Day Two USA

The bad news is that, although I have some interesting photos, I cannot transfer them to the iPad. I suppose someone well prepared would take two interface cables on a trip but I did not. So unless I can buy one somewhere, seems very unlikely, photos will be attached to each blog when I get home.

Yesterday we went to the Salt Lake City museum which is only five years old and is a lovely building full of interesting things. Of great interest to me was a woven bag of yucca and skeins of spun cotton dating from 900-1400AD.   There was a warp weighed loom  which was based on finding the weights which were made from twisted twigs. The ancient Indians used exactly the same design of warp weighted loom as Europeans did. The lecturer's view was that it was a parallel development and probably the only way to do it. I am not so sure. Why not  a back strap loom? After all, that is another method. 

There were spindles dating from about 1100AD and plaited and twined baskets from before 2000BC. I promise you there be photos. After lunch we set off on a bus trip of several hundred miles south. Going through the desert. With lots of mountains to see. For the last hour we were travelling through red sandstone country and ended travelling a narrow canyon beside the Colorado river. When we stopped for the night, it was in a lodge by the Colorado. Indeed, it runs behind my room. I can walk out onto a little garden space, unhook the gate and take ten steps to the edge of the river. The almost vertical red cliffs are just the other side of the river!

I took a load of photos and am waiting for it to get light enough to go and take more. We are spending all today in a reservation.

Spindles

A skein of cottons rom 900 AD

Twined baskets. The bigger one is before 2000 BC, the little one about1100 AD.

FG

View from the back of my room. The river is the Colorado!