Northwest.

Columbia River Gorge on Oregon side

Beautiful scenery can be viewed along this waterway that serves as a border between Oregon and Washington. Eventually, the Columbia, which originates in British Columbia, Canada, winds its way westward through the Cascade Mountain range and empties into the Pacific Ocean.

Driving east along this massive river, we got a taste of the Columbia River Gorge, a 4,000-foot-deep gorge, the largest national scenic area in the United States. The western part of the gorge is home to three dormant volcanoes, including Oregon’s highest point, Mount Hood, old growth forests, and waterfalls galore – over 40 of them.

We stopped at scenic spots along the Historic Columbia River Highway on the Oregon side of the river, then crossed it and came back home along the Washington side after visiting Bonneville Dam.

Columbia River Gorge on Washington side

The famous and often photographed Multnomah Falls was our first stop. This amazing sight is 620 feet tall, split into two falls basically, and is the tallest waterfall in Oregon.

Multnomah Falls

A paved path takes visitors to a footbridge where one can get a better view of the upper part of the falls. There are also trails to the top of Multnomah as well for more serious hikers.

Multnomah Falls is an extremely popular tourist attraction and busy with visitors year-round. After that, we opted for a quieter spot – Horsetail Falls – where there were a lot less people and our children could climb and scramble among the rocks.

Horsetail Falls

Horsetail Falls

Horsetail Falls

In the years to come, we would explore the Columbia River Gorge several times, including the vastly different terrain and climate of the eastern part, a high desert.

We experienced a great kick-start to our adventure quest in the Pacific Northwest. Yet so much more waited on the horizon for us.

“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.” ~ William Feather

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Words for Wednesday: come walk with me

“Walk through this world with me, go where I go…” (lyrics written by Sandy Seamons and Kaye Savage and recorded by George Jones, country singer)

Today I’m asking you to take a walk with me.

Come walk with me

In my neck of the woods,

To spot what wonders

We are likely to see.

Embrace the coolness of the morning

After the sun awakens the day.

Wind down the path listening

As feathered friends greet us on our way.

It might be surprising, never knowing

What we may hear or may see,

Perhaps a shy rabbit, a scampering lizard,

Or a blossoming tree.

Breathe in and breathe out

Fresh air that abounds.

We’ll pause just a moment

To listen to some sounds.

The ponds covered in lily pads

Provide a lovely sight,

While bull frogs bellow

With all of their might.

Come walk with me

In my country air;

For just a moment,

Find God’s beauty there.

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: an altered state

A distinct change of scenery. A pronounced change of life. Even a distinguishable change of climate.

That’s what awaited our family in the early 1990’s. After close to a decade living in the Midwest, we moved across the country to the Pacific Northwest, a place truly diverse from our usual surroundings.

Due to Papa’s promotion/job transfer, we packed our household goods and watched movers load everything we owned, including our family vehicle, onto a trailer truck and drive away for a long haul west.

All we had left in our possession was one piece of luggage per person and our carry-on bags. We then boarded an airplane and landed in what felt like a different country or at least an altered state.

Moving from the flat lands and rolling small hills of the Great Plains, where there were four discernable seasons with hot, humid, and often dry summers and frigid, windy, snowy winters, to a mountainous, heavily forested location just an hour or so away from the Pacific Ocean with a mild climate and abundant rainfall astounded us all.

Today’s Tuesday Tour will highlight some of the first photos taken on my initial glimpse of that altered state and serve as an introduction for the next few posts of amazing places we visited in our six years of living in the Pacific Northwest.

Scenic spots we experienced inspired me to capture scads of scenic photos. My pictures back then were limited by my not-so-great photography skills and using an inexpensive film point and shoot camera, but I still managed to get some nice shots.

Prior to our big move, Papa had already acclimated to those new surroundings for a few months while this Mama and our three young children stayed in our Midwest suburb to get our house there sold.

Papa accomplished one dream he harbored when he accepted an invitation from some of his sales customers to go sailing in the San Juan Islands area of Washington. Living in a location so near the ocean and two major rivers would prove to be an extraordinary experience for us all.

Papa living the dream — sailing in the San Juan Islands, Washington

Before the move, I flew out for a few days to Portland, Oregon to join Papa in our quest for a suburban residence there while my parents came from their Northeast home to care for our children.

After landing at Portland International Airport, I could not stop exclaiming over the remarkably different environment right in front of my eyes.

The first thing that caught my eye and boggled my mind were the gigantic Douglas Fir trees…everywhere! Compared to the woods in the Kansas City area, those trees were massively tall. And I just could not get over it.

Even though it was early spring, grass was green, many of the deciduous trees already had leaves, and flowers were abundantly blooming. The majority of my first visit to the Portland area was spent searching for a place to live, but Papa and I managed a little bit of sightseeing as well.

What fun it was to stroll through the Portland Saturday Market, an open-air handmade arts and crafts market with local vendors, food kiosks, and live music.  Open on Saturdays and Sundays from March through December, this must-visit place, which opened in 1974, is known as the largest continuously operating market of its kind in the United States.

During the years we lived in the Portland area, the market was located near the Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood under the Burnside Bridge. Now the market is situated in the Tom McCall Waterfront Park along the Willamette (pronounced Will-LAM-ette) River.

We still own a lovely hand-made pottery pitcher we purchased there, and I remember listening and enjoying the steel drum (or steelpan) music provided under a large canopy. Now the Portland Saturday Market is more permanent and folks can even purchase the unique merchandise from the artisans online. For those interested, click here.

We ambled along the waterfront park catching glimpses of RiverPlace Marina and the Portland Convention Center and just viewing the Willamette River. Soon we would call this unique (to us) place in the valley between mountains and ocean our home. And exploring beautiful new sights would begin.  

“Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.” ~ Leonard Koren

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: million dollar highway

I bet you’ve heard it many times – life is a highway. Possibly a song queues up in your brain’s juke box like it does in mine.

That song, Life is a Highway, immediately starts playing in my head and lyrics blast from my mouth. Originally written and sung by Tom Cochrane in the early 1990’s, the song was made popular by Rascal Flatts as the theme song for the Disney animated movie, Cars.

Traveling by car on a spectacular highway is today’s focus on my Tuesday Tour as I continue to share Papa’s and my 1979 autumn trip to the San Juan Mountains (part of the Rockies) in southwestern Colorado.

“All roads are tough, but you have to choose the one you know you’ll never be sorry for taking.” ~ Chris Burkmenn

One of the roads we traveled during our week-long stay was definitely a spectacular scenic drive, yet also a nail biter, but one we weren’t sorry we took. Dubbed the Million Dollar Highway, this two-lane road tests your driving skills as you maneuver through Mineral Creek Valley and encounter sharp grades, hairpin turns, and cross over three mountain passes.

There are varying theories on why this scenic highway is named thusly. Some say constructing the highway in the 1920’s cost over $1 million per mile. Other folks think the highway’s name came from the awe-inspiring views. And yet another claim is that literally the dirt used to fill in the road contained a million dollars’ worth of gold ore.

Whatever the truth may be, it is one highway visitors won’t soon forget. One stretch of road that traverses travelers from the Red Mountain Pass, with an elevation of over 11,000 feet, through the Uncompahgre Gorge is one that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I have to surmise that this drive was so scary that I stayed busy ascertaining that Papa didn’t drive us over the side of the mountain and that’s why I don’t have many photos taken with my 35 mm film camera from way back then.

Million Dollar Highway consists of narrow lanes of traffic overlooking very steep cliffs and there are no guardrails. You read that correctly, no guard rails! And apparently, it remains the same now as it did in 1979 when we drove on it.

A co-worker recommended this drive as a “must see” for us and we learned she was right. We started out on the Million Dollar Highway (US Route 550) from the mining town of Silverton, where we previously visited via the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway. The drive eventually took us to a lookout point, where we could view another tiny town of just 0.8 square miles, Ouray.

Nestled in the mountains, Ouray’s nickname is “Switzerland of America.” Its history began in 1876 when the town became incorporated, not long after Colorado became a US state. Ouray also calls itself the “Outdoor Recreation Capital of Colorado,” with many outdoor activities available.

One of the well-visited sites on our itinerary to see in Ouray was Box Canyon Falls. The falls, an 85-foot torrent of water, is located inside a park of the same name. Canyon Creek narrows and shoots through boulders there gushing thousands of gallons of water a minute.

Quite a sight to behold and I recall how loud is was as the falls thundered down into a 100-foot walled canyon of quartzite. My old film photos and not-so-great photography skills truly don’t show how dramatic and astonishing it is, but you can tell how dark it was at the bottom of the falls where the creek continued on by the photo below.

All too soon, it was time for us to leave the mountains and the forest and head back to the prairie – the plains of Oklahoma where duty and work called our names.

On our way back, we traveled through Wolf Creek Pass, a high and very steep mountain pass on the Continental Divide. We stopped at the summit (elevation 11.904 feet) in hopes of seeing some snow but all we found was one little patch.  

One memorable sight and decent photograph I captured was a copse of aspen trees just beginning to turn their lovely lemon-yellow color as we traveled through the San Juan Mountains. Our mountain getaway was one we’ll not forget.

As I look back on the many highways we’ve traveled during our 40+ years of marriage, some roads we traveled in life turned out great, some were difficult and trying, but all were blessings in some way. I’m grateful for them and hopeful for more roadways of life to capture on my Tuesday Tour.

“They say life is a highway and we all travel our own roads, some good, some bad, yet each is a blessing of its own.” ~ Jess “Chief” Brynjulson

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: a different landscape

After a couple of years living on the plains of Oklahoma (where the wind truly does come sweeping down the plain), our fall vacation to the mountains of southwestern Colorado in 1979 was unquestionably a change of landscape.

Continuing our Tuesday Tour of this area, today my old 35mm film photos of another attraction we visited during that trip so long ago tell the story. Reaching back over 40 years in my memory bank in order to recall details of this trip, these old pictures came to my aid. My photography skills weren’t all that great back then, but the photos do jog my remembrances.

After our day trip on the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (click here if you missed that post), we ventured out on another day trip from our little one-bedroom log cabin in the San Juan Mountains to Mesa Verde.

Plummeting caverns like we’d not seen before (this was four decades before we’d viewed the Grand Canyon) and vast views that enable visitors, on a clear day, to see four states located in this “four corners region” – Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah – proved to be a landscape of a different kind.  

 

Amazing and intriguing sights can be found in Mesa Verde National Park, consisting of archaeological sites that were once inhabited by ancestral Pueblo people.  They built their communities not just on the mesas there but within the overhanging cliffs. Hundreds of these cliff dwellings are some of the best-preserved archeological areas in North America.

The arrow points to a cliff dwelling seen from a distance

For some reason after living on top of the mesas for centuries, the Puebloans moved their community dwellings cliffside, ranging from one-room to villages with numerous rooms.

Getting a little closer to the huge community

According to park information, these ancient people farmed on top of the mesas, but lived in the alcoves of the canyons for almost 100 years. Eventually, they moved into what is now New Mexico and Arizona and by the year 1300, Mesa Verde was no longer inhabited by the ancestral Pueblo people.

It was mind-boggling to view the almost unbelievable structures tucked into the side of steep cliffs from a distance as we drove around the park via winding roads, but when we actually hiked down to view them up-close, we marveled at these ancient people’s ingenuity and adeptness.

Going down the trail to explore Cliff Palace

Because the altitude is rather high at Mesa Verde and it was a scorching hot day, I endured a wicked headache while we visited so we didn’t explore as much as we could have. Since I wasn’t feeling well, we chose to forgo visiting Balcony House which is only accessible by climbing a 32-foot ladder and then crawling through a tunnel. A pounding headache, slight nausea, and no remedy available caused me to nix that idea.

But we did hike down the pathway to view Cliff Palace, which is the largest and most famous of the cliff dwellings, containing over 150 rooms as well as kivas, which were rooms used for religious rituals.

Another area of Mesa Verde is Wetherill Mesa where Long House is located. This area was excavated in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Today you can only visit it by ranger-guided tours. Of course, in the over 40 years since we visited, much has been added to the park including a visitor center, where sightseers can purchase tour tickets.

Papa before he became a papa (just to show scale of the dwellings)

Even though my memory of visiting Mesa Verde is hampered by not forgetting a touch of “altitude sickness,” I’ve never forgotten the sights we viewed in that very different terrain from any we’d seen before. I’m glad I still have those old photographs to catalog that unusual landscape.

“We are a landscape of all we have seen.” ~  Isamu Noguchi 

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2021

Tuesday Tour: the mountains are calling

It was our first real vacation as a married couple in the fall of 1979. Papa was a military officer; I worked as a newspaper assistant editor/reporter in a place far from our home state. Consequently, our vacations were jaunts back ‘home’ to visit our families.

But we wanted to explore places new to us and after growing a tad weary of seemingly endless flat prairie land, we longed to visit mountains and forests. So that September, we decided to drive from Oklahoma through New Mexico and into the San Juan Mountains (part of the Rockies) of southwestern Colorado.

Luckily for us, one of my co-workers traveled there every summer for a family reunion, so she suggested a great itinerary of spots to visit.

We booked a little one-bedroom log cabin at Silver Streams Lodge near Vallecito Lake, CO in the San Juan National Forest in September and were surprised to find we were the only people there other than the owners/managers. Of course, summers and winters are busier seasons for that area.

View from the lodge

We hiked and enjoyed the peace, quiet, and change of scenery. But the highlight of our vacation was day trips to Durango, Silverton, Ouray, and Mesa Verde. Today on our Tuesday Tour, I’m showcasing the Durango-Silverton area.

Even back then in his 20’s, Papa was a railroad enthusiast, and he was excited for us to embark on a day-long excursion via the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a train with both steam and diesel locomotives that has continued operation for almost 140 years to date.  

What an amazing trip! Boarding the train in the historic town of Durango, passengers travel 45 miles up the mountains for 3½ hours and arrive in the old mining settlement of Silverton.

In 1880, Durango was founded by the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Once the railroad was established there the next year, construction on tracks up the mountain to Silverton began and were completed by the summer of 1882. The train hauled both passengers and freight, especially silver and gold ore mined in the San Juan Mountains.

We departed in the morning and arrived in Silverton, nestled in the valley of the mountains, where we ate lunch and enjoyed a couple hours browsing the shops there. Of course, Papa posed in front of the train’s engine on our arrival, and I posed in the open rail car, our choice on the way back down the mountain to Durango on another 3 ½ hour trip.

Arrival in Silverton

Departure from Silverton

The magnificent views we experienced, inaccessible by highway, awed us. My old 35mm film photos and my not-so-great photography skills back then don’t do them justice, but you get the idea.

Animas River Gorge as seen from the train

Even back in the late 1970’s, both Durango and Silverton (watch a nice video here) had plenty of restaurants and shops to visit and now even more so (500 shops in the Durango area), but nature and outdoor activities as well as the narrow gauge train trip are the true gems and tourist attractions of that area of Colorado.

Next week on our Tuesday Tour, I’ll show you other spectacular spots we visited on our trip to southwestern Colorado including Ouray and Mesa Verde.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” ~ John Muir

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