Meeting the Goblins

 

After a long day driving along spectacular Highway 12 and exploring Capitol Reef in the afternoon, we spent the night in a tiny cabin in Hanksville. Hanksville is not more than a hamlet where literally nothing is open between Christmas and New Year's. The only place to eat was a less than mediocre burger place, but since we didn't have anything warm the entire day we didn't have a choice. The coffee place in the morning was closed as well, so we just had a couple nut and granola bars. A great breakfast, not. 

So we were off to our next adventure. The weather had changed, it was grey, cold and the clouds were low. That actually gave the landscape a mysterious look. 

Eventually the fog became rather dense. I was driving very slowly because everything looked greyish-white - and suddenly this cow appeared out of the fog. Thank goodness I wasn't driving fast!

Our destination was Goblin Valley State Park. We had discovered this gem sometime in the 2010s during one of our many Southwest trips and really liked it back then. The Geek and I were eager to visit again. The state Park is pretty much in the middle of nowhere off Utah State Highway 24 south of I-70. It is easy to pass by - you still have to drive several miles from Highway 24 to the valley - but a stop is very worthwhile. It's a place where your imagination can go wild.

This is a three-square-mile area covered in hoodoos that display the oddest shapes.

As so much in the American Southwest it is a very arid area - not much was growing here. There was some snow and it was seriously cold. However, we bundled up and walked right into the valley and among the goblins. 

If you want to study geologic history, Goblin Valley is a good place to go to. Due to the uneven hardness of sandstone, some patches resist erosion much better than others. Water erosion and windblown dust result in the odd and strange shapes of the "goblins". 

The soil is thin and almost completely lacks vegetation. When rain does fall, there are few plant roots and little soil to capture and hold water.

I did find a very few, very dry plants, however.

But the goblins were the reason why we came here after all. They are undeniably the true stars in this valley.

When you use your imagination you can see a lot of interesting shapes and figures. 

Gnomes...

... a dog, maybe?

Definitely a bird, an angry bird. At least not a happy one.

G-rated kissers were quite abundant.

We walked through more narrow pathways deeper into the valley - there seems to be something different behind each and every goblin.

And then we found the hippo. Actually an entire herd of hippos.

The guy with the floppy ear looked like Kaefer's stuffed hippo, so we had to take a picture of ourselves with the hippo in the background and send it to her.

After almost two hours of exploring we were so cold that we walked back to the car. We wanted to reach Moab by night, but first had to stop at a garage in Green River to get our tire fixed, that was constantly losing air (of course my nifty husband had a measurement and a pump in the trunk, he's a German engineer!- and he had to use them repeatedly on this trip).

The sun finally made an appearance when we were leaving.

The Three Sisters

So, what do you think? Do these goblins count as faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off? Otherwise, there are still two human faces in the mix.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Autumn in a Breton Village

 

In April I wrote about the tiny Breton village Meneham and its guardhouse. At that time I promised to come back and show its beautiful fall decoration that we saw during our visit in October of last year.

The Meneham site was originally a guardhouse, strategically located to protect the coastline of Northern Brittany. At the end of the 18th century, the militia occupying the site were replaced by customs officers. They were the first real inhabitants of Meneham and settled in the barracks with their families in the mid-19th century. Later, fishermen, seaweed growers and farmers moved in.

The village of Meneham is clocely linked with the history of fishing and the trade of seaweed harvesting in Brittany. Daily life, far away from any town or trading center, wasn't easy for the residents. Their tasks and chores included fishing, harvesting seaweed, drying and burning it in dedicated ovens, working the land, raising livestock and washing clothes.

But there were also Pagan festivals and their festivities - dancing, singing and laughter.

The village's history is also closely linked to the myth of the shipwreckers - for a long time, the inhabitants were considered to be wreck raiders who would cause shipwrecks on stormy nights. However, in reality, Pagan country is a land of sharing and mutual aid, where festive customs have endured.

We learned about all of this by going into some of the charming thatched cottages that were partly museum and partly little shops. Outside, we enjoyed the fall decorations throughout the tiny village.

Meneham also offers workshops and events throughout the year. We saw kids creating simple fall decorations and admired the beautiful and intricate works of lace.

It was a very relaxing autumn afternoon.

Staying with the autumn theme, last Saturday I cooked a autumn-like meal with roasted potatoes, butternut squash, eggplant, Mexican zucchini (from my garden) and bell pepper. 

With it we enjoyed a bottle of delicious Pinot Noir from one of our favorite wineries. We had bought the bottle when we visited there in September with our relatives from Germany. 

With this I join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T Tuesday. Cheers!

The Majesty of Red Rock

 

When we arrived at the end of Highway 12, the weather had changed considerably. While we had started in rather dull, grey weather, when we arrived at Capitol Reef National Park we enjoyed an almost picture perfect day with the three primary colors on display - brilliant sunshine, blue sky and red rock.

Capitol Reef is the one of the five Utah national parks that most people think of last - Bryce Canyon, Arches and Zion are certainly the stars followed by Canyonlands and Capitol Reef is trailing behind. Maybe it's because it is the most remote of the parks - Bryce and Zion are much closer to each other and to a major Interstate whereas Arches and Canyonlands (Island in the Sky district) are practically across from each other and also close to an Interstate. Capitol Reef is the outlier. 

Which was just fine with us. Except at the visitors center there weren't many people touring the park. Granted, you are quite limited by car - there is only the main road and the Scenic Drive for a regular passenger car. It's a park for hiking, but this wasn't the season for that.

We arrived in the early afternoon and in true Bartz manner stopped all the time to watch and take it in. Of course, the shadow portrait was a must as well as a shot of our very dirty car, the result of driving the dirt road in Kodachrome Basin. 

No matter how often I'm here - and I've been here several times - the sheer grandness of the red rock is almost overwhelming.

We stopped at the Goosenecks Overlook from where the view is simply stunning.

What makes the scenery so clear to see and the colors so brilliant is the exceptionally clean air, one of the park's most valuable resources. In 1977, Capitol Reef was designated a Class I airshed, recognizing its exceptional quality and receiving the highest protection under the Clean Air Act.

You bet that I was happy to find some crooked trees.

The massive red rock along the Scenic Drive can be characterized with just one word: majestic.

At the almost end, you can get a very good impression of the tilting rock layers. You can see this throughout the park as well as the different colors of the layers, with the dominance of red.

At Capitol Gorge we watched this raven for a long time. His shenanigans were highly entertaining. I should have taken a video...

He (or she?) is today's face for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Back on the main road, I loved to see the beautiful cottonwoods. 

They are a perfect color match in this area.

There are also petroglyphs by the Fremont Culture in the park which are accessible by a boardwalk. However, when we finally got there, the light was already fading and I couldn't take any pictures.

So we said goodbye with a last view of the cottonwoods (this is the same picture like the first one at the top, but not as heavily processed. I really had fun with the top photo). We still had a bit of a drive to Hanksville where we had reserved a small cabin for the night (we did all our reservations of the trip the night before).