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Author Archives: Teri J Pieper

Albuquerque

The trip did not end in SE Utah. The girls and I continued south to Albuquerque where we camped just outside of the city in an RV park. Not my favorite accommodations, for sure. And Sky was very upset. It seems that the place is covered with goatheads. In case you are not familiar with them, let me explain. Goathead is a common name of an annual weed sometimes called puncturevine among other things. Its seeds are small and have sharp thorns that can puncture a bicycle tire. Imagine stepping on them with bare feet. The dogs would come to a complete halt, unable to move until I came over and removed the goatheads from their pads. Poor Sky could hardly relieve herself while we were there. Luna took to going as soon as she got out of the camper. It was a challenge for the dogs for sure. I did find a couple of trails at the nearby Petroglyph National Monument where they could walk more easily on leashes.

So why did we stay three nights in this RV park? My friends, Jennifer and Judy, of Notable Exceptions (you can listen to and buy their music here) were up for an award at the International Western Music Awards show and they were debuting the Corral Chorale, a mighty musical event and they asked me to photograph it for them. It was a fun weekend of music. Everyone was decked out in their finest western finery and I had to borrow a shirt. I did have my own boots.

Here are just a few photos from the weekend.

Jennifer’s dad was there!
Jennifer and Judy
Lauralee was there from Winthrop too
Tom Swearingen, western poet introduced the chorale
Carolyn and Tom were there from Winthrop
The awards show singers
Lots of talented young musicians

Hiking in SE Utah

I can’t say enough about the wonderful desert hiking we did while we were in the Bear’s Ears region of SE Utah. And we just began to explore the area.

ponderosa pine
oak leaves
Douglas fir cone
Douglas fir tree – three feet in diameter!
My favorite rock art

Night Skies

The girls and I camped for five nights at Natural Bridges National Monument. It has a tiny campground, is off the beaten path and is truly a dark skies place. There was no lighting visible from the campground or the tour loop around the natural bridges except for an occasional distant car driving on highway 95. There were lots of aircraft flying overhead and sometimes I had to wait for the jets to get out of my planned image. Once, two planes flew parallel to each other, going the same speed and direction. I wonder what that was all about. Anyway, I am still learning how to do this and how to process the image files so these are works in progress.

What Lives in the Desert

In a world of little rain, much manages to live and thrive in the desert climate of the southwest. Junipers and pinyon pines, shrubs of all sorts, cacti, lichens of all colors – even blue, and I imagine all sorts of flowering plants that show themselves in the spring. And in an ephemeral pool, I found tadpoles! So somewhere there are frogs or toads, maybe under the crust of a dried up pool. Even the soil is alive with cryptobiotic crust composed of algae, fungi and cyanobacteria. The canyons’ rock walls erode away little by little contributing soil continuously. Roots inch their way into cracks, enlarging the cracks and storing moisture and soil for future growth.

See the tadpole?
Mistletoe growing in a juniper tree

Scenic Drives

The landscapes of the southwest are expansive and sometimes, you need to travel by car in order to begin to take it in. These images are from the scenic byway – highway 95, the Moki Dugway and the Valley of the Gods.

The Temple Mountain pictographs are a short drive from Goblin Valley
These have weathered badly and also been defaced even though they are quite high and to me, seemed inaccessible.
Parts of the rock have sloughed away.
Along highway 95, the cottonwood trees were in full fall glorious colors
Lots of water in the wash
Raven at the Glen Canyon overlook
Hite Marina, high and dry
I think these are the Henry Mountains
The Moki Dugway road connects two state highways
The Valley of the Gods