happy mothers day from moab, ut

Valley of the Gods S.P. video

on saturday we spent about 3 hours in valley of the gods park, near mexican hat. nice park, a mini-monument valley as they billed it, lots of photo ops, and small enough that the size of the place was not so overwhelming like monument valley was. driving a "native surface" road through the park. we didn't know what that meant exactly, but it's dirt and gravel, but drive-able without a 4 wheel drive. one minor mishap, not really even a mishap. mishap means something happened right? nothing actually happened, it just would have shown up as a spike in the day-long chart of our blood pressure and heart activity. we're driving along on the native surface road, actually i was driving along, and we had pretty much finished picture-taking, and the native surface road had straightened out and was pretty smooth, so we're, i'm doing like 40 maybe, and all of a sudden there's a curve and a dip down maybe 15 feet at the same time, then another curve the opposite way coming out of the gully. it was like a scene out of a movie where the bad guys are getting away. down and turn hard and brake at the same time. well on the native surface roadway, the brakes just locked, meanwhile we are headed into a barranco, so i let up on the brakes and just steered through the S, at higher speeds than i would recommend to my children, and salvaged the fish-tailing at the end. so nothing really happened. miguel, on the surafce at least, was not pissed off at me. although he did offer that his gastro-intestinal status was somewhat compromised. all's well that ends well right? then onward, uneventfully on a regular surface road.

so in the latest chapter of this never-ending saga for scenery, photos, and self-discovery, we find ourselves in moab utah. pretty cool little town, it has 2 best westerns, so you know it's really a tourist hub. it's a mountain biking center for these canyons; we didn't do that. it's a mountaineering center for these canyons; we didn't do that. it's a off-roading center for these canyons; we didn't do that. it's a hiking center for these canyons; we did do some of that. went to arches np for most of today. the day dawned sunny with blue skies, like many others recently. the difference was that it stayed sunny all day, even now at the end of the day it's very clear out. and warm for a change.

impressions from my sunday stroll. so we take a bottle of water each and head out on the trail to see these amazing arches eroded out of the stone. the rocks and formations are bizarre and eerie, some like huge chess pieces of the gods, strewn everywhere by the one who lost and tipped over the chessboard. some like dripped columns of chocolate that hardened, some like the easter island carved heads, some like the extended heads of egyptian pharoahs and queens, or erikah badu. and, turn away now if you are prudish or easily excited. but everywhere there are penises, saluting the sky. and i am comfortable enough in my sexuality to point this out. but this is some sort of phallic geological joke. there are all sizes, some circumcised and some not, rows of them stacked together. some, the most massive of them, get to stand alone, just flaunting their penile qualities. ok enough of that, someone is reading over my shoulder and i don't want him to get the wrong idea.


Arches Nat'l Park video

after hiking just .9 miles on the hiking trail, we come to a fork in the trail. .9 miles? not even a whole mile? i feel like i've been walking for days, the sun is beating down on my cheap irish skin, and i'm beat. like some retard i didn't think i needed my yankee hat, so i left it in the car. at least i put sunscreen on, but i was worried that the sweat that was pouring off my brow was taking the sunscreen with it. so at the fork, where the sign says ".9 miles back to the trailhead" and the other sign says "1.2 miles to the (fill in the blank) arch", there is a brief conversation between miguel and me. he says he's continuing on. i said i'll see you at the car. so we take off in opposite directions. i'm sweating, there's no shade at all to stop in, unless i want to crawl under a bush with the lizards and red ants. meanwhile, the trail is up and down, up and down, we're at 5000 ft plus so my breathing apparatus is already straining. i had somehow gotten a scratch on my elbow, no big deal, but a slight break in the skin. and don't you know those desert flies or whatever they were, found this tiny opening in my derma, and starting landing there and biting me or sucking my blood or whatever they were doing. so, it didn't hurt a lot, but it was an added distraction and a little painful every time i had to whack one away off my arm. so in my near delirious state, i'm starting to have a flashback to another life where i was left for dead in a desert somewhere and the bugs and crows and buzzards all ate me up. i started to understand how spending 40 days and nights in the desert could turn you into a mystic. so, in the end, that .9 mile hike (each way) was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.

tomorrow it's off to ruby's inn utah, i think it's by bryce np. hope the weather holds up, it's a pretty long drive. thanks for reading.