Monument Valley - Utah, Arizona

This region of spires, buttes and mesas straddles the Utah-Arizona border near Four Corners, where Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico meet. I was just driving through as my appointment in Los Angeles to have the RV worked on was fast approaching. I did camp nearby for the evening and was able to see many of the formations from a distance.



Monument Valley has been the setting for countless western movies and TV commercials. On a visit here some years ago, our Navajo guide told of an automobile commercial in which a car was airlifted to the top of one of the chimney-like buttes. Then a young female model was flown up to sit in the car and wave as the scene was filmed from a circling helicopter. Unfortunately, the helicopter later developed mechanical problems and the young woman had to sit in the car on the pinnicle overnight before being rescued the next day. I hope she got paid for the extra hours.



If you saw the movie "Forrest Gump" you may remember Forrest and his followers running up this road near the end of the movie. It was here that Forrest announced that he was finished with running and just stopped. One of the followers said "What do we do now?" Priceless.



This pattern in the mountainside is reminiscent of some patterns in Navajo rugs. Monument Valley and much of the country surrounding it, including Four Corners, is on Navajo land. While driving through the Navajo Nation I enjoyed listening to NPR -- Navajo Public Radio.



P.S. It's Sunday a.m. and I was just reading the blog of a fellow RV traveler. He was writing about how much work went into getting a certain photograph, work that the viewer might never appreciate. I'm sure that's true. But serendipity also plays a role in photography. That was true with the photos at the top of this posting, two of my favorites on the trip so far. The first one, the horses at Monument Valley, happened as I was pulling out of the Goulding's campground. I was heading down the gravel road toward the main highway and admiring the formations in the distance. Suddenly there were these horses standing along the side of the road. I brought the RV to a stop, rolled down the window, and snapped the shot. That's all there was to it. The sunset shot occurred the night before. I was heading over to the laundry room when I saw the great lighting. I ran back to the RV and grabbed my camera. A moment later the whole scene had dissipated. I guess serendipity is another word for dumb luck.

Goosenecks State Park - Mexican Hat, Utah

Be ready to be amazed when you drive up to the edge of an abyss at Goosenecks. What you see below you is the result of 300 million years of the San Juan River eating its way through the desert floor as it winds its way along its serpentine course. You are looking straight down 1,000 feet to where the river flows today. At Goosenecks, the river actually makes two complete loops, but my camera could capture only one of them at a time.

Arches National Park - Moab, Utah

Arches and the town of Moab are among my favorite places. This was first prompted by Edward Abbey's seminal book Desert Solitaire, which I read many years ago. Abbey worked for several seasons as a ranger at Arches back during the late 50s, I believe, when it was much less developed than it is today. Although he was from Pennsylvania (very close to Tracey's hometown), he grew to love the west, especially its geography and geology. A reading of Desert Solitaire is an education in the desert west and southwest, its flora and fauna, its geological history, and its possible destruction due to improper use.

I've been to Moab several times before and wish I could have stayed longer this time. But two short forays into Arches were a reminder of the dramatic landscape and formations to be found there. Everyone has probably seen, at least in photographs, Delicate Arch, the natural formation that has become Utah's symbol. (This is a photo of a photo of the arch.) It's a fairly lengthy hike out to Delicate Arch, and I didn't have the time on this visit.

I focused instead on two other notable features of Arches: Park Avenue and Balanced Rock. Park Avenue is so named because you can walk in a valley between two gigantic parallel rock walls whose formations are reminicient of New York skyscrapers.



I got to Park Avenue just after dusk, so my photos are fairly dark. But Park Avenue is a great place to sit and contemplate while the sun goes down and changes the colors on the towering walls. You get to see various hues of dusky reds and golds as the light fades.

Balanced Rock is just a phenomenon. Who knows how long this gargantuan bolder has been perched on its pedestal. This 128-foot formation is the result of millions of years of wind, water, and ice wedge erosion. You can see the various types of rock layers that eroded differently over the eons. Some day the inevitable will happen -- Balanced Rock will topple from its perch.