Rock Art Recording Field School

I got back from my Rock Art recording trip last night. I came home early because of some drama with my ex. I half expected something like this to happen, she always finds a way to screw up anything I might do for myself.
Here's where I set up camp. People were surprised that I was able to maneuver my Chevy to the camp site. Everyone else has trucks, jeeps, 4x4's, etc. One couple brought out their RV. You know, maybe this is my age talking, but RV's look better to me all the time, especially when it comes to little camping trips like this. Waterproof, built it toilet and shower, actual bedding, all the comforts of home. When I went to Burning Man a few years back, I noticed that some folks brought RV's and I have to admit I was jealous.
Of course, I believe that I'm being a hard core camper when I pitch a tent and crawl into a sleeping bag. I feel like I'm priveledged if I pump up an air mattress to sleep on.
But you know what? Screw all this 'roughing it' crap! I think my next camping trip will be a nice room on the 25th floor of a Vegas hotel overlooking the Strip.
And since I'm in a 'screw it' state of mind right now, here's an interesting story. One night during the trip, we were all sitting around being self important, speaking highly of ourselves and our mission, when one person asked "What's the point?" It seems that the Forest Ranger was out to see us, and someone played devil's advocate and questioned the significance of archaeology. At first, some people became defensive as they were convinced that we were performing an important service. But as the question sank in, I had to ask myself...on a grand scale, who gives a shit? Not too many people obviously. No one is making a living studying petroglyphs. I'm sure there are some honest-to-God archaeologists on staff somewhere who include petroglyphs in their studies, but they no doubt have bigger priorities and ever shrinking budgets. The Forest Ranger I mentioned earlier? He's the ONLY ranger for a 3 million acre chunk of land. Someone could go out there and destroy glyphs and ruins at will, and he'd be ill equipped to do much about it. If there was any major damage done, it sure wouldn't make the front page of the newspaper.
Maybe I'm just glyphed-out from the trip, maybe I need a little time off, or at least a nap. But as I went through all the steps of recording rock art, I had this very uneasy feeling that after all this was done, the reports would end up in a box in a room somewhere, and promptly forgotten.

Ok, enough whining. There were hundreds of glyphs. Some where redundant, others were very unique. Here's an example of something I haven't seen before. There's a deer-type creature, and it's painted red. Colored petroglyphs aren't exactly unique, and there are examples of them all over the world. In fact, most were probably colored at one point, but faded due to time and erosion. This is a big deal for me because it's the first colored glyph that I've seen in person. There was a red lizard too, but I like this one because it's in the area that I was working.