Arches And Canyons And Buttes, Oh My
VISITING THE NATIONAL PARKS in southern Utah is both interesting and exhausting. Actually the most exhausting part was getting packed and out of Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City seems to be a very nice town nestled in the mountains and filled with one-way streets that inevitably take you somewhere you don’t want to go. It took us a while, but we made it and started off for southern Utah by going north instead to see the Great Salt Lake.
We saw a lot of lake and a surprising number of buffaloes (or is it just buffalo?). Either way, we began our exploratory fact finding mission early last Wednesday afternoon. We left the Sheraton Frustration Hotel behind us never to be visited again unless force and weaponry are involved.
Our first park stop was at the Arches National Park. The picture at the top is from there – I think. I took a lot of pictures which are still digitally ensconced in my camera. I borrowed this picture from my wife, the lovely and expeditionary, Dawn.
I really can’t describe the rock formations at Arches and the other parks. The colors, the massive canyons, pinnacles, and swirling formations of stone.
After a night in Moab, Utah – a small town that is living on the tourism generated by the parks, and a dinner of Mexican food at an hour later than my intestines are used to having dropped in on them.
On the next morning we headed out in search of Dead Horse Canyon and Canyonland National Parks – and a laudromat. We were down to as close to nothing as you can get. I was going around wearing my San Francisco Giants baseball cap over my T-shirt that proudly proclaimed “NEBRASKA.” I felt as if I was deliberately misleading the world. A stop at a laundromat would solve this.
Anyway.
Both of these National Parks exceeded all the hype you find in brochures and guide books. I will post some of my pictures when I get them out of the camera and crop out the intruding figures of other tourists and cars. I’d like them to look “natural” and considering my lack of skill in doing these things I suggest that it might be quicker if you just went there yourselves. You take the pictures, crop them, and post them. It’ll just be quicker that way I’m sure.
In the meanwhile…
On day one of our pilgrimage my sunglasses came apart. I have all of the pieces (I think) and I will try to reassemble them so I can sightsee and keep my sight. You spend a lot of time looking upward and that sun is bright.
On day two we did laundry. Tomorrow I expect to be clad in one of my Wal-Mart $10 Wonders Hawaiian shirts. They may be ugly, but they’re mine.
We found our oasis of detergent and dryer sheets in Cortez, Colorado, another small town on the high desert that must have some reason for existence that I have yet to discover. I can’t believe that supplying us with clean clothes is it. I hope not. That would be so sad. Convenient, but sad.
Our journey continued on for another few days ending in Las Vegas. Fortunately, our flight home meant that we spent only one evening there.
Even I couldn’t do too much damage in that short a time.
Down the Hall on Your Left 