Shiprock is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States, on the Navajo reservation. The population was 8,156 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Farmington Metropolitan Statistical Area. Shiprock is named after the nearby Shiprock rock formation. It is home to the annual Northern Navajo Fair, held every October. Since 1984, the community has been the host of the Shiprock Marathon and Relay. It is also home to a campus of Diné College (formerly Navajo Community College), a tribally controlled community college with seven other campuses across the Navajo Nation. It is the site of a Chapter House for the Navajo, a Bureau of Indian Affairs agency, the Northern Navajo Medical Center (an Indian Health Service hospital), and a branch of Farmington Public Library. Shiprock is a key road junction for truck traffic and tourists visiting the Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Shiprock and the Grand Canyon. The town lies at the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and U.S. Highway 491 (formerly U.S. Highway 924).
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Capitol Reef National Park is a United States National Park, in south-central Utah. It is 100 miles long but fairly narrow. The park, established in 1971, preserves 241,904 acres and is open all year, although May through September are the most popular months. Called "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman, Capitol Reef National Park protects colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths. About 75 mi of the long up-thrust called the Waterpocket Fold, a rugged spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell, is preserved within the park. "Capitol Reef" is the name of an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold near the Fremont River. The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. The local word reef referred to any rocky barrier to travel. Easy road access came with the construction in 1962 of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.
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The White Sands National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located about 25 km southwest of Alamogordo in western Otero County and northeastern Doña Ana County in the state of New Mexico, at an elevation of 4235 feet. The area is in the mountain-ringed Tularosa Basin and comprises the southern part of a 710-km² field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.
Gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand because it is water-soluble. Normally, rain would dissolve the gypsum and carry it to the sea. The Tularosa Basin is enclosed, meaning that it has no outlet to the sea and that rain that dissolves gypsum from the surrounding San Andres and Sacramento Mountains is trapped within the basin. Thus water either sinks into the ground or forms shallow pools which subsequently dry out and leave gypsum in a crystalline form, called selenite, on the surface. Groundwater that does flow out of the Tularosa Basin flows south into the Hueco Basin. During the last ice age, a lake known as Lake Otero covered much of the basin. When it dried out, it left a large flat area of selenite crystals which is now the Alkali Flat. Another lake, Lake Lucero, at the southwest corner of the park, is a dry lake bed, at one of the lowest points of the basin, which occasionally fills with water.
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Fly Geyser, also known as Fly Ranch Geyser is a man-made small geothermal geyser located in Washoe County, Nevada approximately 20 miles north of Gerlach. Fly Geyser is located near the edge of Fly Reservoir and is only about 5 feet high, but 12 feet counting the mound on which it sits in 2013. Fly Geyser is located on the private Fly Ranch in Hualapai Flat, about 0.3 miles from State Route 34. The ranch is currently owned by Todd Jaksick. There is a high fence and a locked gate topped with spikes to exclude trespassers. The only access is a dirt road, but it is large enough to be seen from the road.
Fly Geyser is not an entirely natural phenomenon; it was accidentally created by well drilling in 1964 exploring for sources of geothermal energy. The well may not have been capped correctly, or left unplugged, but either way dissolved minerals started rising and accumulating, creating the travertine mound on which the geyser sits and continues growing. Water is constantly released, reaching 5 feet in the air. The geyser contains several terraces discharging water into 30 to 40 pools over an area of 30 hectares. The geyser is made up of a series of different minerals, but its brilliant colors are due to thermophilic algae.
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The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona and California, and of Northwestern Mexico in Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 280,000 square kilometers. The western portion of the United States–Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert.
In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic Kingdom of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) and Organ Pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi). Many plants not only survive, but thrive in the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert. Many have evolved to have specialized adaptations to the desert climate. The Sonoran Desert's bi-seasonal rainfall pattern results in more plant species than in the other North America deserts. The Sonoran Desert includes plant genera and species from the agave family, palm family, cactus family, legume family, and numerous others.
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The Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is located in the Sonoran Desert in southwestern Arizona in the United States. The refuge, established in 1939 to protect Desert bighorn sheep, is located along 56 miles of the Mexico–United States border, and covers 860,010 acres larger than the land area of the state of Rhode Island. Spanish for "dark head," the refuge's name comes from the Cabeza Prieta Mountains in the refuge's northwest part. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor, described the Cabeza Prieta as "the best desert wilderness left in the USA."
The most popular time to visit the refuge is between November and March. The required permit is free and can be obtained at the refuge office in Ajo, Arizona, or by mail. A local organization gives evening presentations on the history, flora, and fauna during these months. Only lawfully-killed game may be taken from the area. The historic El Camino Del Diablo four-wheel drive dirt road crosses the southernmost part of the refuge, near the Mexican border. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
