Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Last week was a narrative photo post about our backpack trip through Grand Gulch in the Bears Ears National Monument. Today I'm sharing a bunch of the cool archaeology we saw there, with little comment and no order :)  Partly this is because I'm lazy, and partly because I don't have the knowledge to say much. The ruins and rock are are lumped together as "Ancestral Puebloan," but range in age from maybe 500 to 1800 years old. A stop at the museum in Blanding after the hike gave us some idea of the ages of some of the potsherds we saw, but I will need many repetitions to really get it sorted. Some ruins are pretty much inaccessible to ordinary mortals. I imagine rockfall has closed routes the original inhabitants used, but they were also definitely intrepid climbers. Other ruins were easily reached (if I got to them, they were easy). On this mud wall you can still see the handprints of the person who made it. I sat with that a while, thinking about the person who ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another IWSG post. This month I'm excited to be one of the co-hosts!   Purpose:   To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:   The first Wednesday of every month is officially   Insecure Writer’s Support Group   day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!   Don't forget you can post your link on the IWSG Facebook page !   Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @The...

When I was flying home from Africa back in March, I read an article in the in-flight magazine (hey, when the flight is upwards of 17 hours, you'll eventually look at everything!) about books by Africa writers. I'm a little bemused that it seems like most of them are African writers who live in England and write in English, but it's a start. My library had this one, so I decided to take a look. Or a listen.  Title: Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? Author : Lizzie Damilola Blackburn Publication Info: Penguin Audio 2022, 11 1/4 hours. Original hardback, Pamela Dorman Books 2022, 384 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: Meet Yinka: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband ?”    Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfrie...

I'll not deny I have some qualms about publicizing this amazing and somewhat over-visited area. I won't be including any precise location information for ruins or pictographs, though that info is out there. This hike was the purpose behind the road trip featured last weekend. After picking up Gretchen at SLC and doing our hike at Little Wild Horse Canyon, we met the other 3 members of the party in the Valley of the Gods, in Bears Ears National Monument. Today we'll focus on the hiking trip, and next week I'll provide a smorgasbord of ruins and rock art. Pre-hike dispersed camping. Not an actual campfire, but a safe gas fire for us to sit around.   Because we had to pick up our parking permits and get water info at the ranger station, then leave most of the cars and pile into one for the drive to our start point, we hit the trail at a blazing 10 a.m.  Fortunately, the weather was still relatively cool following a very cold front (didn't hurt that the TH was about 520...