Wednesday: Canyonlands National Park

Wednesday: Right now, I am in the parking lot of the Mesa Trail Head in Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands only gets 9-10 inches of rain each year and it is happening today. It is very cold and tonight we may get a bit of snow. I find that my eyes are over stimulated with all the diverse beauty around me. Yesterday evening was absolutely fabulous. We pulled into Moab at about 2:00 and promptly took a bit of a nap. We then decided to do a quick drive through Arches for some photographs. It was cloudy and a bit drippy yesterday so the lighting for photography was perfect. We first went to Park Place viewpoint. I have been wanting to shoot Park Place forever and I finally got my chance. You walk out a little trail to a viewpoint that overlooks a small valley flanked with walls of red rock. In the distance you can see buttes and mesas for miles. The wind was brisk and we were all alone out there. Kevin and Chris descended into the valley and I stayed up top with my Pentax for some close up shots of the desert. We then drove through Arches to the North and South window trail heads. It was raining full out then so I decided to hang out in the RV while Kevin and Chris hiked up to the windows. There was a break in the rain so I grabbed my camera and found them at the huge double arch. The wind was cool, and the sun was just starting to get to that stage of twilight where all the colors glow. The huge red rock walls were shining in the evening light. We had the park all to ourselves and it felt like we were the only people in the world. The desert night life started to pick up and we saw a brown rabbit with huge white ears. As we walked the flat rocky trail to the double arch, the land glowing around us, I felt dwarfed by the sense of timelessness and majesty all around us. We got quite a few great digital shots and I hope that the Pentax photos will yield a sense of the atmosphere that evening. It was truly a magical moment in time.