USADay 6

BToday was spent walking about in a very high temperature, wondering if this was really a good idea. The temperature must have been well over ninety. What we were looking at was Great Houses. The smallest had 150 rooms and the largest 600 rooms. Little cities.

In the Chaco Canyon where the Great Houses are.

Ruins of a Great House. Note the fine masonry

And they were clever enough to build this strange window across a corner. Started 800 and finished about 1200 AD.

I was smitten with an idea for weaving in lampas on the bus this morning. It is based on the decoration on pottery we have been seeing. I think it will work. But I need Fibreworks to help with the draft.

USADay 5

We looked at a lot of cliff dwellings go today.

But I have to admit to chickening out of one hike. It involved a thirty foot ladder on the open cliff face followed by two fifteen foot ones ditto and a twelve foot tunnel. No thank you. There were four others who felt I should be kept company. So we sat in the shade with a marvellous view and gossiped for an hour.

The pottery was in a museum at Mesa Verde and is marvellous worth abstract geometric patterns.

Today we are off into very deserted lands to Chaco Canyon.

USADay4 addendum

I do not seem able to add photos so am producing them as an extra.

You can make out all sorts of things, goats, men on horseback, shaman figures, a bird, bison, deer.

USA Day 4

Yesterday was spent at Crow Canyon archeological site. It dates from about 1250 and only lasted about 30 or 40 years. And ended in disaster with all the inhabitants being killed off. It was a substantial village or pueblo with a defensive outer wall of masonry and outlook towers and when it was excavated, lots of bodies were found unburied. We were given  a tour of laboratories where the excavated material was recorded and analysed. Some beautiful ceramics, tools. And then we were taken out to see a set of excavations. This is a workplace and there were no other tourists around. I really do not know how the tour manager managed to get in. It seems like we must have been taking the archeologists away from their work. I took no photos partly because I felt we were intruding, though we were made very welcome.

On the way to Crow Canyon, we stopped at Newspaper Rock which is covered with drawings. Two at the very top which are darker are Archaic , about 500AD. The rest date from about 1500 AD and include some 21st century ones.

Day Three USA

Today was all about geology and the landscape and far too many photos of rocks. I cannot imagine that  people are going to be interested so shall restrict myself to 2 landscape and a couple of trees. The trees and plants hang onto life here and, as a result, look really interesting.

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!

Day One USA

Day 1 was a day of getting from home to here and it is high time someone developed a Startrek transporter system. I left Burghfield Common at 0830 am, left Heathrow for Dallas at 1150, arrived nine hours later, hung around for three hours waiting for a plane to Salt Lake City and got into my hotel room at 0423am UK time. Which was 0923 here time. I have been given a suite which is enormous. It consists of a lobby, a room with fridges and wardrobes in it, a room with a large bed in it and a sitting room which contains a large sofa, two armchairs, a desk, etc etc and a full width picture window. All the rooms are end to end and I make it 54 feet long and 20ft wide. The bathroom equally huge is to off to one side.

I took a photo of the lights last night seen from my room, and another this morning. They are shown below. The two daylight views are looking to the left and right. There are a lot of trees.

Today's program is a morning spent at the museum here, then a five hour bus trip into the heart of canyon land. 

I will be writing up every day, mainly because it lets my family know where I am and also because it records what I have done. I should say that I decided I had to finish winding on a warp  on the Meyer on Friday night. So it is, at least, left in a safe condition. I really believe we shall be sorted by the end of October. Look for lots of textile reports as I have deadlines looming. The Megado needs a couple of bolts but is not going to get much attention until I have finished a crucial piece on the fan reed - - and written up a lot.