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.

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.

This is not the Grand Canyon, and not even a National Park . . . just a scenic pull out somewhere on highway 70 in Utah, but I think it's my favorite photo of the whole week's vacation.  It's called Castle Valley.  It looks like a scene straight out of a cowboy movie.  We had a very long drive ahead of us that day, but stayed at this spot for a good 15 minutes.  For me it's the quintessential western scene.

Here is the first picture from my recent trip with my sister Alice. This was taken near Sedona, AZ. I thought the scenery was absolutely amazing.  At first we started stopping the car and getting out each time we saw a photo op, which was about every 50 yards. We figured it would take us forever at that rate so we finally settled on me just slowing the car down while Alice would take pictures. I only took pictures at Scenic Pullovers and I still managed to take over 1200 pics.

Alice and I have had a ball driving all around Arizona and Utah and taking bunches and bunches of pictures. I had set a goal for myself of taking more pictures on this trip than I did on my trip to Greece, but alas that proved to be an illusive goal. You see, it is absolutely impossible to stop each time there is a photo op, because most of both states are solid photo ops.  We got out of the car as much as possible, but many many of the photos taken were taken by Alice from the passenger seat. I on the other hand was driving and it's hard to take the time to compose a good shot and to focus the camera whilst driving . . . not to mention how unsafe that would be, so bottom line . . . Alice has hundreds more shots than I have.  But she has promised to burn me a CD of all her shots and I will do the same for her.  Tomorrow we fly home.

Alice and I are on our annual "Sister Trip".  This year we are seeing the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Arches National Park, The Painted Dessert and Monument Valley.  The only one of those we haven't seen yet is Monument Valley . . . we do that tomorrow.  These places are simply awesome!  It's like God is showing off.  I'll have pics to share once we get home.  So far I've taken 986 pics.