Canyons Everywhere!

Our next destination was Bryce Canyon, so off we went.  When we crossed the Utah line,

the canyons were almost non-stop.  Many of them had the striations of the water under pressure either during glacial movement or tectonic plate movement.

We crossed the Colorado River in Glen Canyon National Recreation Center, and it was my turn to drive, so pictures got a little sparse.

We stopped at some outlooks  in both Glen Canyon and in Capital Reef National Park.  I truly do not know where Glen Canyon ended and Capital Reef started.  We didn't meander down to the primary sights in either, such as Lake Powell, but we do intend to go back and spend some time on Lake Powell and other Utah parks, such as Arches and Zion.  Far to much to see for one trip driving through.

It was a good thing we grabbed breakfast and filled up with gas before we left Colorado.  It was Sunday, and apparently there are very few things that are open on Sunday.  I booked us a room in Bicknell, just past Torrey.  I suggest if you decide to take Highway 12 down to Bryce Canyon and you're there on a Sunday, stay in Torrey.  It's the only place with an open restaurant.  We did find a self service gas station that was closed, but the pumps were open for credit card usage in Bicknell, though.  After driving back to Torrey to eat and returning to Bicknell we settled in for a good night's sleep.  I was feeling better and seemed to finally begin to adjust to the elevation.

Heading South The Rocky Mountain Way

The drive south was beautiful even though it was rainy and overcast.  The heavy clouds were beautiful, so I took a few shots while Bruce drove.  I didn't realize I got the chair farm in one, but they were growing all different colors and varieties!

I'm not sure what this is, but I took its picture!

As we got down into the valleys, there were little hamlets dotting the landscape, mostly alongside the river.  They all offered whitewater rafting or other outdoor adventures.  Llamas seem to be the pack animal of choice, probably because they're so well adapted to altitude, being native to the higher elevations of the Andes.  They mostly all seemed to sport more RVs and motor homes than fixed structures, leading me to believe they may become veritable ghost towns in the winter.

Not a fast food joint to be seen all the way south, which wasn't a problem.  Little mom and pop places tend to be better, and we found some good homestyle hamburgers at a stand by the side of the road.  As we climbed back up to the snow line and altitude, I started feeling short of breath and developed the tell-tale headache of altitude sickness.  I've had the headache before, up in the higher Andes, but this was the first time I had ever gotten short of breath just from altitude.  Thankfully, we have a portable oxygen concentrator just for use at altitude.  A few minutes sucking on oxygen helped, but we weren't that high up for long.

Once we turned west again, heading toward Durango, the hamlets turned into towns with groceries, fixed homes, fast food, and definite signs of a style all their own, along with some pretty eclectic menus!  Still plenty of RVs and motor homes, indicating that their population drops tremendously in the winter, the exact opposite of Silver Springs, Florida, where the population more than doubles in the winter!

Of course, every mountain range has a Chimney Rock.  This is the most phallic looking one I've seen.  I didn't get a shot of it in the beginning, where there are trees or something that make the shape of two round spheres on either side of the base of Chimney Rock.  I was too busy staring at it wondering what they could have possibly named the formation!

We spent a few days just outside of Durango with some close friends.  Until this day, the only time I had ever had difficulty with altitude was on Monserrate Serra outside of Bogota, Columbia, which is just over 10,000 feet.  Even then, I just got the headache.  I did not feel short of breath, and coming back down from the very tip top to the cable car point, the headache went away.  While I wasn't air hungry around Durango, I definitely had no exercise capacity and tended to have difficulty breathing with just normal walking.  That put a damper on the things we were able to do with our friends, but we did enjoy the visit.  In spite of having difficulty, we drove around the area and saw some of the sights.

One of the best was Pinkerton Hot Springs just outside of Durango.  Bruce and our friends helped me navigate around it, but out of fear of falling and breaking something again, I didn't go down the hill where the water runs as it leaves the rock pile.  Scientists are not sure whether this spring actually reaches magma before returning to the Earth's surface, but it stays a consistent 95 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit.  Definitely warm water coming up, even though it was cold and rainy when we went.  The rock pile was constructed over the spring's exit from the ground in the 1800s by James Pinkerton.  Over time, the rocks have been eroded and colored by the minerals from the spring.  It's definitely an awesome sight to see, and the pictures don't do it justice.  I'm really looking forward to going back and spending some time with it when I'm in better shape and the weather's more amenable to playing in water.



We had lunch at a restaurant in a neat little hotel called The Strater Hotel.  Definitely Old West themed.  The food was mediocre, but the ambiance of the hotel was really fun.  They even had an old kinetoscope that was loaded with a Charlie Chaplin film.  The light was blown, so we thought it was broken - that is until Bruce turned on the flashlight on his phone and held it over the window.  I'll close with some shots of some antiques in the hotel.

So Much More Than Just Unsinkable

We pulled into Denver and had a good night's sleep.  The next morning we got up and had breakfast with a long lost friend of mine who I had not seen since high school.  It was an awesome time catching up, and I can't wait to see him again.  Hopefully, it won't be another 37 year next time!

After breakfast, we went to see the Molly Brown House Museum.  This is the home of Margaret and J.J. Brown, after they struck it rich in the mines in Leadville, Colorado.  Molly Brown is most known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown from the Titanic, played by Kathy Bates in the movie, "Titanic", but also the focus of both the play and the movie, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."  As far as anyone can learn, she was never called "Molly" while she was alive.  She went by Maggie, so in actuality, she is the most famous real historical person who never existed.  I knew about her attempts to rescue more survivors from the Titanic and her fund-raising activities to care for the survivors of the disaster.  I had no clue about the rest of her life, but she is now one of my heroes!

She was apparently always a spitfire, which wasn't an issue to her husband until they got wealthy and became part of "society".  Maggie continued to be concerned about those less fortunate, was a suffragette, and even ran for a seat on the Senate of the State of Colorado.  Before their legal separation, she and J.J. lived in this house on what is now Pennsylvania Street in Denver.  The home is lovely and is filled with items that showed wealth

including this alarm system that would tell the house servants not only who was calling for them, but what room that person was in.

Margaret's room had the obligatory fainting couch to catch her if she passed out when her corset was loosened as she undressed and was able to breathe normally again.

J.J.'s room, on the other hand, featured a day bed on which he could take a nap in the afternoon.

Apparently, as time went on, J.J. grew embarrassed of Margaret's feminism and championing the causes of the less privileged.  He asked Margaret for a divorce, which she refused.  He also took a mistress, who he installed in the home when Margaret began traveling the world.  While his mistress, Ms. Farmer, was in the home, she and J.J. ran a secretarial school from it.

It was during this time that Margaret was on the Titanic.  She was on her way back to the United States from Europe on the Titanic when it hit the iceberg.  Thanks to Broadway and Hollywood, most of us know the story of how Margaret encouraged the members of the lifeboat to go back and search for more survivors and how she raised funds for the survivors and the families of the deceased by going to high society events and threatening to post the names of those wealthy people who refused to donate.

When J.J. passed away, he wanted to be buried with his mistress, but since Margaret was still alive and able to make the decision, she chose for him to be buried in her plot in Westbury, New York, next to her.  Based at least in part on her refusal to conform, including her insistence at successfully fighting for what she believed was her share of J.J.'s estate, she was estranged from her children for much of the rest of her life.  There are conflicting accounts regarding whether they ever reconciled.

In the ensuing years, the house was used as a home for girls, a finishing school, and various other purposes until Historic Denver, Inc. purchased it and turned it into the Molly Brown House Museum.  I'll leave you with more pictures of the Molly Brown house.  I apologize for the quality.  The lighting was not conducive for pictures and it highlighted my deficiencies as a photographer.

After touring the Molly Brown House, we headed south to Durango with the beauty of the Rocky Mountains as our backdrop.