Dead Horse Point & Canyonlands

Every good day began first with a stop at Wicked Brew.

The scenic drive to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands was as nice as our air conditioned car.

Dead Horse State Park

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Canyonlands

This was a particularly delightful stretch of twisty road.

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Mesa Arch

The arch doesn't really bend towards you as it may appear in this image. The bizare optical effect
is caused by my proximity to the arch and the resulting photos I stitched together.

A nice ultra wide-angle lense would have done nicely here.

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Here's a straight-ahead shot of the arch from several yards back.

Framed within the Mesa Arch is the snow-capped La Salle mountain range.

Looking out from the top of the arch — now I know why they call this Canyonlands.

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Upheaval Dome

Exposed in a crater-like depression more than two-miles wide, rock layers are tilted up
and displaced as if they'd been "heaved up." What happened, and why?

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A salt dome? Ground zero?? Kate ponders the two theories of how this landform came to exist.

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Ingrid explains the Ground Zero theory.

These must be some of the displaced rock layers. It kind of makes me hungry for some Rocky Road ice cream.

We hiked in a bit to the second lookout but avoided the
eight-mile trek around the crater's entire rim.


Some neat desert flora along the way.



We arrive at the second lookout area.

The crater looks about the same from this vantage point as it did from the first.

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Ingrid requested that I not do a handstand here.

There weren't many areas to hide from the sun, but Ingrid found a spot of shade.

When we returned to our car we discovered why the hike was so exhausting.

Lathrop reunion!!

(Our Vassar classmates will get this.)

Overlooks

“This land is your land, this land is my land...”

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Dinner and a Sunset

8pm — and it's still over 100 degrees.

We watch the sun set over Moab from our dinner table.

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