Little Colorado River Gorge

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Some photos of the Little Colorado River Gorge, which the Little Colorado River flows through on its way to the Grand Canyon. As you've probably gathered already from the photos, "little" is a relative term in this part of Arizona.

Puʻukoholā Heiau

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Old photos from Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, a ruined temple on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. A video from Big Island TV shows a historical reenactment of ceremonies at the temple.

The park also includes an underwater temple dedicated to the shark gods. I didn't think to look for this at the time, but apparently they regularly swim just offshore, as seen in this YouTube video I came across.

Please note that when a sign in Hawaii says "kapu" (i.e. "forbidden", and there are several such signs here), this is an actual no-trespassing sign, and they aren't just doing it to be cute.

Sunset Crater

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A few photos of Sunset Crater National Monument, between Flagstaff, Arizona and the Grand Canyon. I stopped here sort of briefly after visiting the Wupatki ruins; I can see how it would be fascinating to visitors from a less volcanic part of the country, who may have never seen a cinder cone before. I took a few photos of it, and a few of the snowy San Francisco Peaks in the distance, before moving on to the next adventure.

Cochise Stronghold

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Photos from the Cochise Stronghold area of southern Arizona's Coronado National Forest. Spent an afternoon here scrambling around on rocks and trying, unsuccessfully, to take photos of the local fast-moving lizards. So here are some photos of the area's rugged hills instead; they aren't cute like lizards are, but at least they generally hold still for the camera.

Hoover Dam

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Photos of Hoover Dam, taken several years ago before the new bridge opened. I took these earlier on the same day I went to Red Rock Canyon, over on the other side of Vegas, and failed to take any photos of the city itself. In any case, the dam looks kind of cool in an Art Deco sort of way, and the hydropower keeps the lights on in Vegas, although the dam's turned out to be not so fabulous from an environmental standpoint.

As with Red Rocks, I'm pretty sure I need to go back and take some photos with a Real Camera, and in this case I also need photos of the bridge. And by "need", I mean it would be a logical extension of this weird ongoing photoblog hobby I've ended up with.

Borrego Palm Canyon

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Some photos of Borrego Palm Canyon, part of California's enormous Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The surrounding area is nothing but dry, barren rocky hills, and then you come to this one little canyon with a stream running through it, its banks lined with palm trees, and it's shady and relatively cool. It's quite a pleasant oasis, even when it's full of tourists. Which it often is since there's a state park campground and a large parking lot nearby. Despite all that, it still kind of feels like you've stumbled across a secret oasis in the desert.

These are California fan palm trees, the only palm species native to the western USA. Palm trees are iconic in Southern California, but ornamental palm trees are often imports like the Canary Island date palm. Even California's native palm species isn't indigenous to the Los Angeles area; several years ago the city council decided that ornamental palm trees are undesirable, and the city plans to replace most of them with other trees that provide more shade and less mess. Except for major tourist areas, of course, because tourists demand palm trees.

Red Rock Canyon

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A few photos from Red Rock Canyon, at the western edge of suburban Las Vegas. This is the dramatic and colorful bit of rugged scenery you often see while flying in to McCarran. These photos, though, were taken the first time I visited Vegas, while travelling on a sort of hippie tour bus, which seemed like a great idea at the time. I was a bit self-righteous back then and turned up my nose at Vegas itself -- an opinion I've long since been cured of -- and I took no photos of the city. In retrospect I wish I'd done that, since the place has changed dramatically since the early 1990s, and it's be fun to see what it used to be like. But hey, those were the days of film photography, 36 shots per roll at best, and I wasn't exactly rolling in dough at the time.

In any case, the tour bus spent an afternoon here and we hiked around a bit. My recollection is that the place was more interesting to photograph than it was to hike at. I keep meaning to go back with a Real Camera, but I somehow haven't gotten around to it yet. The Clark County bus system ends just short of Red Rock Canyon, and I never seem to end up renting a car when I'm in town. So maybe next time. Still, I think a few of these shots turned out ok even though I had a lame camera and had no idea what I was doing. Most of the credit here goes to the scenery, not to me.

Wupatki

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A few old photos from Wupatki National Monument, which protects a number of pueblo ruins just south of the Grand Canyon. When I visited, I was amazed by how well-preserved the ruins were; only later did I find out that some parts really were intact, and others had been reconstructed in the early 20th century. So I'm not entirely sure what we're looking at here.

There weren't a lot of other visitors while I was there; at one point, it was just myself and an older lady of a New Agey sort of persuasion. We chatted briefly, but it was obvious we were each getting something entirely different from being here. She said the ruins were a "power center", or something along those lines. I recall saying something inarticulate about the incredible age of the buildings and how well they were constructed. Which is pretty much what I'd say now, come to think of it. I mean, most of these ruins were houses, and a 700 year old house is exactly as mystical (or non-mystical) as a year old house is. Pretty sure that building here didn't require any help from crystal aliens or psychic dolphins or anything.

The archaeology of the desert Southwest is not really my forte, so rather than trying to explain the history of the place, let me just pass along a few links if you'd like to learn more about it. Several of these pages are hosted at Northern Arizona University, which is just down the road in Flagstaff.

• Land Use History of North America - Colorado Plateau
• Anthropology Laboratories of Northern Arizona University
• American Southwest Virtual Museum
• A blog post from a University of Maryland undergrad geology trip to Arizona

Fog, Tehachapi Pass

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A few old photos from Tehachapi Pass, in southern California. I drove through on a cold, foggy winter day, and the effect was quite spooky. Looking at the photos I ended up with, I think I failed to capture just how spooky it was. But in my defense, this was years ago, and I had a crappy film camera. Plus I was kind of busy driving a giant Ryder truck just then. I probably shouldn't have taken any photos at all, come to think of it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

One thing I didn't get any photos of was the famous wind farm in the pass. Giant windmills spinning silently in the fog may have been the spookiest part of the whole episode, but (as you might imagine) it was a bit windy at that point, so I had both hands firmly attached to the steering wheel, for a change.