As many may note, I use a simple theme for my reports from the highway. In order to load pages quicker, I put most of my photographs on separate, attached, clickable pages in the Menu. I don’t know if that helps with load speed, but if there are a few precious moments saved, I will continue.
This week, I could “break” the internet with all the pictures I took (if I tried to upload them all!) This part of the country is just so beautiful, so sculptural, so colorful that I hardly know if I have all of the adjectives for it. Of course, it was hot — close to 100 in some places. (See the sidebar “Observations on the Side” to find out how I cope with it.) And, it was dry. (Again, see the sidebar — LOL.) Yet, it is worth the drive, and I go as far as to say that the most beautiful interstate highway in the U.S.A. is 70, Utah. Breathtaking!
I find Color Country region culturally and geographically interesting as well. Archeological evidence proved people created societies here in A.D. 600 at Mesa Verde. (The name of the park is a misnomer, as a mesa means flat-topped. Cuesta Verde is more accurate. A cuesta is land that tilts slightly; in this case, to the southwest.) Mysterious details of these people still evade us. But, they lived in this red and golden land for centuries prior to white man.
At Arches, where the world’s greatest collection of naturally-formed arches is found, a three-foot archway (the minimum opening to be called an “arch”,) turns into the iconic Delicate Arch over a hundred million years.
I’ve come to the realization that these places never get old. I could return year after year, decade after decade, and still find something new to see or learn. Yet, timeless as they seem, what we see here, today, is new as well. The monoliths change, from towers to knobs to mounds through the forces of nature. Old arches may fall; but new arches are created by the same forces. It made me stop and take in each moment, a grain at a time.
Next, I am driving up to Yellowstone National Park. I have not been there since 1980, and look forward to the “new” experience in quest of the authentic.