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Hosting and Toasting, 2018

March 2018 - July 2025
  • HerbAvore
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Much of 2018 will be spent volunteering at Hovenweep National Monument and Canyonlands National Park and attending family weddings. In between, we will try to find a place to live. Read more
  • HerbAvore
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  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Petroglyph or the work of some kid with a crayon?
    Lorraine with an image of a mccaw.Mountain lion?Turtle?Who knows? Couldn't get close enough to see anything.

    Petroglyph Nat'l Meh [Albuquerque]

    August 15, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    The morning began at the Zia Pueblo north of Albuquerque where we watched a hundred dancers in native costumes celebrating some Catholic saint. Which seems odd considering what the church did to their ancestors hundreds of years ago.

    Then it was on to Petroglyph National Monument which touts the highest concentration of rock art in the Western hemisphere. Tens of thousands spread over several square miles. The first site leads you on a roughly paved trail up a steep slope where you get up close and personal with dozens of glyphs.

    Alas, this was all a tease. The next site in the park is a sandy trail that over two miles reveals exactly zero petroglyphs. Oh, we could have brought binoculars but the thrill was gone. The Monument was a meh.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Pam, Michael, Hunter and Lorraine. Shark Tooth mountain in the backgroundColumbine on the slopes of Shark Tooth Pass

    Shark Tooth Pass [CO]

    July 14, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    We've been hiking once or twice a week since moving in last month. Sometimes they've been group hikes with Seniors Outdoors or the San Juan Mountains Organization. The best ones have been just the two of us or with Pam and Michael Stillman.

    Last month we hiked with the Stillmans up to Shark Tooth Pass in the nearby La Plata Mountains. The drive was thrilling as we four-wheeled over sharp-edged boulders the size of basketballs. The reward was a moderate hike to a pass with grand vistas.

    Yesterday the two of us headed out the front door to climb Animas Mountain City Park. Don't let the name fool you. It was the most difficult hike we've done in months. Seven miles round trip but it was a 1600-foot climb of ankle-challenging loose rock. Again, however, the views were spectacular.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    The chimnies at Chimney Rock
    Reconstructed giant kiva. On the horizon is anoher villiage halfway to Chaco.Another reconstructed giant kivaMothraClimbing the mountain up to the penthouse kiva

    Chimney Rock NM [CO]

    July 12, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Having joined the San Juan Basin Archaeology Society this spring we are now completely entranced by all things Anasazi. In addition to monthly presentations by area archaeologists we also participate in guided field trips to nearby ruins.

    Our most recent field trip was to Chimney Rock National Monument located about an hour east of Durango. The volunteer docent leading the trip was a new friend of ours in the area, Michael Stillman.

    Chimney Rock is particularly interesting because as an "outlier" it displays many characteristics of it's "parent," Chaco Canyon, but also exhibits additional ceremonial features such lunar calendars.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Town Hall, setting for annual reunions by descendants of former slaves
    Former Nicodemus town hotelDoll at Brown v Board Museum used to inatill a sense of inferiority in black children

    Pioneers [KS]

    June 30, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Kansas. Home to such extremists as Kris Kobach, John Brown (well, not so much), and the Koch brothers. But as we were set straight again by the Park Service, Kansas was also fertile ground for advances by African Americans.

    Brown v Board, Topeka, KS. Legal short hand for the Supreme Court decision that technically abolished separate but equal accommodations. Practically, what it did was push racism underground; until the current administration.

    The small town of Nicodemus, KS was established by former slaves fleeing post-Civil War oppression in Kentucky. It's a heartening story of generations of African Americans overcoming a harsh environment and thriving. Unfortunately, as with many rural towns it withered as young people left for better jobs.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    From the monument to George Rogers Clark and the battle at Vincennes
    St Louis Arch/wicket through which Americans passed headed west.Old Antebellum Courthouse in St Louis. Witness to much history, including the Dred Scott decisionHomestead cottage from 1880 in Nebraska

    Manifest Apropriation [IN, MO, NE]

    June 29, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    As we worked our way west from Virginia the predominant theme at the first few stops was westward expansion. The battlefield at Vincennes, IN celebrated a victory by George Rogers Clark and his Patriots over the British in 1779. The dramatic century-old murals at the monument, however, portrayed the victory as pivotal to securing a foothold for westward expansion.

    In St Louis we visited the newest National Park-- Gateway Arch NP. This park tries to balance celebrating how the west was won with the cost to Native Americans.

    The final stop in this triptych was Homestead National Monument of America. This site celebrated the rugged individualism of pioneers who staked their future on land grants of 160 acres.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Quote from William Seward upon Lincoln's death
    One of a half-dozen sculptures commemorating Lincoln's lifeGrant home outside St Louis. Yes, that was its original color.Truman home in Independence, MO.

    Decency [IN, MO]

    June 28, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We began the year with George Washington's call for tolerance for all religions in his letter to a Jewish synagogue in Newport, RI. On our trip back west we visited the homes of three US presidents who exemplified decency-- something so bereft in our current president that we are sometimes embarrassed to call ourselves Americans.

    Lincoln lived only twelve years at this farm in Indiana and not much from his days there survives but its formative influences are clear. He learned empathy from his mother who tended to ailing neighbors until she herself died of milk fever. There are also the other well-known trademarks-- learning to read by candlelight, spin yarns, perseverance and the value of hard work.

    Grant's "home" outside St. Louis was actually owned by his slave-holding father-in-law. Grant lived there in the 1850s, witnessing the horrors of slavery and frequently engaging in heated arguments with his wife's father. During this period Grant also freed his only slave.

    Truman's "home" also belonged originally to his in-laws but he called it home almost his entire adult life. One of Truman's favorite aphorisms was “I tried never to forget who I was and where I came from, and where I was going back to.” Maybe humility and decency come from living with your in-laws.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Parade ground at Ft Scott
    George Washington Carver statueWilson's Creek BattlefieldFinding peace at Wilson's Creek Battlefield

    Catchup [KS, MO]

    June 12, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We've been far more disconnected than usual of late. Our sprint east included three historical stops in one day: Fort Scott, known mostly as an important outpost for travelers headed toward the Santa Fe trail. [But remembered indelibly by us as the the scene of a lynching witnessed by a young George Washington Carver.]

    Then it was on to George Washington Carver's boyhood home, just across the Kansas border into Missouri. While Carver is well known for his peanut work it's the formative influences growing up orphaned and in extreme poverty that are most remarkable.

    Final stop of the day was another battlefield-- Wilson's Creek. This site south of the Missouri state capital witnessed yet another bloody defeat by the Union early in the war.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    To gain approval for Preserve status local ranchers severely restricted the number of bison allowed
    Token buffaloNative grasslands, sustained by fire and grazing.

    Tallgrass National Ranching Preserve

    June 11, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We've encountered very few sites where the NPS has sold out to the highest bidder. Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is one. Their mission here is to preserve the last remnant of original grassland that once covered most of the plains. And what large ungulate traversed those plains by the millions? Wrong, bison breath. Apparently, it was beef cattle. There is a small token buffalo heard here but the big donors to Tall Grass are ranchers and they wanted this grasslands feel good story to showcase the cattleman's way of life.Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Valley where the massacre took place. Only Native Americans can go down there.
    Well stocked quartermaster store at Ft. LarnedOfficer's qtrsWhere can you buy so many bread loaf props?

    Sand Creek Massacre NM

    June 10, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    We knew this site would be a head shaker. The Sand Creek massacre and mutilation of over 200 women, children and elderly by Colorado militia in 1864 is well known to US history buffs. Almost as reprehensible was that the US government investigated, found fault but that's it. There were no consequences. The one silver lining was that the commanders of two militia companies showed great personal courage and ordered their troops not to fire. One of those officers was shot in the back a few months later.

    Also visited Fort Lerned, basically a monument to the dedication of its superintendent of the past 40 years. This man almost single handedly restored this site to a fully stocked Army post of 1870.    Read more

  • HerbAvoreTravelerHosting and Toasting, 2018
    Living history day participant of suspicious authenticity. No, the peacock.

    Bent's Old Fort NHS [La Junta, CO]

    June 8, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 30 °C

    More forts and sand dunes. Visited Bent's Old Fort Natl Historic Site, locale of the largest Outpost when the Santa Fe Trail was in it's heyday. The paparazzi would have been ecstatic with all the celebrity frontiersmen that passed through here. The adobe fort is completely and accurately rebuilt and we were lucky enough to visit on a living history day with dozens of characters in costume.

    Also swung by Great Sand Dunes NP. Glad it's there but we're not beach people.    Read more

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