This is the view out my home office window. I love it when the birds congregate at the water fountain and all take turns taking baths. I wish I had taken a longer video, but the door bell rang, and then I just didn't get back to the birds in time.  They evidently all finished their baths and went out hunting for food, because when I got back to the window they were all gone. I'll try again the next "nice" day we have.  At the present it's rather chilly and raining off and on, and it's supposed to rain for several days.

I've been watching the PBS programs all week on our National Parks.  It's a wonderful series chronicling how the National Parks came into existence and all the struggles that many of the parks' champions went through to get them designated as National Parks. It's a film by Ken Burns and it is something that every American could learn from.

The above photo is of Sunset Point in Bryce Canyon, which is located in southwestern Utah.   

This is another shot from Arches National Park and I'm showing this to you so you can get a sense for just how large these arches are.  Can you guess how many humans are in this photo?  

Check out this close up; by my count there are 26 people.  Look particularly at the fellow in the light pants, blue shirt and white hat standing under the arch and the 4 people just to the right of the arch.   This shows you just how HUGE this arch is. It dwarfs the people.

Landscape Arch

When we went to Arches National Park, Alice and I were very keen to see Landscape Arch, an impressive 306 foot long slender span of rock. It's located at the end of the 15 mile road that cuts through the heart of Arches National Park. We had covered only about 8 miles of the 15 mile road when it began raining, and more importantly, a lot of lightning strikes, compeling us to leave the park.  We decided to get up very early the next morning (so as not to throw off our ambitious driving schedule) and finish seeing the rest of Arches National Park. I'm so glad we decided to finish seeing the park.  We were rewarded with some very dramatic early morning lighting for some of our shots. Finally we made it to the end of the 15 mile road and then realized we'd have to also make a 1 mile hike (and 1 mile back again) in order to see Landscape Arch, but since it was still pretty early in the morning we were not too tired to make the hike. So off we went to see the spectacular arch.

I think at first sight Alice was a little disappointed in the less than spectacular arch. . . after all, you couldn't even see daylight through it. She even voiced sentiments to the affect that the whole thing might be just an optical illusion.

We got closer and closer, and still no daylight was to be seen through the arch.

I think the above picture was when Alice began to believe it really WAS an arch. You can just barely see a slight sliver of light near the top of the arch.

But as we got ever closer that sliver got larger and larger, till at last we were standing down hill from it and we got pictures of plenty of sky showing through the arch.

In 1991 a 60 ft long piece weighing 180 tons finally gave in to gravity and fell to the ground leaving the arch even more delicate than it had been before. Up until that time the hiking trail took tourists up the hill and UNDER the arch, but that portion has been closed ever since.

This shot is taken from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I called my son from the rim to tell him how very awesome the Grand Canyon was.  I also told him I thought it was about 2 miles from the north rim to the south rim and he added that he thought the canyon was at least 1000 feet deep.  Later that day I found out the truth; it's 12 miles from the north to the south rim and the canyon is 1 mile deep . . not 1000 feet.  Big difference. BIG CANYON.  It actually takes a few minutes for your mind to grasp the immensity of the canyon when you first see it.