Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

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This little lady is an Eastern Collared Lizard, and she’s sitting on Alibates flint, which is an extremely hard and unusual type of flint used by Native Americans for sharp edged tools. These flints were used to hunt Mammoths (possibly to extinction) by the Clovis people over ten thousand years ago. (Clovis is the New Mexican town where they were studied). Successive groups of natives used these flints, notably the Antelope Creek tribe, who dug hundreds of quarry pits around here to dig out the best quality, unweathered flint, and traded them as far as Montana, California, Mexico and Alabama.

I’m not particularly interested in geology, but this was the funniest parks tour I’ve taken. The ranger, Ben, somehow got ten strangers roaring with laughter in ~100 degree heat while climbing a hill to look at rocks and taught us all lots of interesting facts along the way. He even got a Texas Horned Lizard (or “horned frog” or “horny toad”) to scramble in front of us, so we could all get a good look at the official lizard of the state. Actually, the only way into the park is by guided tour, and the only tour during the heat of summer is at 10am. Better to call and make a reservation.

If you are into geology, then this park is fascinating. There’s petrified algae, iron rich red beds, fossilized dolomite, salty gypsum, and of course the multi-colored, sometimes sparkly, agatized dolomite, known as Alibates flint. That name came from a cowboy guide named “Allie Bates”. Mysteriously, perhaps from Valles Caldera or Yellowstone volcanic activity, there was an abundance of silica-rich water that seeped into the dolomite and crystalized into a dense quartz along with an array of other colorful minerals. The flints have many of the rich colors and patterns of the mineralized trees found in the Petrified Forest.

I stayed the night in Palo Duro Canyon (2nd in size to the Grand Canyon) which is another great location for views of the colorful red, white, orange, and yellow rocks under a blue sky with lots of different green trees and plants. The night sky was also brilliant. Any recent rain can close roads though. There was a summer musical playing there for Texans about how wonderful the history of Texas is, but of course, it glosses over the theft of native lands and doesn’t mention slavery at all. It never occurred to me that Texans would be so insecure.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Texas.

Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

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Somebody has gone to a great deal of effort to rehabilitate disgraced President Andrew Johnson. The hagiographic film is narrated by the late Tennessee Senator (and actor) Fred Thompson. The exhibits extol Johnson’s fidelity to the Constitution against the “radical” views in Congress that African Americans should be granted full citizenship rights. This may be the worst site for informing people about history in the park service.

In fact, Johnson was an inveterate racist, a slave-owner who got a special exemption from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to extend slavery in Tennessee. After Lincoln’s demise, Johnson reversed Reconstruction and vetoed the Civil Rights Act, paving the way for a campaign of terror by the KKK (also from Tennessee in 1865) and the collapse of all efforts to let freed slaves participate fully in elections. He was impeached (148-27), but escaped conviction by one vote. Johnson’s presidency was such a threat to the nation that Grant was pressured to run “in order to save the Union again”. A long-time historical favorite of racists, modern historians generally rank Johnson among the worst presidents. Nowhere at this historic site could I find any acknowledgement that it was morally wrong and anti-democratic to deny freed slaves the right to vote.

Johnson was a poorly-educated tailor who had the good fortune to be married by a relative of Abraham Lincoln.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Tennessee.

My favorites after visiting over 100 park sites

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Best battlefield & military site: Shiloh in Tennessee. The battle road tour is easy to follow & understand, and the cemetery and monuments are moving. (Honorable mention goes to Little Bighorn for the native ranger’s description of the battle).

Best canyon: Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. Strikingly beautiful, with Navajo guided tours available.

Best cave: Timpanogos in Utah. Carlsbad may be the largest and Mammoth the longest, but Timpanogos has the most features to see on its regular tour. Also, the hike up to the entrance is simply stunning.

Best Civil Rights site: MLK in Georgia. Grand in purpose, history and inspiration. (Honorable mention goes to Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute.)

Best fossil site: Agate in Nebraska. I loved the diorama, the Native Art collection, and the lush natural setting.

Best national park: Teddy Roosevelt in North Dakota. Both north & south units have a great variety of natural features, scenic drives, hikes, views and more.

Best native ruins: Chaco in New Mexico. Well preserved in a remote location, the grand scale of the many pueblo structures here is awesome.

Best presidential home: Grant in Missouri. Excellent films, exhibits, and informative tour.

Best rangers: Fort Union Trading Post in North Dakota. Three different rangers here brought to life the personalities, ideas and history brilliantly. (Honorable mention to Organ Pipe for Ranger Kate’s provocative wilderness talk).

Best tragic site: Big Hole in Montana. The film, the setting, and the tipi-pole memorial all bring the painful story of the flight of the Nez Perce to heart and mind. (Honorable mention to Cane River for its haunting cotton plantation slave quarters).

Best volcanic site: Craters of the Moon in Idaho. Best camping, hiking, and volcanic features.

Best wildlife experience: Smoky in Tennessee. I loved the little bear there (no, not Smokey Bear) and the horses rolling and playing. (Whooping Cranes in TR just get an honorable mention, because I didn’t get a photo).

Timpanogos Cave National Monument

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The cave is famous for its helactites, the squiggly ones that seem to defy gravity. To see them, I’d recommend a reservation or getting here early (open at 7am), as they do sell out. Then, walk up the switchback trail for 1.5 miles, and be careful not to wander off the near vertical drops while you gawk at the stunning views. The gap between the mountains appears to be deeper than it is wide, and there’s a river flowing through a forest at the bottom along with the road. Don’t mind the many hikers. They’re probably just out for exercise, as one lady told me her friend had climbed it over 100 times. And I suspect they exercise regularly with mountain goats here, since I also saw two moms carrying two kids each with more in tow.

The regular tour is ranger led and includes three sections of cave. The middle section has a crack in the ceiling which has dripped water for ages to create the amazing structures: flowstone, soda straws, popcorn, bacon, small crystals, stalactites, stalagmites and columns, in a variety of colors. We also saw a party of explorers with caving equipment entering small passages, which is another tour option for the skinny and flexible. This is my favorite cave.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Utah.

Fossil Butte National Monument

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Near Bear Lake, there was a much larger lake here during the Eocene around 50 million years ago, and there are many fossils of fish, reptiles, mammals and plants here. The one in the photo is a freshwater stingray. To help visitors get a sense of the timeframe, there are proportionately spaced signs from the entrance to the visitor center showing what evolved when.

We’re just the most recent to evolve, but we’re already driving a massive extinction wave, potentially as devastating as natural extinctions hundreds of millions of years ago. We take for granted the vibrant diversity of species, but even subtle changes can upset the balance and wipe most life off the earth suddenly. We evolved to overcome our limits, and now we need to learn how to control ourselves before we ruin the environment that sustains us.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Wyoming.

Golden Spike National Historical Park

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The two sides racing to complete the transcontinental railway actually went far past each other before they finally agreed to meet here. The celebration drew many, as did the centennial, but the location is fairly remote and sparsely populated. There’s a plaque honoring Chinese laborers who contributed, even though many were not allowed to remain in the US.

Many visitors come to see the old style trains shown periodically, but the site is most interesting as a historic symbol of a new age dawning. There’s a large solar array under construction nearby, and hopefully our next transportation revolution from fossil-fueled to electric vehicles can be as dramatic and sudden as the shift from horse to train and telegraph.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Utah.

City of Rocks National Reserve

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I think the best way to explore here is to camp. Many of the most interesting rock formations are steps from the primitive campsites and the best views are after dawn and around sunset. I spent a quiet night here imagining what the California Trail settlers thought as they camped nearby. The hard granite offers many handholds and steps for novice scramblers. Of course, the site is also popular among technical rock climbers who can prep on Practice Rock before working their way up to more challenges.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Idaho.

Minidoka National Historic Site

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Named for the Dakota Sioux word for a spring, this concentration camp is along an irrigation canal, where the Japanese-American prisoners built a swimming hole and tried to fish. The sincere efforts to try to improve their confinement somehow make the circumstances even sadder. Thousands of Americans were cut off from their homes, neighbors and country, due to their national origin and race. Most German and Italian Americans were not incarcerated during WWII. Neither were most Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. Most of those kept here were from the Pacific Northwest and had lived in the US for a generation or more. Many also found their property had been stolen when they tried to go home. Under Carter and Reagan the survivors were paid $20,000 compensation for “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership”.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Idaho.

Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

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I just realized that my photo is almost the same as on the NPS app, but that’s because there’s not much else to see. The fossil, a common ancestor of the horse and zebra, is actually “a Frankenstein’s monster” of bones left over from a big Smithsonian dig. On the way in, there’s an overlook where you can see the bluff on the other side of the Snake River where a herd of these guys were found. That’s about it.

The river canyon is spectacular, and I even watched base jumpers while charging my car nearby. The visitor center is jointly run with the state, so don’t drive past it like I did.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Idaho.