Hi again! I’m hiding out in a cafe with free wireless here in Moab, UT, attempting to avoid the heat of the day. I got up at 4:45 AM this morning to go shoot in the Windows area of Arches National Park, then hiked out in the Devil’s Garden section of the park until around 11. My endeavors at napping failed miserably, so I guess I will push through till the evening when I’ll head back to the park… tonight I will sleep well! Here is Turret Arch looking through North Window with South Window off to the left, shot at 6:01 AM this morning:

Last night I hiked up to Delicate Arch (one of the most famous arches here) at sunset and it was gorgeous! I hung out until the sun went down and the cliffs in the distance turned a nice pink color and the breeze picked up, and it was just fabulous :) Here is a shot of the arch from before the sun went down:

Overall, Arches is a very cool park. Most of the arches are found in large “fins” of reddish sandstone that stick up out of the ground in clumps. Aside from the fins though, there are huge blocks of sandstone, lone monolithic spires, petrified dunes, and more. The park is relatively small, but there is a lot to see, and more than ample photographic opportunities. Moab is a nice little town too with a quaint section of main street where there are art galleries, cafes, etc. Not a bad place to kill a few hours during the middle of the day.

Anyway, when I left Monument Valley the other day, I decided to take a scenic route from a Scenic Highways and Byways book that I have, so I drove through the Valley of the Gods (sortof like Monument Valley), stopped by the Butler Wash Indian Ruins, went to Natural Bridges National Monument (try saying that 10 times fast!), and eventually ended up in Capitol Reef National Park, since I would have arrived in Arches too late. Anyway, the drive was very nice. The whole section of Hwy 95 from Hite (at the top of Lake Powell) on up to Hanksville has some great scenery, as does Hwy 24 if you continue north of Hanksville up to I-70. Here is a tree I found off of Hwy 191 (there was dirt side road conveniently located so I could grab this shot :):

Capitol Reef turned out to be a nice stop as well. The “Reef” is a huge rift in the earth’s crust 100 miles long… I can’t recall the specifics now and I’ve been kicked out onto the sidewalk bench (the cafe closed), so you’ll just have to look it up yourself :) The part of the park which has the campground where I stayed is called Fruita though, because Mormon settlers planted a bunch of fruit orchards there back in 1880. It is right along the Fremont River, so there is plenty of water and the campground even had grass! There was an old barn, schoolhouse, and turn of the century farm equipment/wagons as well, all interesting photo subjects. This was shot just steps from my campsite:

You know, the heat here in Moab isn’t nearly as bad as the previous places I visited… hot during the peak of the day, but not so bad in the shade by 4 PM. Nevertheless, I’m going to get out of this oven tomorrow and begin my journey north toward Grand Tetons. But first, I’m going to check out a couple more of the 1700 arches here at Arches NP :)

Peace, Tai