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VLV is back in action!
It is on September the 7th in the morning I found my “home on wheels” back for the coming weeks. Significantly cleaner than when I let her since Fullservicestorage that housed VivaLaVida for more than one year has cleaned her!
1. Dashing!
Having installed the track rod with new ball joints and wired the oil cooler fan installed the eve of leaving VLV in 2015, I took the road to visit Hans and Madeleine in Moab, hosted by high températures: 98F at 5 PM! I slept near some bentonite hills North of Moab.
2. Boondocking
3. This clay, often colored by inorganic oxides in different sedimentary layers, is always spectacular.
4. Late afternoon light.
5. Quiet Wake up…
6. Silhouette of La Sal Mountains in the morning.
7. Castle Valley…
;
8. Fisher Towers in front of La Sal Mountains.
9. Along Colorado River…
10. Not sure that in case of gas failure, it is of great ease..!
11. Colorado River North of Moab.
VivaLaVida is then passed in Colorado, discover some interesting spots. To come in a few days.
Minerality…
Still in Arizona, I made a short stop at Petrified Forest National Park. 225 million years ago, the current Arizona was nearly 3,500 miles South of his actual location, in a tropical climate and thus covered with tropical forests. During large floods on clay areas, trees fell and were buried in the clay that protected them from putrefaction. Over hundreds of thousands years that followed, the clay was covered with new sediment layers totaling till 1.5 miles thickness. The pressure thus exerted generated petrification of wood. Then the continental drift has gradually dried up the soil of Arizona allowing wind and rain to erode the upper sediments and leaving the petrified trunk now appear in the bentonite layers.
In places, the amount of petrified wood is staggering.
1. Bentonite which erosion reveals petrified trunks.
2. The colors are amazing! The density of this stone is such that it takes 4 times longer to a silica carbide saw to cut the same thickness as in granite.
3. Most of the time, erosion causes trunks to break. On some, the petrified bark is still present.
4. A giant! His strain is over 8 feet high.
5. The desert surrounding area is varied.
6. Undulation…
7. Mixes…
8. Amazing colors and shapes.
9. Edge of a bentonite mesa taht erosion carves.
10. This bentonite is less colorful than in other places but the presence of petrified trunks contrasts with the soft shapes of clay.
11. The eroded texture reminds me of some corals…
12. Vivalavida then moved to New Mexico, spending a first night at over 7,000 feet above sea level in the forests of the Zuni Mountains.
13. The next morning we crossed the Zuni Mountains with sometimes quite rutted and muddy roads…
14. Discovery of the pinnacles of Los Gigantes by chance…
15. A guelta sheltered against a cliff of El Morro.
16. Etching in sandstone describing the passage of some Spanish in 1706.
17. Petroglyph much older, probably around the year 1200.
18. Another petroglyph estimated at 1,400 years BC.
19. “Woodpecker” natural arch.
20. Pueblo ruins in El Morro National Monument.
21. Another ruin of the same area.
Further discoveries along the East crossing of VivaLaVida to come soon… 😉
South San Rafael Swell
Out of my hike in the slot canyons, I saw a sign “Muddy Creek”. I thus followed the trail south and had the good surprise to find a quite large area of “bentonite”, this kind of clay that I also found at the Painted Hill in Oregon.
1. Bentonite Hills and Henry Mountains in the distance.
2. Nice colors in front of San Rafael Reef.
3. Valley…
4. Sweetness…
5. I vary the compositions in this sensual landscape…
6. VivaLaVida having fun on that beautiful trail!
7. Muddy Creek, at the end of the trail.
8. Ride over the Bentonite. 😉
9. I slept near an abandoned ranch and discovered this carcass at nightfall.
10. She too has beautiful sensual forms, isn’t it? 😀
11. The next morning I went up towards a small arch and saw this pothole on my sundstone path.
12. Here is Wild Horse Window.
13. The window is nice! 😀
14. Guess who created this double cave? Yes, that’s it, that little spring that seeps from the bottom of the two caves, giving life to some ferns…
15. Almost a makeup eye…
16. By late afternoon, towards a high plateau at almost 7,000 feet elevationl to a camp near another slot canyon.
17. Upper Reds Canyon cliffs in Sunset light.
Another dive in a slot canyon to come soon! 😀
D5 Creation