The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands. She Visits Places Where Nature is Awesome

So, Bears Ears is a GO. Thank you President Obama. I'l be writing you a personal note about this soon.

Meanwhile it's time to finish up this whole series. I drove right by Bears Ears this fall on the way to Natural Bridges. Next time I'm headed that way I hope I can visit both.

Natural Bridges is not terribly far from Hovenweep. You can easily see both places in one day unless you do a lot of hiking. It was a very early monument, the first one in Utah established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands. She Visits New Mexico and Utah Places where the Ancestors Hung Out

After 4 days in the big city, time to head home

After Albuquerque I stopped at two places in New Mexico the first day and one in Utah the second. I deliberately decided not to attempt Chaco Culture because I read on the website about how difficult it is to drive there. I knew my car was up to the task, and it had not rained for some time so the road would have been dry. But I thought about whether or not I really wanted to drive over 70 miles round trip on dirt washboard roads, and decided, nah, not this time. I'll see if sometime I can't find a guided tour group that takes you there in a bus or van.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands. She Visits Some Places Where the Ancestors Used to Live in Arizona

Flagstaff claims three national monuments within its radar.

First of all, I had no idea how many places there are where you can spend time checking out ruins of the places that the pre-Columbian people of the Four Corners region built. I know about Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon (where I have not yet been, but I will get there!) But it turns out there are many, many places protected by the federal government, state governments, tribes and sometimes no one at all.

The Blue Lady Decides She Needs to Tend Her Own Garden

So far it's ok, but look what's coming.

I can't fix it. I can only watch what unfolds as time passes. I'm willing to suspend judgment for the time being and wait. So far nothing bad has actually happened. President Obama is still in charge.

I plan to continue to be nice and polite to all individuals who cross my path as I always try to be. I am assuming I will receive politeness back. If I don't well....we'll just see what people actually do and figure it out then.

The Blue Lady Must Live in the Red Land

I am feeling like I have been thrown to the bottom
of a place like this. I don't know
how to climb out.

It's 0200 on November 9, 2016. I cannot sleep tonight, so I am up writing some of my thoughts at this unseemly hour. Obviously this election of yesterday did not turn out the way I had hoped it would. My beloved Cubbies won the world series, but the other team lost.

I will do what I expected of either candidate. I will be gracious in defeat. The results are what they are. I will not fight against that. I will not wish ill upon our new leaders. I will only be angry with my neighbors and fellow citizens for a short time. I refuse not to be optimistic in the long run.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: She makes a Plan for a Road Trip

We had a long and glorious autumn this year.
This scene is driving up Cedar Canyon in southern Utah.
The colors were just shimmering which the photo can't show.

In early October I took my first big retirment trip. I took a road trip through northern Arizona, north western New Mexico and southern Utah that lasted 12 days. If I had just been moving the whole time, I probably would not have taken 12 days, but the kernal that began the trip was an accreditation site visit at the College of Nursing at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Nowhere Special. She Always Wanted to Go There

A road to Nowhere Special

No doubt every part of the country has plenty of Nowhere Special places. I know the intermountain west is riddled with ghost towns, micro-towns, failed towns and all kinds of other places like that. A couple of days before I left the Hills the autumn weather was just perfect. I decided to just get in the car and drive in the Black Hills along some roads I never or seldom take to see a couple of Nowhere Specials.