Tour Diary - Day Nine
Nov. 15th, 2016 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanUnderneath the arches...
Wednesday Oct 12 - Moab, Canyonlands, Arches NPs
You know what's really cruel? Waking up at 4am, half an hour before you need to. Especially when your wife is snug, warm & asleep, with no intention of joining you on your voyage into darkness
Off to pick up Gary from his trailer park. He'd given me directions & a map of where he was in the grounds & told me the sign on the highway couldn't be missed. Missed it. I called him on the 2-way to let him know I was at a petrol station just outside town & he said the place was a little further on. So - drove a further 4 miles out of town before deciding that can't be right, tried calling him on the walkie-talkie & got nothing but static, turned Travis back towards town, finally got hold of Gary, who was now standing on the side of the road... opposite the petrol station I'd stopped at to call him earlier... Cruel
Out to Canyonlands National Park, about 15 minutes the other side of Moab. I had to assume the scenery was nice, as all I could see were my own headlights & those of a couple of other early-morning masochists. We arrived at the wonderfully named 'Dead Horse Point' at just after 5am, still in the dark. Gary had been here before, so knew where to go to set up for sunrise shots... Beanie hats & headlamps on, we found our way to the lookout area &, as the faintest of pre-dawn light began to show, I took a photo of the Milky Way that I hope turns out as well as it looked in the viewfinder. It was still too dark to see anything, but Gary said we were standing above a drop of several hundred feet, so I was pretty careful anywhere near the edge - my fear of heights doesn't need to see the height to be afraid...
As pre-dawn became dawn & approached sunrise, we were joined by increasing numbers of photographers. The landscape below gradually revealed itself to be another wide canyon/valley carved out by the artistic & industrious Colorado River, still winding through there today. Dead Horse Point looks out onto an area that's pretty much Utah & Arizona's greatest hits. Arches & formations - tick. Large buttes with striations - tick. Delicate-looking columns of stone - tick... All fashioned from the red sand & mud stone, with a green-tinged river running through it. The only blight on the landscape is a large water treatment plant sitting in exactly the right spot to be a nuisance to landscape photographers - especially those looking to get the sunrise hitting the beautiful walls of the valley... with the sunlight also shining brightly off the large, geometric shaped, man-made reservoir & its attendant silver-roofed sheds. I took photos with all 3 cameras I had, including the phone - which caught the scenery amazingly well, I think. By 8am, we'd photographed as much as we could in the ever-changing morning light, so packed up & headed back to Moab to collect Julia & find somewhere to have breakfast, The scenery on the way back to town was nice...
The Jailhouse Cafe advertises that it has the best Eggs Benedict anywhere, so Julia & I took them up on their claim. My one with Canadian bacon was pretty good, but hers with chorizo was even better. If there are tastier Benedicts to be had out in the world, then I look forward to finding them
The next few hours were spent in Arches National Park... Devil's Garden & Landscape Arch, Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, the Garden of Eden... a few others & we still didn't see everything there is. We've certainly discovered there's a lot more to this Park than our last visit in 2012 suggested. The overall atmosphere of the place, though, is not the kind of serenity or peace you'd want or expect when you're in the desert. It's crowded with people & their SUVs & RVs & it always seems to be busy & too noisy. Compared with the peace, quiet & spiritual atmosphere we remember of Monument Valley, Arches NP, impressive & wonderful as it is, just doesn't connect to your soul. Probably because people are allowed to climb & clamber all over the formations, which takes away from their significance, age & individuality, turning the whole place into one big playground for young & old alike (Pot - Kettle... we DID climb over some ourselves, to get sunset shots last night!!?)
Having said that, I hope Monument Valley lives up to our expectations!?!?
We then returned to Dead Horse Point, so Julia could see what all the fuss was about & I took a few zoom lens shots of various places & of a small ground squirrel that darted around & between the bushes & rocks at the lookout. A stop at the obligatory Visitors Centre, where the music they were playing caught my ear - it was traditional Native American chanting & song... but then I heard the awful sounds of wishy-washy synthesisers & 'atmospheric' running water in the background which is supposed to make it all the more spiritual for us white folks, but just makes me want to stick my fingers down my throat. I'd like to think it makes Native Americans vomit as well... The only thing missing was birdcalls. No - wait... there they are!! Oh god... Aging hippies have a LOT to answer for
Hunger & Travis drove us back to Moab, where we found the Blu Pig, a place for 'Blues, Beer & BBQ'. Sounded good to us & it was. Hot wings, pulled pork, marinated roast chicken, gumbo, fries & sweet potato, a nice red wine to go with them & old blues records on the jukebox. We would have stayed longer, as the band was just starting to set up, but it had been a long day for us, so we dropped Gary back at his trailer park & finally returned to the Motel
Bed now please... & Monument Valley tomorrow...
Wednesday Oct 12 - Moab, Canyonlands, Arches NPs
You know what's really cruel? Waking up at 4am, half an hour before you need to. Especially when your wife is snug, warm & asleep, with no intention of joining you on your voyage into darkness
Off to pick up Gary from his trailer park. He'd given me directions & a map of where he was in the grounds & told me the sign on the highway couldn't be missed. Missed it. I called him on the 2-way to let him know I was at a petrol station just outside town & he said the place was a little further on. So - drove a further 4 miles out of town before deciding that can't be right, tried calling him on the walkie-talkie & got nothing but static, turned Travis back towards town, finally got hold of Gary, who was now standing on the side of the road... opposite the petrol station I'd stopped at to call him earlier... Cruel
Out to Canyonlands National Park, about 15 minutes the other side of Moab. I had to assume the scenery was nice, as all I could see were my own headlights & those of a couple of other early-morning masochists. We arrived at the wonderfully named 'Dead Horse Point' at just after 5am, still in the dark. Gary had been here before, so knew where to go to set up for sunrise shots... Beanie hats & headlamps on, we found our way to the lookout area &, as the faintest of pre-dawn light began to show, I took a photo of the Milky Way that I hope turns out as well as it looked in the viewfinder. It was still too dark to see anything, but Gary said we were standing above a drop of several hundred feet, so I was pretty careful anywhere near the edge - my fear of heights doesn't need to see the height to be afraid...
As pre-dawn became dawn & approached sunrise, we were joined by increasing numbers of photographers. The landscape below gradually revealed itself to be another wide canyon/valley carved out by the artistic & industrious Colorado River, still winding through there today. Dead Horse Point looks out onto an area that's pretty much Utah & Arizona's greatest hits. Arches & formations - tick. Large buttes with striations - tick. Delicate-looking columns of stone - tick... All fashioned from the red sand & mud stone, with a green-tinged river running through it. The only blight on the landscape is a large water treatment plant sitting in exactly the right spot to be a nuisance to landscape photographers - especially those looking to get the sunrise hitting the beautiful walls of the valley... with the sunlight also shining brightly off the large, geometric shaped, man-made reservoir & its attendant silver-roofed sheds. I took photos with all 3 cameras I had, including the phone - which caught the scenery amazingly well, I think. By 8am, we'd photographed as much as we could in the ever-changing morning light, so packed up & headed back to Moab to collect Julia & find somewhere to have breakfast, The scenery on the way back to town was nice...
The Jailhouse Cafe advertises that it has the best Eggs Benedict anywhere, so Julia & I took them up on their claim. My one with Canadian bacon was pretty good, but hers with chorizo was even better. If there are tastier Benedicts to be had out in the world, then I look forward to finding them
The next few hours were spent in Arches National Park... Devil's Garden & Landscape Arch, Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, the Garden of Eden... a few others & we still didn't see everything there is. We've certainly discovered there's a lot more to this Park than our last visit in 2012 suggested. The overall atmosphere of the place, though, is not the kind of serenity or peace you'd want or expect when you're in the desert. It's crowded with people & their SUVs & RVs & it always seems to be busy & too noisy. Compared with the peace, quiet & spiritual atmosphere we remember of Monument Valley, Arches NP, impressive & wonderful as it is, just doesn't connect to your soul. Probably because people are allowed to climb & clamber all over the formations, which takes away from their significance, age & individuality, turning the whole place into one big playground for young & old alike (Pot - Kettle... we DID climb over some ourselves, to get sunset shots last night!!?)
Having said that, I hope Monument Valley lives up to our expectations!?!?
We then returned to Dead Horse Point, so Julia could see what all the fuss was about & I took a few zoom lens shots of various places & of a small ground squirrel that darted around & between the bushes & rocks at the lookout. A stop at the obligatory Visitors Centre, where the music they were playing caught my ear - it was traditional Native American chanting & song... but then I heard the awful sounds of wishy-washy synthesisers & 'atmospheric' running water in the background which is supposed to make it all the more spiritual for us white folks, but just makes me want to stick my fingers down my throat. I'd like to think it makes Native Americans vomit as well... The only thing missing was birdcalls. No - wait... there they are!! Oh god... Aging hippies have a LOT to answer for
Hunger & Travis drove us back to Moab, where we found the Blu Pig, a place for 'Blues, Beer & BBQ'. Sounded good to us & it was. Hot wings, pulled pork, marinated roast chicken, gumbo, fries & sweet potato, a nice red wine to go with them & old blues records on the jukebox. We would have stayed longer, as the band was just starting to set up, but it had been a long day for us, so we dropped Gary back at his trailer park & finally returned to the Motel
Bed now please... & Monument Valley tomorrow...
