Monday, April 21

First day back at work from our spring break vacation down in Bluff, Utah.  It was relaxing to get back into hiking and exploring the ruins of the four corners area. Every day we set out on a three to four mile trek to a new location. Although much of the cliff dwellings we have seen before on earlier trips.

The first day was to visit Monarch Canyon up Butler Wash, one of my favorite Anasazi ruins that I have painted before. Behind the ruin there are hand prints up on the wall from the families that lived there.

The next ruin was up on Cedar Mesa. Along one of the many dirt roads you set your odometer to 6.3 and arrive at a trail head. There you follow the path for several miles to a fin that stretches out above the canyon floor. With several zigzags and light climbing moves you end up on a flat top rock structure about 30 feet wide and moving along that for several hundred feet you arrive up at a high perched ruin called Citadel. This would have been towards the end of the Anasazi period around 1300 BC, when times became critical and food scarce.

On the way back we stopped off at Sego Canyon to visit some old petroglyphs, definitive prove that we were visited by space aliens 5000 years ago!!!

Today I was back on the Copenhagen painting adding more boats to the right side. The rigging I got in place in the middle and will move on to the left side tomorrow. It might mean the laundry in the background could be eliminated, I don't want that to be too busy with the masts in front. Once all that is done I'm going to add some figures working on them and then finish up the water.

Richard Boyer