In Southern California, Rain Barrels Allow Cost Effective Water Storage - 2015

 

In Southern California, Rain Barrels Allow Cost Effective Water Storage

In California, and throughout the West, residents who care about long-term environmental viability are monitoring and changing their water usage habits. Here at Casa Carrie, we have been replacing water-hungry outdoor plants. Our new landscape features succulents capable of growing in our now warmer, drier climate. In our parkway, we replaced eighty percent of the lawn with slabs of Arizona sandstone. In our shower and tub, we have five-gallon buckets ready to capture water previously lost during the warm-up process.

In November 2014, we purchased two fifty-gallon rain barrels. At that time, I assumed that Southern Californians would want to save every gallon of rainwater runoff possible. While that may be true, companies that sell rain collection barrels focus their marketing efforts on consumers in the Midwest, where summer storms are often plentiful.

An accompanying brochure scolded us not to leave our rain barrels out in freezing weather. If freeze damage occurs, it will void our warrantee. “Store your rain barrel indoors during winter months”, we were admonished. Copywriters of the brochure may wish to add “In cold climates” to their verbiage. At Casa Carrie, in Simi Valley, California, we rarely have frosty nights, even in midwinter. Unlike many Midwestern or Eastern states, Southern California gets almost all of its rainfall during the winter, between November and March.

After visiting our local Do-It Center, Home Depot and Lowe’s Home Improvement Center, we realized that not one brick and mortar store in our area stocked rain barrels of any kind. I can picture Midwestern marketing types believing the hype that “it never rains in Southern California”. If so, who in Southern California would want a rain barrel? My answer is that every homeowner in Southern California should want one or more.

After a Google search, I located the “Good Ideas 50 gal. Khaki Rain Wizard” on the Home Depot website. At just under $100 each, I ordered two, plus a sturdy plastic stand for each barrel. With free shipping from Michigan to California, the total cost for two barrels and stands came to $285. With a $150 rebate expected soon from our local water agency, our net cost for two barrels and stands was $135.

In December 17, 2014, four cartons arrived via United Parcel Service. Shipped from Michigan, the cartons looked like they had traversed an international war zone. Fortunately, the barrels, stands and hardware packages arrived mostly undamaged. Setup consisted of unpacking, and then using a wrench to thread the brass spigots into pre-threaded plastic holes near the base of each barrel. I found it difficult to tell if I was cross-threading the spigot as I turned the wrench. I suggest drop-shipping your barrels to a local Home Depot and then having them install the spigots, free of charge. After setup, the stands were strong and wide enough to stay upright, even on uneven ground. With their faux whiskey barrel appearance, the barrels blended nicely into our garden.

After placing each barrel under a rain gutter downspout, all we needed was some rain. By the next morning, we received about one third inch of rain, which quickly filled both barrels. Actually, one barrel was full and the other had a small pinhole leak on the “winter-storage hanging knobs” found near the top of each barrel. By the time I discovered the leak, I had recycled the shipping cartons. My easiest recourse was to keep the barrel and try to patch the hole with some glue. So far, that process has not been successful.

Reflecting on “quality control” back at the factory, I thought, “Hey, it’s a rain barrel. Shouldn’t it at least hold water?” Maybe the “Good Ideas” people should use an inspection lamp to check for pinhole leaks and then cushion the protruding knobs prior to shipment. An upgrade in the shipping cartons and heavier packing tape might help avoid damage to both the cartons and the barrels on their long trip to California.

After fixing the leaky barrel, I will have 100 gallons available for rainwater storage. With a net price after rebates of $135, that meant my first hundred gallons of rainwater cost me $1.35 per gallon. Luckily, we were able to use all 100 gallons before the next storm hit. Although the second storm brought less rain, runoff again filled each barrel. By then, my cost for stored rainwater had dropped in half, to $.68 per gallon. At first, that seems like a lot of money for such a modest collection of water. However, we can now reap the benefits of chlorine-free garden water for decades to come.

Now, in mid-February 2015, blizzards and freezing weather continue to lash New England. Boston has received over six feet of snow in less than a month. Here in Simi Valley, California, it is eighty degrees Fahrenheit outside and there is no precipitation in the forecast. Since December 2014, Mother Nature has filled our rain barrels three times. Along with the other buckets that we used to collect rain and shower water, we have saved and reused over six hundred gallons during this rainy season alone.

Here is an idea for homeowners all over Southern California and the West. Rather than letting your rainwater run into storm drains, install rain barrels and residential cisterns throughout California. If all homeowners participated, California and the West could save untold amounts of our most precious resource, which is clean potable water available to all.

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By James McGillis at 12:37 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

Brush Fire in Simi Valley, California - First Responders Deserve Local, State and Federal Support - 2013

 

Brush Fire in Simi Valley, California - First Responders Deserve Local, State and Federal Support

On June 6, 2013, I was working at Casa Carrie in Simi Valley, California. From nine in the morning until noon that day, the Ventura County Fire Department was conducting live helicopter fire drills at nearby Hummingbird Nest Ranch. Several Ventura County Fire Department helicopters were loading water at a helipad in the nearby hills. Over Casa Carrie, they flew to their destination about a mile away. At the time, they did not know how timely their practice was.

 

Watch the fire-fighting "Air Force" take on a brush fire at Simi Valley, California

By 4:00 PM, I realized that the sky in Simi Valley had turned orange, indicating that there was a brush fire nearby. As I looked west across Simi Valley from the backyard, I could see a huge plume of dirty brown smoke drifting eastward. Not wanting to miss a brush fire so close to my location, I grabbed my camera, jumped into my Jeep Wrangler and headed across the valley.

Upon arrival at Los Angeles Avenue and Stearns Street, I found a police roadblock. A quick turn into the Albertson’s Supermarket parking lot allowed me a front-row view of the hillsides to the south. Although the fire was still active, firefighters had established a perimeter around most of it. By then, Los Angeles County fire helicopters had joined the Ventura County choppers that I had seen earlier in the day.

While at least four helicopters shuttled water from the helipad near Casa Carrie to the fire, crews on the ground were clearly gaining the upper hand on the fire. In its earlier stages, visibility had been minimal. The huge smoke cloud indicated that the fire was consuming both chaparral and grasses. If the winds had shifted, beginning to blow to the south, the fire could have taken off over the ridges and on to the grounds of the Santa Susana Field laboratory.

Other than older local residents and nuclear regulators, few people know that under the Atomics International division of the old North American Aviation (later Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Division) built the first commercial nuclear reactor on that site in the 1950’s. In 1959, it was also the first commercial nuclear reactor in the United States to experience a core meltdown. Kept secret from the public for many years, the Santa Susan meltdown released more radioactive material than the later Three Mile Island nuclear incident in Pennsylvania. To this day, no one knows what happened to thousands of pounds of sodium coolant present at the time of the meltdown. It dispersed either into the air or on to the ground.

When a brush fire looks to be out of control and heading for a nuclear contamination site, it is time to call in the Air Force, or at least the USDA Forest Service "Air Force". Rather than risking a wildfire within a nuclear contamination site, the fire bosses in Simi Valley called for massive air support. Soon, three large air tankers arrived to augment the helicopter fleet and hand crews already on scene.

First on scene was Neptune Aviation Services’ new “Tanker 41”, a BAe-146, four engine, "next generation" commercial jet retrofitted as an air tanker or "fire bomber” as the Canadians like to say. Looking like a lost commercial aircraft, Tanker 41 made wide circles around the scene as it waited for a smaller, twin-engine spotter plane to arrive.

Next up was the Minden Air Corp "legacy" “Tanker 48”, a Lockheed P2V-7 maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare plane retrofitted for aerial firefighting. With the first P2V-7 flight having taken place in 1945, it is safe to say that this bumblebee-painted beauty was older than her flight crew was. Featuring two 3700 hp. turbojet engines and two 3000 lb. thrust jet engines, the elegant aircraft both rumbled and screamed as it maneuvered overhead.

Although a third air tanker joined the other two, I was not able to identify it, since the big aerial fire battle was about to begin. While the four helicopters headed off for a refill, what looked like a Beech King Air twin-engine spotter plane buzzed the fire ridge at low altitude. Its speed and grace reminded me of Sky King, who flew a similar looking Cessna in the old TV program by the same name. By then, the aerial ballet was getting exciting.

Perhaps since it had been on scene the longest, the four-engine BAe-146 got first shot at the dying fire. With “Sky King” in the lead, the two planes flew a straight and level route along the highest ridge of the fire. At the drop point, the smaller plane puffed out two spurts of white smoke. At that spot, only a few seconds later, the big jet cut loose a torrent of bright pink fire retardant, mixed with water. It was a spectacular sight.

Only a few minutes later, Tanker 48 took its run along the westerly portion of the same ridge. Judging by the fifty-foot tall hulk of a burned out oak tree, the P2V-7 appeared to clear the ridge by little more than 100 feet. Distances can be deceiving and the pilot dropped his load just behind the ridgeline, so he may have dropped at two hundred feet above ground, but little more.

When I realized that the mysterious “Tanker #3” was going to make a drop, head-on towards my camera, I switched from still shots to video. Dropping his fire retardant in a saddle along the ridge just west of the previous drop, the mystery tanker put an end to any threat that the fire would escape its lines and head toward the Santa Susan Field Laboratory.

I have lived in Southern California for most of my life. I grew up in Burbank, one block from the chaparral-covered Verdugo Mountains. As James Taylor sang, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain…” Never, in my life have I seen such a well-coordinated firefight. Congratulations to Ventura County Fire Department, their mutual-aid affiliates from other jurisdictions and the fire-fighting air force of the USDA Forest Service.

In congressional and state budget battles, firefighting is just one more line item to cut when possible. That the so-called “sequestration” has cut the federal fire suppression budget by twenty percent in 2013 is unconscionable. Before any more of the Western United States goes up in smoke, federal first responders to fires, floods and weather disasters should have their funding restored.

Let us offer our first responders the credit they deserve and the funds necessary to do their jobs. What I saw in Simi Valley this week is a prime example of “your federal, state and local tax dollars at work”. 

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By James McGillis at 11:53 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California - 2011

 

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California

Who was Ronald Reagan? My first recollection of him was as the host of the TV anthology series, “Death Valley Days”. In 1967, soon after I began my studies at UCLA, Reagan became governor of California and the de facto head of the University Of California Board Of Regents. Although few governors before or since played such an active role in the governing of the university, Reagan was determined to make his mark.

While the Vietnam War raged, the University of California at Berkeley became “Ground Zero” for opposition, protests and demonstrations. In response to what he perceived as spoiled and unprincipled students and faculty, Reagan forced budget cuts across the entire UC system. Around that time, some unprincipled and spoiled demonstrator threw a rock and broke a large window at UCLA's old English Building. Becoming an icon for both sides of the conflict, there were sufficient funds to board-up the hole, yet there was no replacement glass installed during my tenure at UCLA.

  Watch the video, "Air Force One Departs the Reagan Library"

In the years 1967 – 1970, the war raged higher and tensions increased on campuses all across the country. Ronald Reagan, to his great displeasure, hosted one of the last UC Regents’ meetings openly held on a UC Campus. There, at the UCLA Faculty Center in 1967, Reagan’s attendance brought out one of the largest political demonstrations ever at UCLA. At the time of the meeting, Reagan and the other regents sat behind a glass wall, obscured only by draperies. Outside, unruly students released the parking brakes on several cars and began pushing them around the adjacent parking lot. With only a few campus police on hand, it was all that they could do to prevent mayhem.

In the spirit of the day, someone in the crowd of several hundred started a chant. Knowing just how to rile the tradition-bound and conservative Ronald Reagan, the student demonstrators repeatedly chanted, “F*** Ronald Reagan. F*** Ronald Reagan”. The chant was so loud that it was impossible for the governor and the UC Board of Regents to conduct business. After it was evident that they had adjourned and left the building, campus police regained control and dispersed the crowd. Eventually, the events of that day began a spiral of budget cuts and UC fee increases that continues to this day.

Ronald Reagan, like Bob Hope, John Wayne and a host of other establishment actors came to epitomize the far side of the “generation gap” from the one that I represented. I opposed the Vietnam War, the UC faculty salary cuts and student fee increases. My parents were Eisenhower Republicans. They condoned no form of violence in our home. Out of respect for my upbringing and my parents, I observed the UCLA anti-Reagan protest, but other than joining in the chant, I did nothing more that day. With the perspective of time, I feel that Ronald Reagan represented in a courteous way, a set of political beliefs that were unlike my own. If we students had not breeched the decorum that Reagan expected in his life, would the budget cuts have been as deep and would the fee increases have been as steep?

Now that Ronald Reagan is gone from the scene of life, he lives on in many memories. Some ardent followers see him as the conservative messiah, while for others he was the bane of both the environmental and peace movements. Did Reagan’s funding of the “Peacekeeper”, the multiple-warhead, independently targeted intercontinental ballistic MX-Missile help end, or did it extend the Cold War?

At inception, I felt that the International Space Station (ISS) was yet another Reagan make-work project for the military industrial complex. Although that may have been its original impetus, I have come to believe that with its $160 billion+ in federal government funding, that the ISS was a good investment after all. Keeping an active manned space program keeps our engineering and planning skills sharp. In any event, Ronald Reagan’s funding of both the Peacekeeper and ISS projects takes him into the ranks of the biggest spending presidents in U.S. history. Who says that the government did not create jobs or stimulate the economy, even if it was for questionable purposes?

  Watch the video, "The White House in Miniature"

In December 2010, I made my first visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Although I did not agree with many of his policies or decisions as either governor or president, I hold no ill feelings for the man. Under the circumstances of the times, he did the best he knew how to do. As I approached the library on foot, I let bygones be bygones. Regardless of my previous feelings about Ronald Reagan, there was enough attraction for me to visit his library, museum and final resting place.

With a traditional Spanish style courtyard at its entrance, and strong touches of California ranch architecture in both its finish and details, I found it a handsome building in a beautiful setting. Sitting at the brow of a hill the site has a commanding view of high chaparral in the Los Padres National Forest. On a clear day, one can also see the Pacific Ocean, near Ventura. Despite the close proximity of cities such as Simi Valley and Moorpark, the view is only slightly changed from what it must have been during the nineteenth century Spanish Rancho era. With Ronald Reagan's love of the ranching lifestyle, this site reflects the man in his most favorable light.

In a remote, yet picturesque corner of the grounds is the Ronald Reagan Crypt. Its inscribed comments are brief, mentioning little more than the bare facts of his life. The Presidential Seal, rendered as a brass plaque is its only adornment. With its spectacular view of Ventura County both around and below, who could stand on that spot and harbor hostility toward the man, or anything else, for that matter?

It was the holiday season at the Reagan Library. Poinsettias adorned the courtyard. Inside, Christmas trees representing each decade of the republic were on display. The gift shop was abuzz, selling Ronald Reagan logo items along with other patriotic souvenirs. Except among the omnipresent security force, there was a festive mood throughout the museum.

Other than the spectacular view, the second most amazing feature at the Ronald Reagan Library is Air Force One. Trucked to the site in pieces, and then assembled to look like new, it stands on pedestals in a custom-designed pavilion. In front of the airplane is a picture window large enough for the plan to fly through, unimpeded. Of course, there is the issue of getting the plane up to speed in such a short distance. Through the wonders of stop-action video-capture, you can watch a YouTube video of Air Force One Departing the Ronald Reagan Library on a clear afternoon.

After watching Air Force One take off, we visited the Christmas tree display area. There, stood a series of trees, each decorated to represent a decade since 1776. Near the display of Christmas trees stood John and Jan Zweifel’s White House in miniature. At one-foot-to-one-inch scale, the model is sixty feet in length. The Zweifels and a select group of volunteers put over 500,000 hours of labor into creating their masterpiece. Our YouTube video, The White House in miniature starts with a gingerbread White House in the lobby of the Library and proceeds with a snowy-night Christmas tour of the presidential mansion.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was dedicated in 1991. In 1994, as he felt the slow release of Alzheimer’s disease, Ronald Reagan wrote his public farewell message. Until near that time, he had been actively involved with the planning of the Reagan Library. According to the docent on our tour, he was especially keen to include a full-scale replica of his presidential Oval Office. With some difficulty, the architects accommodated what we might call Reagan’s last wish. Major construction at the library culminated with the opening of the Air Force One Pavilion in 2005. After his death in 2004, the remains of Ronald Reagan, the fortieth president of the United States found peace on the grounds of his presidential library. If you are near Simi Valley, California, I recommend that you make time for a visit. It is Cold War history at its finest.

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By James McGillis at 01:56 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

 

Two New Live Streaming Webcams in Simi Valley, California - 2010

 

We recently completed the installation of two new webcams, streaming from Simi Valley, California.

 

 
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Webcam Number One streams live from an RV storage lot in Simi Valley, California. The eight-acre storage and rental facility is located near the Simi Valley Animal Shelter. Two separate freeway off ramps provide easy access to and from Highway 118.

 

At at the storage yard, 33-foot wide aisles separate 400 well-marked parking spaces.

 

Our camera view includes the landscaped grounds and the 400-space storage facility. In the background, hills provide open space around the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Behind the ridge line stands one of two original Air Force One jet airplanes. One of two nearly identical airplanes served each American president from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. Now on featured display at the presidential library, this venerable four-engine Boeing 707 began its career in 1972. 

 

With our live streaming webcam facing southwest, you can expect to see some spectacular Ventura County, California sunsets views. Please join us often for a unique and refreshing view of Southern California at its finest.

 

To view the Simi RV webcam, streaming live from Simi Valley, California, click on the webcam image above, or click HERE.

 

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Webcam Number Two is a street view, Live from Casa Carrie in Simi Valley, California. The Camera faces east, towards the rising Sun. In keeping with the ancient Navajo tribal tradition, each morning we face east and share with you our first rays of morning light. Framing the view is a residential street in the Texas Tract at Simi Valley. In the background is Rocky Peak, which separates Los Angeles County from Ventura County.

 

 
Image refreshes every 3 seconds 

 

With webcams streaming live from California, Oregon and Utah, the Moab Live group of websites is now the largest provider of low cost, streaming webcams in the Western United States.

To view the Casa Carrie webcam, streaming live from Simi Valley, California, click on the webcam image above, or click HERE.

By James McGillis at 11:26 AM | Technology | Comments (0) | Link

This Magic Moment, So Different And So New... 2009

 

This Magic Moment, So Different And So New...

 

In April 2007, I traveled from Los Angeles, California to Moab, Utah. On the night before my arrival in Moab, I stopped at Navajo National Monument. There, they have a free campground that sits high on a west-facing ridge. That evening, the sunset was beautiful. Far from the nearest city, the quiet night soon filled with stars. 

 

Only a week before, I had met Carrie, at her home in Simi Valley, CA. Now I was on the road, heading to Moab, over 800 miles away. Having met her only twice, I knew that she was the woman I had searched for all of my life. This new relationship would last forever, I believed. The only thing I had not yet done was to tell Carrie that I loved her.

 

After reading for a while that night, I felt lonely and alone, far from friends and family. Since I was fifteen miles off U.S. Highway 160, between Tuba City and Kayenta, AZ, I assumed that there would be no cellular telephone service. To my surprise, a strong signal reached my coach, perhaps from Tuba City. From the 7200-foot elevation at Navajo National Monument, there was a sixty-mile sight-line to Tuba City, at 4960-foot elevation.

 

As soon as I saw cellular reception on my mobile telephone, I dialed Carrie. That night, she was staying at the historic Santa Maria Inn in Santa Maria, CA. We talked for over an hour. I told her that I loved her. She told me that she loved me too, but as she did, the cellular connection buzzed in my ear. Not knowing what she had just said, I did not want to ask, “What did you say?”

 

During the conversation, she invited me to fly back to LA for my birthday, on Cinco de Mayo weekend 2007. It was an offer that I gladly accepted. Later, she called me back and asked, “You did hear me when I said, ‘I love you too’, didn’t you?” From that moment on, Sunset Campground at Navajo National Monument became a special place in my life.

 

Two and one half years later, in October 2009, Carrie and I shared our first sunset at that magical place. She and I were traveling from Moab, Utah to Casa Carrie, in Simi Valley, CA. Leaving Moab before noon; we arrived at Sunset Campground about an hour before sundown. That gave us time to prepare a toast to that special place. Our wine that evening was a Kokopelli Vineyards Arizona Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

As sunset fast approached, we took our glasses out to the rim of the campground. There, at sunset in that beautiful place, I proposed a toast. It was, “To our Love”. Since Kokopelli plays such a big part in the energies of that area, we toasted to him, as well.

 

Soon, the sun dipped behind a large cloudbank hovered on the western horizon, many leagues away. Distances in the Four Corners can be deceiving. There is a sight-line from the monument to the San Francisco Peaks, ninety miles away. For that reason, it was impossible to know how far away the clouds really were.

 

Although I had once experienced an overcast sunset at that place, I had not seen the sun set behind the clouds from there. Perhaps because of a false horizon and perhaps for reasons more magical, our sunset lasted for longer than expected.

 

As we looked to the western sky, shades of gold showered from the clouds above. Looking like fiery red creatures, deep red colors shone through many holes in the cloudbank. Above the darkening horizon, in clear sky the color of faded turquoise, we saw splashes of golden light. As we watched, coded swoosh-dot-dash lights hovered above the horizon. The brightness and intensity of these celestial features were unlike any clouds we had seen before.

 

As the sunset slowly faded, the intense display of light remained. For many minutes, features in the cloud-cipher barely changed. Whatever message it had to impart, we had time to marvel at the beauty of nature in that time and place. Turning to Carrie, I said, “It looks like Kokopelli in the sky, coming to greet us and bless us in this sacred place”. Pausing before she replied, “It is a magical place. Thank you for inviting me to share this special place with you.” If it were not for my need to keep taking pictures, I might then have melted into the sandstone of the ridge on which we stood.

 

As the sunset faded in the foreground, an angel or cloud-being came to rest atop Navajo Mountain, over thirty miles away in Southern Utah. At 10,385 feet, the peak stood out against a darkening horizon. Mimicking the shape of the mountain below, the being’s arms rested atop the pillow of air that separated mist from rock.

 

As darkness closed further around us, we turned again to see our sky bound Kokopelli, still shining, low in the western sky. Since all good things must end, we turned to face the final moments of our private sunset. Golden light flowed across the land, cloud beings rested atop nearby peaks and Kokopelli showered sparks of golden light before us. For both of us, it was a magical moment.

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By James McGillis at 10:48 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

The Spirit of Edward Abbey Returns to Navajo National Monument - 2008

The Spirit of Edward Abbey Returns to Navajo National Monument

On June 1, 2008, I decamped from the idyllic Navajo National Monument in Northeast Arizona and headed for Simi Valley, California.  Before leaving the monument, I reflected on Edward Abbey’s words in his classic book about Arches National Monument, Desert Solitaire, first published in 1968. At the time, Abbey decried what he saw as the destruction of primitive areas throughout the Southwest, as many of them opened to automobile tourism. Here are his words:

"Navajo National Monument. A small, fragile, hidden place containing two of the most beautiful cliff dwellings in the Southwest – Keet Seel and Betatakin. This park will be difficult to protect under heavy visitation, and for years it was understood that it would be preserved in a primitive way so as to screen out those tourists unwilling to drive their cars over some twenty miles of dirt road. No longer so: the road has been paved, the campground enlarged and modernized and the old magic destroyed."

Times change, people change, but upon his death in 1989 at the age of 62, Abbey’s consciousness on earth evolved no more. Abbey was primarily a naturalist, with a gift for description of our North American deserts and woodlands. Secondarily, as an anarchist and anarcho-communist, he waxed poetic on fighting the federal government, as exemplified by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), The National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of Interior (DOI) in general. Although his greatest anarchistic act up to that point was to pull up some road survey stakes at Arches National Park in Utah, Abbey often gets credit as the inspiration for such troglodytic and destructive groups as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).

The dominant energies of the 1960s coalesced around protest, as exemplified by the movement against the Vietnam War and the "tree-spikers" in the Northern California Redwoods. It was an age of "pushing against", whose legacy haunts us still. Self-righteous and well-meaning protesters may burn an animal science laboratory only to find that that they burned the wrong laboratory. Extreme "Right to Lifers" see no irony in their active support for a "Death Penalty".   

I sat quietly that morning in the campground that Abbey saw as a modern abomination and opened up a channel to his non-physical consciousness. Feeling that he was stuck in a near-Earth realm by the angst and anger he still felt at the time of his death, I asked him to accompany me in a tour of the area. Although there was no verbal or visible communication between us, I allowed him to see the place as I saw and loved it.

Bypassing the small visitors’ center, we walked along the crudely paved pathway towards the Betatakin (ledge house) Ruin, less than a mile away. In a desire to protect these fragile cliff dwellings, the NPS placed its only Betatakin viewpoint several hundred yards away on the opposite side of the canyon. Signs admonish visitors not to make loud noises, as Betatakin’s natural amphitheater amplifies sound waves. The loud voice of a careless visitor could weaken or destroy parts of the well-preserved pre-Puebloan settlement.

Navajo National Monument is a misnomer, honoring the fact that early non-natives who studied it associated its ruins with the Navajo Nation, within which its boundaries lie. There are, however, no Navajo ruins at Navajo National Monument. Craig Childs, in his book House of Rain identifies the early occupants as the "Kayenta Anasazi". Abandoned as these sites were, around 1300 CE, after as little as fifty years of occupation, Betatakin and Keet Seel rank with Mesa Verde and Hovenweep as last redoubts of a vanishing culture. The spring-fed relict forests in the monument’s canyons attest to the general drying of a once abundant environment, thus contributing to the brevity of human occupation in the area.

Returning on foot to what Abbey denigrated as a modern campground, we found its thirty spaces nicely sited on a 7300 ft. elevation mesa that offers spectacular sunset views. The spaces accommodate trailers of up to thirty feet, but the larger fifth-wheel and Class-A RVs must go elsewhere. There was water available, but no store, showers or sanitary dump. Having lived in a trailer home less than thirty feet in length for his two summer seasons in Arches National Park, I smiled at the thought that Abbey might wish to deny others a brief but similar pleasure in this beautiful place.

As I drove away from the campground, I reflected on the term "arrested decay", first coined to describe the preservation activities at Bodie, a ghost town in the high desert of California. The NPS has arrested the decay of the ruins at Navajo National Monument largely by limiting direct access to the sites. From the visitors’ center to the roads, trails and campgrounds at Navajo National Monument, the NPS seems to have listened to Edward Abbey’s ghost. Once established in the 1960s, these improvements have changed little, if at all in the past forty years.

I find myself in agreement with Abbey on one thing. Despite its supposed ruination in his time, as I departed I secretly hoped that this serene and beautiful place would enjoy its current state of arrested decay long into the future.

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By James McGillis at 04:51 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link