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Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming, 8/27/2007

Devils Tower is a sacred site to Native Americans, including the Lakota Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Shoshone tribes. The Lakota revere Devils Tower, which they call Mato Tipila, meaning Bear Lodge. They often camped nearby where they performed ceremonies like the Sun Dance and did vision quests. Prayer offerings, including sacred bundles and cloth, are still left by the tower. (About.com)

On September 29, 2011, we drove a relatively short distance from Moab to Natural Bridges National Monument.  It was a decide-as-you-travel kind of choice and we hadn’t checked in advance to see if we needed reservations.  It turned out that the campground was full, but that really didn’t matter, since our small rig and car were too large for any of the camp sites.  Fortunately, there was an area on Bureau of Land Management land just a few miles away that the park rangers recommended for  “overflow” situations.  Since we have a generator and had topped off on water, dry camping for a couple of days wasn’t an issue;

Natural Bridges is a U.S. National Monument located about 50 miles (80 km) north west of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah.  The park has three very large water erosion caused natural bridges, named Kachina, Owachomo, and Sipapu (the largest), which are all Hopi names. 

During periods of flash floods, particularly, the stream undercuts the walls of rock that separate the meanders (or “goosenecks”) of the stream, until the rock wall within the meander is undercut and the meander is cut off; the new stream bed then flows underneath the bridge. Eventually, as erosion and gravity enlarge the bridge’s opening, the bridge collapses under its own weight. There is evidence of at least two collapsed natural bridges within the Monument.  (Information from Wikipedia.)

Selected Information Resources: Natural Bridges National Monument

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• The American Southwest
• Utah .com
• The Natural Arch and Bridge Society
  • Sipapu Natural Bridge
  • Kachina Natural Bridge, and
  • Owachomo Natural Bridge

I’m getting back to creating new videos from past trips, picking up in 2011 the day after we visited Island in the Sky in the Moab, Utah area. I’ll be adding new videos from our 2011 trip, but will also start adding material from previous trips.

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Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, September 20, 2007.

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Arches National Park, Utah, 9/21/2011.

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Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, September 13, 2007

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This photo of a woman working in the Assembly and Repair Dept. of the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas was taken in August 1942 by Howard R. Hollam.

Howard R. Hollem took many photographs in aircraft assembly plants from 1942-1943 with a photography style that mimicked the “Rosie the Riveter” type images, showing just how involved women were in every aspect of aircraft production.

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Lewistown, Montana, September 8, 2007

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Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, August 22, 2007

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Near Fall River Pass, Rocky Mountain National Park, September 2011

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