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Long Legs and Blogging
“Your posts have long legs.”
Every now and then, WordPress sends a critique, a kind of how you’re doing on your blog sort of thing, and I kind of like it that my blog has ‘long legs.’
My stats are inching back up. At one time, blogging out of Kuwait and Qatar, I averaged around 1200 – 1500 visitors a day, now I am happy to see 800 – 1000 a day. This year I had my highest all time day on this blog 3931 visitors in one day. I don’t really have the kind of blog that attracts that kind of visitor count often; mine is quirky and focused mostly on small things – and great ideas.
But I love the ‘long legs.’ Today the post attracting attention is one I wrote back in March of 2008 about bathroom plumbing in Kuwait. It just always gives me a grin to see an old post attract a little attention. 🙂
May In Seattle
From the bone chilliing 47 degrees mid-day on my arrival, the temperatures in Seattle flew up up and up. By Sunday, the American Mother’s Day, the temperatures were up 30 something degrees, in the mid to high 70’s, and Monday and Tuesday were the same. Good thing we got most of the heavy sorting and tossing andhauling done during the beautiful, but cooler weather before the weekend.
We had a lovely Mother’s Day, Mom got to sit out in the sun, under a huge umbrella, got to play with her great grandchildren, had all her children surrounding her. It was a gorgeous sunny day in a beautiful setting. We all had a lot of fun.
To add icing to the cake, I had the great luxury of time with my best friend from college, time to sit around and catch up, philosophize, all the things we did before husbands and children came along. Now we have as much to talk about as ever, and the great luxury of time in this trip to get to know all the little things, too. What a great blessing. Back to Pensacola, and gearing up for the next big trip!
Saudi – Bahrain “Merge?”
Thank you, John Mueller for this article from The Press:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/05/14/241177/iran-raps-saudi-plans-bahrain-merger/
PressTV – Iran Majlis condemns merger of KSA, Bahrain
The Iranian Majlis (parliament) has condemned the Saudi proposal for merger with Bahrain, saying the “unwise” measure will further destabilize the region and multiply its problems.
The Saudi plans to annex Bahrain “will extend the Bahraini crisis to Saudi Arabia and push the region toward further unrest,” a statement, signed by 190 Iranian lawmakers, read on Monday.
The statement asserted that political force and pressure cannot silence the frustrated Bahraini people who have been holding anti-government demonstrations since mid-February 2011 and calling on the US-backed Al Khalifa family to leave power.
On March 14, 2011, more than 1,000 Saudi troops entered Bahrain to assist the Manama government in suppressing the peaceful popular protests in the Persian Gulf Island.
According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds have been arrested in the Saudi-backed regime crackdown.
In a report released on April 17, Amnesty International criticized the Bahraini regime for continuing the violation of human rights and the excessive use of force against the anti-regime protesters.
“The authorities are trying to portray the country as being on the road to reform, but we continue to receive reports of torture and use of unnecessary and excessive force against protests. Their reforms have only scratched the surface,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director.
The Iranian lawmakers concluded by expressing their “all-out support for the brave nation of Bahrain as well as the independence and territorial integrity of the country.”
Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking to merge with Bahrain in line with plans to unify the six Arab member states of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC).
The council members, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, are expected to meet and discuss closer union among the six countries on Monday.
In December 2011, Saudi King Abdullah called on the council member states to move “beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity.”
However, some members of the council have expressed concern about Saudi Arabia’s possible dominance over the other five countries if the [P]GCC becomes unified.
HMV/HGH/AZ
Brrrrr! That Can’t be Right!
When I travel, I check with Weather Underground so I will know what to pack. While I barely had time to unpack and do mammoth piles of laundry to repack for the next trip, I did have time to check the weather. Lovely weather, highs in the high 50’s and 60’s, going up to 80 on Mother’s Day this coming Sunday.
So when we landed, and the pilot said “Welcome to Seattle, it is 47° out, my only possible response was “That can’t be right.” But as soon as I stepped out of the plane, I knew it was. I was wearing a little sleeveless silk and linen weave, with a lightweight cotton jacket over it. Not enough!
Arriving in Seattle mid-day is perfectl; traffic going north is calm and – for Seattle – light. I’m in an SUV; when I got to the rental pick up it’s all he had – that, or a Tundra or Yukon, which are just WAAYY too big for me. The car is a Captiva, not a large SUV, but one drive from the airport to Edmonds and I am down about an eighth of a tank, a far cry from my modest little Rav4. On our tip across the US, that sweet little car averaged 30.3 miles per gallon. In Seattle, where the gas prices are substantially higher, I am driving a gas hog. Aargh.
I am staying with my best friend from college. I’ve stayed in this house before, but it has been entirely renovated since then, and it is like staying in a boutique hotel – entirely lovely.
Here is the view just before dark from her house:
My friend has always been an inspirational gardener, and plants these gorgeous big pots:
When I arrive, she is struggling with a connectivity problem, which gives me some time to gather myself from my early rising to my long flights. Every time, I still thank God it is only two timezones and half a day, as opposed to two long flights and about 24 hours travel time from Kuwait and Qatar.
We run out to buy a new wireless modem, and look for a spot for dinner. This is what I love about my old friend, she’s always up for something new. I spot a restaurant I read a review for a long time ago, and she is game to try it.
The prices were unbelievable. This is Seattle. How can you have a simple and serenely lovely interior, full of quietly and happily dining customers, and still charge these low prices? For dinner? I had the Tic Tac combo rice vermicelli dish, and my friend had a different combo. It was delicious! They are on Aurora / Highway 99, and have a steady stream of customers, families, couples, singles, take-out – there are a lot of people love this restaurant, including us. Sorry there are no photos of the meal, but old friends always have so much to talk about, and it never even crossed my mind. Sorry!
This is my lovely ‘hotel’ room, where I quickly fell into bed and was soon fast asleep 🙂
Absolute Favorite, in Mancos, Colorado
Every now and then pure unexpected magic happens, a blessing, pure grace. Every now and then you make a stop and all the right things happen.
We had not enjoyed our breakfast the previous morning at the Far View Lodge, so we decided to get on the road early, and find a place to eat on the road. We were up and out by seven, and it took about half an hour just to get off the mesa and down to the main road. Once we hit the main road, we start looking for a good place to stop.
We see a sign: The Absolute Bakery in Mancos, Colorado, just turn right at the next stop light.
We turn right. We find the bakery, which looks cute from the outside:
And then we found a place to park, in front of a Hat-Maker’s Shop guarded by a beautiful long-haired cat. For me, the magic has already started. Did you even know of a hat maker anymore? I thought they had all disappeared:
As we walked into the Absolute Bakery, we were enticed with smells, the odor of break baking with cinnamon, the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee, bacon frying . . . and inside, it is homey, and welcoming, and you are warmly welcomed, and we just feel so glad to be there on this sunny morning when we have so far to drive . . .
The breakfast menu has so many good things, you don’t know what to order.
AdventureMan chose the VegHead Stack, which was totally wonderful:
And I chose the Absolute Breakfast special with Chorizo – total YUMMMMM:
The breakfasts are delicious, and as we eat, the bakery fills up, travelers, locals, families . . . it has the feel of a place we would like to live, a community, people who know each other.
You know how it is sometimes when you have so much to do, and you really need to get started? As we paid for our breakfast, instead of getting on the road, we dawdled. We picked out cookies for the road – I had the most huge delicious macaroon I have ever had, just a bite now and then, and it lasted all the way to Amarillo. We got to talking with travelers headed the direction we had come from, just strangers crossing paths, but it was a great conversation, and we hated to pull ourselves away, to get back to the serious business of driving.
Lunch was OK. It was BBQ, but someone forgot our order, so we lost some time:
To add insult to injury, not only is it a long day on the road, but we also loose an hour, so we get in even an hour later than we would have. As we near the border, I am watching my phone to see if I can see the change, but it happened about six miles before the border and I missed it. AdventureMan’s on the same system, but his phone changed a little later.
The morning drive was mostly through the Navajo nation and backroads, full of ranches and horses and some drama. The afternoon, on Interstate 40, was just boring, with an occasional moment of hilarity:
What can you imagine would use a tire that big?
We have reservations in Amarillo, and by the grace of God, our hotel is just off the highway, and my little iPhone tells us exactly how to get there. We hit the pool, and get some exercise. We split the last apple and some trail mix for dinner – we are still full from breakfast at the Absolute Bakery!
The 700 Years Tour at Mesa Verde
Early early in the morning we are up and ready to grab a bite of breakfast at the Far View Lodge and to take the 700 years tour. When we called for reservations at the Far View Lodge, the desk clerk asked if we would like to sign up for the 700 Years of Culture tour, and since Sparkle had told us that the tours fill up early, we signed up.
The light in Mesa Verde is beautiful at eight in the morning, and we were shocked when thirty-something people around our age (I guess we are all out exploring America!) got on the bus. Somehow, for $45, I had thought it would be a tour of five to seven people. I didn’t think so many people would pay so much for a tour!
The guide, Dave, and the bus driver, Leiter, were both local men, living in Cortez, men who double as guides a couple days a week to liven up their retirement. Dave’s depth of knowledge and investigative spirit was impressive; clearly he has a passion for the Ancestral Puebloans, and reads everything he can get his hands on. He has read all the latest studies and speculation, and as a farming man, he had some of his own down-to-earth speculations which he shared with us. It was all good stuff.
First, we went to look at early pit dwellings:
And then we headed off to visit some of the more and less famous cliff dwellings:
Does this remind you of anything? (Hint: see previous post)
Look at the terrain – so similar to other places where similar dwellings have evolved . . . (Hint Hint: Les Eyzies de Tayak) There are cliff dwellings in almost every conceivable concavity.
From pit dwellings to small family dwellings, to multiple family dwellings, small villages . . .
This is the Cliff Palace, a multiple family dwelling:
And then, the old legend goes, they just disappeared . . . or did they? Dave, the guide, tells us that the Apaches and Navajos won’t come any where near the Mesa, that the mesa is full of old spirits, not their spirits. The Hopi, however, a little further South, have no fear; the customs and dwellings of the Ancient Puebloans are familiar to them.
It’s kind of like conspiracy theories. We all love a good scary story.
“And then, they all just disappeared!”
But Dave thinks they didn’t disappear, that maybe they just moved on. Maybe too many years of drought, or maybe the soil they were farming gave out. Maybe they heard life was easier a few miles down the road and just picked up and moved a little on down the road . . . which seems to me to be a more logical, if less romantic, possibility.
Anyway, one of the things I really liked was that these ancient peoples, whoever they were, built their dwellings in locations and styles similar to the pre-France people of . . .umm . . . err. . . France.
I need to add a footnote here. This doesn’t happen to everybody, but it happened to me. Once I got to Grand Canyon, activities that I normally do without batting an eye began to be harder. I am a walker and a hiker, but any time I had to hike uphill in the Grand Canyon, I was huffing and puffing like a geezer. “Oh no! Oh no!” I was thinking to myself, “I must have some terrible respiratory condition! I’m suddenly getting old!”
Not so. As it turns out, I am just sensitive to high altitude. I should have known. I drove through Colorado once, and my eyes turned bright red, tiny little capillaries in my eyes burst.
At 8000 feet, in Mesa Verde, I could function, but sometimes found myself huffing and puffing. As soon as we descended a couple thousand feet, I was fine. Leiter, the bus driver, told me that many athletic teams train at high altitude so that when they perform, at a lower altitude, they will exceed themselves. It is such a relief to be able to move fast now, and not puff. I always took it for granted before. Not now.
Petroglyphs in the Petrified Forest
So here we segue back to the Petrified Forest, and it may not seem logical in a linear, chronological sense, like time-as-pearls-strung-together-on-a-string sort of thing, but in terms of like things, the next chronological entry is going to be on 700 years of culture, the Ancestral Puebloans who used to be called the Anasazi, but before I go there, I want to show you some petroglyphs.
(I’m putting in a lot of links in case you are as big a petroglyph nerd as I am, and want to read more)
I always imagine the problems with being early man. Imagine they are smart, and spend a lot of their days figuring things out, most important being 1. What are we going to eat? 2. How are we going to keep dry/warm? 3. How do we protect ourselves from our enemies? They have the same problems we have, only on a much more basic level, and with fewer resources.
Have you ever thought about how easy it is to get information now? (The hard part being sifting through so you get the most reliable, most relevant information). Imagine a world where you have to figure it out for yourself, every day.
Early civilizations fascinate me. I am always interested in little tiny things that can be very important, like how did they fasten skins together to keep themselves warm? How do you poke a hole in a sharp bone so you can use it as a needle? How do you make a button, or make strips that can be used to tie clothing together?
How do you fasten a spear head onto a spear, or an arrowhead onto an arrow?
Early man was a problem solver, and I am fascinated by petroglyphs, which are either early attempts at documentation, or early attempts at communication, or maybe both? The first petroglyphs and cave paintings I ever visited were the Font de Gaume Caves near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, and they took my breath away. I didn’t even hesitate because it was a cave, I wanted to see them so badly.
I want you to look at this photo of a fairly early dwelling in Les Eyzies de Tayac-Sireuil and hold it in your mind before we move on:
Later, living in Saudi Arabia, one of the most fun day trips ever was to a rock formation called Graffiti Rock, which had no protection, so very old petroglyphs mingled with modern carvings, but some of the older carvings were so interesting, so intriguing.
Coming across petroglyphs in the Petrified Forest was a delight.
Here is part of what the national parks website has to say about petroglyphs found in the Petrified Forest:
In 1977 a spiral petroglyph at Chaco Canyon National Monument was discovered which displayed a precise interaction with sunlight at the time of summer solstice by means of a narrow shaft of sunlight that moved down a shadowed rock face to bisect the center of a large spiral petroglyph. Subsequent observations found that on winter solstice and equinoxes there were intriguing interactions of sunlit shafts with the large spiral and a smaller spiral nearby. No other example of a sunlight interaction with prehistoric or historic petroglyphs was known at this time. However, there was a tradition of Pueblo sun watching in historic times, particularly of the varying sunrise and sunset positions throughout the year, to set the dates for ceremonies.
As a result of the Chaco Canyon find, Bob Preston initiated a research project to determine whether other petroglyph sites in the Southwest functioned as solar “observatories.” Over the last 16 years he has identified about 120 examples of similar solstice events at more than 50 petroglyph sites in Arizona, New Mexico and southern Utah. Evidence indicates that the phenomenon may have been spread over as much as a 1000-km region. These findings show clearly that certain petroglyphs were used by early pueblo cultures to function as calendrical markers for the winter and summer solstices. Petrified Forest National Park contains the greatest known concentration of solar calendars, with 16 of the sites being in or immediately adjacent to the park, and has been key to understanding their nature.
Shadows and sunlit images are found to move across petroglyphs due to other rocks being in the path of the sun’s rays. As the sun’s path across the sky changes throughout the year, the positions of the shadows and sunlit images change on the petroglyph panels. In many cases the petroglyphs have been placed on the rock faces in just the right position so that specific interactions occur on the solstices. The most common types of petroglyphs on which solsitial interactions have been identified are spirals and circles. The key to determining that these were intended and not by chance is that interactions are seen from site to site, and occur on the solstices more frequently than on other days of the year. These consistent interactions may involve a point of sunlight or shadow piercing the center or tracing the edge of a spiral or circular petroglyph; or shadow lines may suddenly appear or disappear at the center or edges of the petroglyph; or they may move up to the center or edge and then retreat. It is not uncommon for a single petroglyph to display multiple interactions of this type, either on the same solstice or on each of the solstices. In fact, at one site, there are five circular and spiral petroglyphs that show 15 interactions on the both solstices.
An intriguing question is whether types of petroglyph images were involved with specific dates. In several cases similar sunlight and shadow interactions occur on spiral and circular petroglyphs on the equinox, and distinctive interactions occur with other petroglyphs on the solstices and other dates. Clearly much of the puzzle remains to be unraveled.
There was a WEALTH of petroglyphs. I’m just going to show you a few of those we found:
This one makes me laugh; it looks so much like our modern day stork-who-brings-babies (LOL, where did that legend/story start anyway??)
LOL, these feet are larger than life, or else they were made by giants!
Early people in widely separated parts of the world carved and painted on rock, probably for a number of reasons, maybe keeping track of solar activity and seasons, maybe magical/religious thinking for a good hunt or nostalgia for a good hunt, maybe just someone who, like today’s blogger, just has to document in some way . . . 😉
Mister Maesta’s Cafe in Holbrook, AZ
It is cold and rainy, rainy and windy as we leave the Petrified Forest, and on top of the time craziness, we are HUNGRY. We always have nibbles in the car, but a nibble is not a lunch. We are hungry. And we are in Mexican Food territory, so we are eager to maximize our good Mexican food eating.
Outside of Holbrook, we see a billboard for Mister Maester’s restaurant with ‘the BEST Mexican Food’ and that is just what we are looking for. When we find it, it is a hilarious place, full of Route 66 memorabilia.
Yes. I am so embarrassed. This is what is left of the sopapilla I ordered. It was SO delicious. I had never had a stuffed sopapilla before. I had heard some Mexican guys order sopapilla the day before, so I thought I would try one. When it got to the table, I forgot to photograph before eating. Oops. My bad.
This is what is left of AdventureMan’s combination plate. It was a total WOW.
By the time we left, the rain had lightened, the air was clear, the kind of clear after a heavy rain dampens down all the dust and the winds clear the haze and the world is brilliant and shiny, and we only have a very short drive to our stay in Winslow, AZ at the fabulous La Posada.
Arizona Crazy Time
As we left the Petrified Forest, I said “That is so weird. My phone says it’s 1:20 but the car clock says 2:20. What does your phone say?”
His phone also said 1:20.
“Did we cross another date line?” I wondered.
“No! Look at the map, the date line is over on the other side of Arizona!” AdventureMan explained.
“How can it be 1:20? It feels like 2:20, and we spent so much time at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, how could it be 1:20?”
When we got to the hotel (next entry) and were checking in, we both THOUGHT we overheard the desk clerk telling someone that they were on “Arizona-Pacific Time” but that is just so whacko we both must have misunderstood.
It was only after four days in Arizona (entries follow) when we left Arizona and were in Colorado that we got our answer: Arizona doesn’t do Daylight Savings. So when all the states in Mountain Time go on Daylight Savings Time, they jump forward an hour. Arizona doesn’t. So that makes Arizona on Pacific time, one little island of Pacific Coast Time in the middle of all the Mountain Daylight Time States.
To make it all just a little crazier, there is a huge amount of land in Arizona that is the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation observes Daylight Savings Time.
Weird.
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