Time to visit Jackson Hole again–this time for the Xmas holidays and New Years! It’s just cooling off here in Tucson and it’s a good time to hawk my book for holiday gifts. First I spend a week in Petrified Forest cleaning Metaposaur bones…..really:
I did this back in 2019 just before the Covid Pandemic. Here is that post.
This critter–resembling a 10′ salamander wandered the inland seas about 224 M years ago in the early Triassic. I’m working on the clavicle or collar bone which comes in a medial and two lateral segments. These are mud-encrusted so someone has to clean them up and glue the pieces back together. Fun!
Here is a single segment of this clavicle. We work using a denim sandbag, and a small straight hand-beveled pick, and a strong binocular scope.
This is a field cast–actually one cleaned up. These bones, when exposed are carefully encased in a plaster “sandwich” then carried back to the lab, reopened and all the sand grains are removed….one at a time!
This is the contents–a completed skull but crushed flat over the years.
So back to the clavicle. This is what I see under moderate power with a tiny paintbrush handle for scale. The morphology is quite strange–resembling, well, dinosaur bones. It’s thought that this cupping evolved so as to enhance sensitivity on the skin. Let’s back up a bit.
The bottom is cleaned and the top is not. I use water to dissolve and loosen the sand. It resembles weak concrete in places. This piece took me three days to clean. My instrumentation was crude but I finally settled on a better tool. Lots of these ridges are cracked and some crests are missing. Sometimes you find the loose pieces and glue them back on. Some of these marks are instrumentation–not desirable however, inevitable. You literally remove one grain of sand at a time.
Our lab scopes–Leica-Wild (pronounced Vield). I’m looking for an after-market scope like this that I can set up at home. Lots of cools stuff to look at that we normally never see.
Another reason to visit Petrified Forest (PeFo in the NPS vernacular) is to visit this building. The original Stone Tree House, was built in 1924 out of petrified wood–sort of a Paleolithic log cabin. It is situated overlooking the Painted Desert just a stone’s throw from old Route 66. In 1937-40 the NPS engaged the CCC to rebuild it with input from NPS architect Lyle Bennett. This larger building, now suffering cracks due to the differentiated foundation, has hand painted skylights and murals worthy of long roadtrips.
After WWII, architect Mary Jane Colter (designer of Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower and co-designer of the El Tovar) expanded the designs utilizing Native American motifs. From 1947-1963 the building was operated under concessions by the Fred Harvey Company. The building was scheduled for demolition in the 1970s however local pressure prevented its destruction and it was finally added to the National Historic Landmarks in 1987. Today it is a NPS Visitors Center and they still serve ice cream in the summers.
The Painted Desert out the front window. This desert’s first European visitor was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. He was looking for the 7 cities of gold but didn’t find any. The Navajo Nation is in the distance.
The rocks that the Metaposaurs were found were in the Blue Mesa member of the Chinle Formation. This strata overlays Grand Canyon at the very top. Beneath the Chinle is the Moenkopi and beneath that is the Kaibab which is the top layer of the Grand Canyon and the first layer of the Paleozoic. It’s not quite that simple, but you get the idea.
After a week of picking bones and looking at geology, it’s off north to colder climes. Bear in mind, it was 13F in Gallup NM and almost that here at PeFo. And, yes, Jackson, Wyoming is colder.
Near Mexican Water lighter rock formations appear. I am driving north into younger rocks.
Spectacular mesa formations near Mexican Water after passing through Ganado, Chinle, Many Farms and Rock Point. I cross into Southern Utah and stay east of the Salt Lake Basin and it’s sluggish freeways. The roads are wide-open and these new cars just wisk along these back roads….that is until a Utah Highway Patrol pops over the ridge and lights start to flash. This happened to me after making very good time north of Moab. The officer was very nice but said 93 was simply too much for Utah highways. When stopped like this, I do two things: 1.) I always compliment the officer on the fantastic roads their state has built, and 2.) I always display my Teton County Deputy Sheriff’s card next to my driver’s license. Let’s see if this works…..
Signed by Boyd Hall, no less. Boyd was Sheriff of Teton County and was murdered at the Heart 6 Ranch one night when I was on duty. This was back in the 1970s.
Well, it’s back in my car with just a warning. However, the officer explained that I was now in their data base so if I get pulled over again, it meant a likely ticket. Thinking this over, and needing to be in Rock Springs that night, I detoured east on Interstate 70 and pop over into Colorado where I’ve a clean record. I hang a left in Loma and continue north on 139. Now this highway takes one over Douglas Pass and it’s very windy and steep. I came south over this pass once in winter following about 10 huge 38 wheeler trucks hauling some sort of secret military stuff…..at night! Let’s try again!
Now that I’m in Colorado this does works out well putting me in Vernal about 3 in the pm. given the new freedom to,,,,um accelerate a bit. Now, descending Douglas Pass–at 8268′ I begin to smell wine. Yes, wine as I’m carrying all my groceries with me on these road trips. It reeks! In Dinosaur, CO, I get out and go through the car and can’t find a source. Back in the car, I re-enter Utah again, but it’s only a zig and a zag into Wyoming turning at Vernal. Leaving Vernal, the huge relief of Flaming Gorge presents itself and the speed limits increase as I leave town finally ending at 55. Naturally, I reach my comfort zone of about 85 when…..blue and red lights begin to flash; and it ain’t my taillights. And I’m back in Mormon country! Again I pull over, this time reeking like a Sunday morning sidewalk. What am I to say. Well, I roll down my window and get my Deputy Sheriff Card out again to see if it still works. The officer comes up to the car, takes a couple sniffs and asks me a very logical question….have you been drinking? “No, I reply, but I sure am going to have one later tonight when I get to Rock Springs.”
The first thing I say is the admission that I had just been given a verbal to keep my speed down and…and …and…..well, one thing I learned is not to volunteer any unnecessary information. “Please get out of the car.” I explain the wine smell except to say I couldn’t find the source. I volunteer to take a breathalizer test. He said he could smell booze when he walked up to the car. Then, a cork rolls out beneath into the rubber mat behind the front seat–clearly visible to this man in blue. I reach under the seat and pick up an empty wine bottle which is too hot to touch……and hand it to the officer with a slight, mocking hick-up.
So here was the problem: Toyota, in all their wisdom has under-seat heaters and separate control systems and my empty passenger seat was putting out 90F temps. And in the driver’s side, it’s freezing so I turn up the temps. Now Toyota–in all their infinate wisdom–have 2000 buttons now and an owners manual longer than Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Seriously–five volumes and over 750 pages! I was almost boiling wine. With a half empty bottle with all this volume of air, and heat, I recall my college chemistry: PV=nRT an solving for P (Pressure) I realized going over Douglas Pass at 8200′ with 90F temps, the cork blew out and bingo–wine everywhere. He gives me a couple more sniffs, mutters “open container, too” and I hear a very stern…..”wait here.”
When the officer returns and hands me my drivers license, I meekly ask if I have to go to jail. He smiles and tells me to keep the speed down and enjoy my road-trip. My Sheriff’s card worked again! After searching my coolers (where the wine should be), he explains he worked the oilfields and knows the hassles of roadtrips. A good old Jack-Mormon! So I then show him my Yap Drinking License which I carry for extra insurance.
He does a double-take and starts to laugh. Now, I’m just saying, I do a lot of road trips and do get a gentle reminder from time to time, but I have to give credit to these Utah patrolmen–every one has been very nice and so far, no speeding tickets. I make Rock Springs by 6pm just in time for the cocktail hour…..and I needed it!
I’m in Jackson by noon the following day. The town is changed again, this time with ugly, 3-story buildings and gucci shops everywhere.
The Jackson Council upped the building height so they simply add on. Ugly.
Like this knife set for $14,000
Or this cotton shirt (made in Vietnam) for $200……
Or how about these snow-packs for……..$1300! OK they got dead bunny fur.
Cold…..for $1400 you can have this sweater……
Then there are these $700 corduroy pants…..or this stocking hat:
….for $300! I ask the very young clerk “who buys this stuff?” to which she replies…..”World Travelers.” There are so many private jets, they now have to park them over in Idaho.
But, I’m back and Grand Teton is still here. Thank John D. Rockefeller Jr., both Roosevelts, Struthers Burt, Margaret Course, and several others that Teton County–the richest county in our nation–full of “world travelers”–is 97.3% federally owned. Protected for future generations to enjoy. And yet, one man, Elon Musk, almost shut down America last week.
Speaking of the CCC–here is a “Buffalo Chase” chandelier that I painted…..with this Louis B. Siegriest design which also adorns one his 8 1939 San Francisco International Exposition silkscreen prints….printed at Berkeley at the Western Museum Labs. It’s all in my book.
And my uncle, David Abercrombie’s branding iron (A Lazy D). I’ve re-registered the brand and carry it next to my Deputy Sheriff card and my Yap Drinking License. Bison left hip–just like the DOI seal.
So I sign books (sold 20 at the Valley Bookstore) and then checked out my display at the American Museum of Wildlife Art just north of town–skookum! Next week, I’ll drive back to Tucson, and this time I’ll put the cork better in the bottle and store it properly in the cooler…….and I’ll drive a bit slower. Stay tuned!