#7 in the series.

I find sometimes that I have the lyrics wrong on old songs. Back in the day, lyrics weren’t readily available, and sometimes you just had to fill them in to keep the tune going.

As I was hiking out of Bluff canyon alone (I’d forgotten my trusty cane hiking staff and had to retrieve it) the wash was dry and the wind was beginning to pick up, the sand was beginning to scour the landscape and my ankles. America’s “A Horse with No Name” came to mind. Especially because we’ve been watching the weather back home in Tennessee, where it has been a rough ride of near-constant storms:

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name 
It felt good to be out of the rain 
In the desert you can’t remember your name 
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no fame

I’ve been recently surprised to learn that I’ve had the lyrics wrong, Dewey Bunnell actually wrote:

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name 
It felt good to be out of the rain 
In the desert you can remember your name 
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

I dunno. I think I like my version better. On the one hand, I find humility in that there’s no need for a name because there’s no one to praise you. But on the other, maybe Bunnell is saying he now knows who he is. You decide.

The past three or four days have been a whirlwind. We made reservations for Moon House, but the wind predictions for Tuesday convinced us to shift it down a day. So we explored a couple of ruins and petroglyph panels close by and then ventured up to Blanding to The Dinosaur Museum and Edge of the Cedars State Park.

Some of the artwork is truly beautiful and interesting. It’s disappointing that some only have seen their value as targets for practice. I don’t know when this was done, so I hope we have overcome this type of disrespect. But I also know that we have to be diligent in teaching the values we hold dear. Always work to be done.

I became fascinated with a group of four stars chiseled into the corner of a stone. Very nicely done.

The images stick in my mind, and I wonder what their purpose may have been in their community.

The Dinosaur Museum

The Dinosaur Museum was an unexpected treat. Located in Blanding, it’s bigger than it first appears. And it has an engaging feel with the displays. You’re drawn into the debate on feathers and how dinosaurs and birds fit into that evolutionary tree. And you see how the scientific views have changed over time, always with vigorous debate.

In the back, there’s a room dedicated to dinosaurs in film, they’ve even acquired some of the movie props used before movies were talkies!

It’s a first-rate museum, and only $6!

Edge of the Cedars State Park

Edge of the Cedars State Park resulted in mental overload for me. Packed full of ancestral archaeology, it would take a couple of days to soak it all in.

This spearpoint is around 13,000 years old. The edge is so fine as to be nearly transparent at the tip.

A great display of arrow points. Zooming in on the bottom-middle section, we find an “ammo belt” of points!

And then there is the incredible pottery! Edge of the Cedars has a world class collection of Ancestral Puebloan pottery. I’m only showing one selection, frankly because there is just not a way to convey the collection here. Go see it for yourself!

Some of the pieces were found by explorers like you and me. And a couple of folks went to great lengths to protect the finds until officials arrived to fully protect them. A discussion of one such find is at the YouTube link below.

Already overloaded, I rounded the corner in the museum and came across their storage room where they rotate out the displays. Wow.

Finishing up, we exited through a display of high school artists and this one really jumped out at me. A twelfth-grader.

An afternoon well spent I’d say!

We’re still on the books for Moon House, so stayed tuned!