Bluff - Day I

Long first day of the Bluff Balloon Festival 2010. We collected our show stuff and dropped off Scooby Doo at the Dog Hotel by about 10 a.m. The owner wanted to show us a lamb that had just been born, which was among several other recent lambs. The one shown is one that would stand still for a second, not the most recent one.

I was hoping to stop at the Cajon Group of ruins, part of Hovenweep National Monument, on the way to Bluff, but we didn't find it. I'd been there about 15 years ago and thought I had it mapped on Google, but all we found was slick, muddy roads, ending up in three different Navajo "outfits," as my father-in-law Jack Wade used to call them. The roads kinda reminded me of being back at Chaco; they were slick as snot.

Anyway, we got to Bluff, had a late lunch, checked in at the Desert Rose and took a nap. 'Bout sunset we went up on the bluff above Bluff and caught the sun's last rays streaking across the canyon-cut landscape, looking south across the San Juan River valley toward the Chorrizo Mountains in NE Arizona.

To the school for the Navajo taco dinner and entertainment. We hear there's more than 20 balloons here this year and they had a good flight Friday morning. A few more are expected in for the weekend flights. The sponsors surely sold several hundred Navajo taco dinners last night!

What a varied program! Lots of round-dance songs, a piano solo, the cloggers shown, a country singer and the young yei-bi-chai dancers shown in a line. Several of the dancers used small hand-drums ... I liked the detail on this one.

Today we'll set up our booth after the pilot's meeting in the community center. This morning's launch, if there is one (weather rules all in ballooning), will be right outside the community center. We think we've got good photos in card and print form, and we may be able to offer cards this afternoon of pictures taken this morning. So, we'll see how it goes. This afternoon is a SW cuisine show, then a glow in the evening.

The real event, if weather allows, will be the launch west of Bluff in Valley of the Gods State Park tomorrow morning. It will be COLD, but visually thrilling! tv

Up, up and away!

It's still dark, and we're watching more of the disaster unfold in Haiti on CNN (I'll be making a donation to the American Friends Service Committee), but we're excited about getting ready to roll westward to Bluff, Utah, for the Bluff Balloon Festival! These pics are from last year, but we're looking forward to posting new ones over the next few days.

Some of these pilots also come to Mancos for our balloon festival, but a lot of last year's attendees were a different group. All fun! Navajo tacos tonight! tv

Bluff Balloon Festival 2009

Last year's Bluff Balloon Festival was captured on many photos of the area and the events. We are excited about visiting the hospitable small community and doing it all again! The photography on Sunday morning at Valley of the Gods and the balloon launch from that location is spectacular! sf

Is it 2010 yet?

I guess it's really here, isn't it? And I've been tardy in keeping up my end of the blog.

Yesterday was a rewarding day at the Mancos Valley Visitor Center, where we volunteer four hours a day, two days a week. Sandy answered a call from someone in the SE US who's planning a trip to Mancos this summer and wanted to know about horsing around opportunities for her family in the Mancos Valley. And later someone came in from one of the local businesses to pick up some of the rack cards that list the local events for the year, fulfilling our mission of providing useful information for locals as well as for travelers.

In between times, we went over our pictures from last year's Bluff Balloon Festival ... and we just got more excited about going over there this weekend for this year's event. They're having an art show for the first time (with the balloon festival) and we're delighted to be part of it!

We're going to detour to the Cajon Group unit of Hovenweep on the way. I've only been there once before and hope it will be a sunny morning to highlight the standing-wall ruins against the blue sky and the white snow.

Still, the real fun is going to be the colorful balloons against the blue sky and red bluffs of Bluff, hopefully with white snow as well. It's a fun event, in a town that has a lot of the same small-town feeling that Mancos has. And Sunday, when they go out to Valley of the Gods to launch, could be just spectacular!

Back to yesterday. I moderated the Mancos Valley Cares forum last night. We were fortunate to have the town administrator and the school superintendent there to talk about their plans and how they relate to each other and to the overall context of the county and of the infrastructure of the Mancos Valley.

One thing that came out is that this tax-averse county is going to have to deal with the transportation infrastructure at some point. Unlike other counties, Montezuma passes no money along to the municipalities and, frankly, it doesn't even have the money it needs to maintain county roads. While there's plenty of bitching about roads, voters recently turned down a ballot issue that would have provided more funds for roadwork. We've got roads in the valley that are becoming used way beyond their original design capacity, but we can't afford to maintain and resurface our roads, much less widen or realign them!

The school superintendent addressed our declining enrollment and their efforts to attract young families to the community. Part of this issue is: Where are they going to go? The Town is basically built-out, residential occupancy is at a high level and subdivisions outside town in the valley are not cheap. A related and perhaps prior issue is jobs. We are a bedroom community (median travel time to work is 23 minutes, suggesting a LOT of folks are working in Cortez, Durango, etc.), but we need to have jobs and services here, too, at least in part to generate revenue to support Town services to residents and businesses.

There's good news on that score, at least for the moment. Despite the gloomy economy overall, and in the face of reduced revenues from gasoline sales associated with lower prices per gallon in 2009 than in 2008, the Town's sales tax receipts in 2009 were 3.63% higher than in 2008! That's really amazing and I personally think the renaissance in the downtown area is an important factor.

Light is coming to the valley, we're waking up ... time to get breakfast and then go to Cortez for a SWOS board meeting. tv

Sunny Sunday

Today is sunny and a warm 32 degrees. The picture above is taken as we were driving to an early morning seminar at Ft Lewis College in Durango on Friday. Not quite so sunny but pretty in it's own way. We need to be more attentive with this blog but get distracted by keeping up with facebook, our flickr pages and also many non electronic happenings and time obligations. We are heading to the Bluff Balloon Festival this weekend and are doubly excited since we found out they are having an art show along with it this year and we can show and sell our photography. Last year's pictures were good with red rocks decorated with touches of white snow and colorful hot air balloons bouncing around amongst! We are going to go to one of the ruins in the Hovenweep area on the way down so should be an interesting few days. We are back from our Sunday morning trip to the Quaker meeting in Durango and on our way out the door to help with artists moves down at Artisans Co-op. We like our spot in the gallery and get to keep it this time but thought we would go and see what we can do to help with the general shuffle. The changing of assigned locations within the gallery does keep locations fair and gives it a fresh look. Hello to all. . Hope you have recovered from the busy holidays. . .sf

Coming home from the doctor ...

I had a doctor's appointment in Durango this morning. It was a pretty, sunny morning, but nothing special.

On the way home, we saw a CDOT snow blower clearing the snowpile from the guardrails. Couldn't resist getting a picture of the plume of snow against the blue sky and Menefee Mountain across Thompson Park.

And then we got into a cow jam just outside Mancos. They were a little disorganized at first, but finally moved a couple of miles east on US 160, then up the Echo Basin Road to an old barn and corrals with the East Mancos and the La Platas as a backdrop.

One of the critters wasn't with the program and had to be roped by one of the cowboys and put back in the paddock. Roping isn't just a "ranch rodeo" event! tv

Mancos Mix

The bottom picture is of the New Year Eve's full moon rising on the horizon outside of Mancos. Then on the outskirts of Mancos and on our way to Cortez we snapped a few pictures of some yaks that are sharing a field with cows and horses. We have tried before and these creatures just are not photogenic! We were delighted to find my friend Alexander the camel hanging out in the front of his pasture and even seemed glad for the company. Alexander is a ham, I think as he always seems to strut and pose for the camera. I thought he was particularly handsome is his heavy winter coat! Just never know what you are going to find around and about Mancos. Happy New Year all. . sf