If you haven't been to Arches National Park, you should go. If you don't, you are swine. Why? For one thing, it is most freakishly sublime experience you are likely to have short of discovering religion or listening to really good Trance. It is hauntingly beautiful, and not in the scary "Cirque du Soleil" sense. Rather, it really makes you think: what in tarnations was Nature ON when it worked up this place?! Probably LSD.
Everything is red there: the hundreds of twisted, stone arches, the rocky canyon walls, the gritty, beach-like sand. If Martians were to crash-land in the middle of the park, they'd take a look around and think, "Boring! Been there, done that." Then they'd fix their space ship and fly back home. We'd better pray the Martians stay away from Arches if we want to benefit financially from their tourism.
It was totally worth the 5 hour drive from my home in Northern Utah. I met up with my french friend, Pierre, who makes an annual trip to the United States to satisfy his uncanny obsession with the desert. He is an amateur photographer with really expensive equipment which made my brand-new digital camera look like rotting feces. Still, as I learned from our early, early morning photo shoots, it's the lighting that matters. I was able to take some amazing photos, which you can see by clicking here. If you don't click on the link, it's probably because you enjoy murdering small children. Nothing else makes sense.
12 comments:
that is so awesome...
i want to go. will you be my tour guide?
Of course! And, just for you, I'll reduce my wildly extravagant fee. I'm just nice that way.
Well, I took some time off my busy infant-decapitation schedule to see your photographs. Lovely... was the arches in this Gregory Peck film, McKenna's Gold? The first shot, that slice of rock, looks just something I remember from that film. Check it out.
I remember going to Bryce Canyon, somewhere near the Grand C, and really freaking out on how gorgeous it was. "What's of the earth is of great worth."- ooops, OC quote... yikes.
Bryce canyon is indeed amazing. I'm a big fan. I ran into lots of frenchies at Arches, by the way. It was easy to spot them -- by the way they dressed (less sloppy than americans) and the fact that they smoked a lot.
There was this one American lady though that kind of made me laugh. I was hiking to an arch talking french with Pierre and she goes up to me and shouts "Now where are YOU from?" with a piercing, nasal-like voice.
"California," I say.
"Oh," she says. "So you're just being silly."
I suppose she assumed that only a "silly" person would speak french when they are clearly American. I had to explain to her that Pierre is french, hence our non-english conversation. Then she felt foolish. As well she should! :)
How's your french, btw? It must be difficult to keep up without regular practice.
Well, it's not as good as it used to be. I can say anything I need to say, but not very eloquently. Pierre speaks english, but we agreed I need the practice more than he does. So we stuck to french. The problem is that I became instantly inarticulate. My mode of thought changed, squeezed to fit in my limited vocabulary. I used the words "truc" and "machin" a lot. Sad.
But I do get practice now and then. My sister and brother-in-law are both fluent. And there's my former roommate and a guy at work, a girl at church...it gets worked in every now and then.
Writing in french, however, that's a whole different story. I don't even try.
That's fine... My written french is passable, but nothing eloquent either. However, I have replaced all my trucs and machins with donc, puis and bah....
oooh, those are good. And when all else fails, there's always: "Eh...ben... voila, quoi."
Those are awesome. I especially liked the last one, arch3. Cool.
beautiful -- some friends and I are going in two weeks if you feel the insatiable urge for hiking...on a fortnightly basis....er..
cl: thanks, yo.
K: I would totally go except that I am all Arched-out. Keep me posted on any other random road trips though :)
Amazing what Mother Nature can come up with, isn't it?
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