2008 November 20, from Cedaredge CO Hello, Everybody, My most recent travels have been separated into three slideshows to avoid one huge one. The first covers traveling from the California Coast across Nevada to Utah, the second covers my fifth trip along Hole-in-the-Rock Trail (road) in SE Utah, and the third is from a 'repeat' of last year's White Rim Trail (road) in Canyonlands NP. My friend Joey Tuttle, who lives near Santa Cruz, took me to the coast in Monterey Bay, and I was amazed to see four 'new' birds for my 'life list', while just sitting on a park bench next to the Coast Highway 1. The next treat was a visit to the Computer Museum over the hill in Mountain View, to see a wonderful exhibit of Charles Babbage's 'Difference Engine No. 2', only two of which exist in the world. In the early 1800s Babbage conceived how to calculate error-free the huge tables of numbers needed by astronomers, navigators, and mathematicians, using an amazing collection of gears, cams, levers, wheels, rods, cranks, cogs, etc. He could never get funds to build it, but left detailed plans, and around 20 years ago the London Science Museum decided to build one exactly from those plans, using materials and tolerances which Babbage could have achieved in his day - - and it works! As a side note, Ada Byron Lovelace met Babbage when she was around age 17 and spent her remaining 20 years in collaboration with him, in the process becoming the first person to conceive the idea of a programmable computer, 100 years before one was actually built (then electrically rather than mechanically). London was running out of money to complete the important printing section of the machine, and Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold funded the completion on the condition that London would build a second machine for him personally; he is loaning it to the Museum for a year, before presumably installing it in his living room! In addition to its historical importance, it is a lovely mechanism and I felt very lucky to be able to see it and watch it in action - - it's even more amazing to see when all the parts are moving. There is a short video, if you would like to see more. at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anIyVGeWOI Leaving Babbage and heading west over the Sierra Nevada, I hoped to cross at the very primitive Tioga Pass in Yosemite, but I had to keep working northward to find a pass not closed by snow, and it turned out fortunate that I did as my truck quit just before Carson Pass on US-50, a much easier place to get towed out of and much closer to a repair shop than Tioga would have been. Known trouble spots on my engine are the injector wiring harnesses inside the valve covers, and I found a Diesel 4x4 shop in South Tahoe which did a quick and professional job fixing them - - the $864 hurt but now at least with the new improved design harnesses I should not have that problem again. While they were working on the truck I hiked in the nearby National Forest and got a nice view of a somewhat uncommon White-headed Woodpecker. I enjoyed crossing Nevada on smaller highways: the state is very mountainous, unpopulated, and 85% public land, just right for me. I was just about to start the truck to leave one camping place next to a tiny spring, when I saw a beautiful Varied Thrush on the ground just outside my window - - my first thought was "Oh, too late, the camera is stowed and I'll never got it out in time" - - then I remembered that my new smaller lens is a whole different story, I just picked it up off the center console and a few seconds later was getting nice pictures. It's a real winner. Linda & Will Piper, my birding mentors who live NNE of Denver, had arranged to meet me in Escalante in SE Utah, for a shakedown cruise with their new Casita camping trailer. It was literally a shakedown, as around 36 of the 56 miles of the Hole-in-the-Rock road are teeth-rattling washboard, and all the weak spots in the trailer and stowage methods quickly became obvious. It's a fine trip, with grand scenery and two beautiful little slot canyons, in addition to the historical interest of the Mormon colonization epic over the winter of 1879-80. Two hundred and fifty people, and 2000 stock animals, were taken over completely unknown and most rugged terrain in the country, in an extremely severe winter, without loss of life, even with two babies born on the way (one in a tent in a blizzard with the laboring mother having to hold the sides to keep it from blowing away). In combining my photos and Wills, I saw that mine were often much too purplish - - Will's colors seem more accurate. I couldn't face color correcting all of them, so you'll have to mentally adjust a bit. And I need to do some investigating on my camera. A couple of weeks later, on the White Rim Trail, this did not seem to be a problem, so it's a bit strange. My friends from Michigan Audrey & Ray McMullen, met me in Colorado on their way to Baja for the winter; they left their camper at my brother's in Cedaredge and took their truck with a small tent for our trip in Canyonlands. And Ed Arnold, who was with Will and me last year, joined us in his Jeep Cherokee - - which skips along very agilely compared to our heavy trucks. We went to Moab the back way, through Unaweep Canyon, passing in Bedrock CO the country store and pay-phone used in the movie 'Thelma and Louise'. We met Ed near the eastern end of the White Rim Trail, the day before our reservation for the trail started (applied for a year in advance), and had a nice day hike/scramble to the top of Aztec Butte on Island in the Sky, to see the little Anasazi granary under the lip of overhanging ledges. The start of the drive down the Shafer Trail is very spectacular and photogenic, but easy driving. Once down on the more flat part of the White Rim, we were surprised to be deluged in thunderstorms, with the slickrock glistening and funny little burps from large drops hitting the puddles. Some parts of the road are clay and impossible to drive even on the level when soaked, so we were happy to see the rain pass by quickly. The next morning we took a side-detour of a few miles down Lathrop Canyon to the Colorado River, very scenic and with some tough driving, and then on to the White Crack campsite where we spent two nights with a welcome lay-day in between. Lots of nice slickrock for hiking on there, and a good hike down a long-abandoned mining road. Next came Murphy Hogback, one of the two hardest parts of the trail - - it seemed much easier this year, and the later-on Hardscrabble Hill seemed harder than last year - - the road does change from weather and use, and ones perceptions change. The trail is now on the Green River side, with lots of varied terrain and great views and hikes. In some parts when you look ahead you can't see how there can possibly be a road through such broken ground, but it does unfold as you progress, even if occasionally you can hardly believe it. We hiked down the little Wilhite slot canyon, and from lots of boosting and hauling from last year, we knew to take a rope and my little camper boarding ladder which was a great help. Our last night was in the Taylor side-canyon, with a great hike up to 'Moses & Zeus'; last year there were three teams of technical rock climbers on the rock, but this year we had it all to ourselves. After the spectacular cliff-face climb-out from Mineral Bottom, we had time to hike up to the 'Megatrack Site' near Arches NP, where I knew there were hundreds of clear dinosaur tracks in the slickrock - - only much to my embarrassment we couldn't find them! I've been there 3 times before and even had a GPS point to follow - - but I trusted my faulty memory rather than the GPS and we went to the wrong patch of slickrock. Back at the truck computer we could compare GPS tracks on AllTopo and easily see how I had goofed - - have to go back again. We did have the compensation of finding a large mlostly buried petrified log which even the BLM rangers did not know about. The server address is still: http://www.meetmarsha.com/john The new slideshows are: 08 09 late Sep CA NV.exe 08 10 Oct UT HITR.exe 08 11 Nov CO UT White Rim.exe Each browser is a little different, but generally you can either choose OPEN to view the show once, or choose SAVE TO DISK and then OPEN if you want to have it your hard drive for future re-viewing. I have used my up-to-date Zone Alarm to be sure the .exe files are virus free, so you can safely ignore Windows's warning about 'dangerous <.exe> files'. Right-Arrow or Right-Click or SpaceBar will advance to the next picture. Left-Arrow or Left-Click will return to the previous picture. Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc if the show ever seems stuck. If you don't have a high-speed Internet connection it's not realistic to download these large files on a phone line please let me know, as it is very easy for me to send them to you on a CD. And if you would like any of the individual images, perhaps to print, just let me know. I have limited space on the server, so must periodically remove older slideshows to put up new ones; let me know if you want me to send you a CD of any of the 'back issues', or of all of them from 2004-2008 along with their accompanying emails, on CDs. And if you don't want to get any more emails like this one in the future, just let me know. If you have friends who might be interested, I'll be happy to add them to my email list and they can download the slideshows if they have a Windows computer and broadband internet connection. None of this is commercial or copyrighted, the more who enjoy the pictures, the better. Regards, John Armitage 1-970-250-6080 (NEW PHONE NUMBER)