As Far as the Eye Can See

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The approach into the Canyonlands National Park was not very interesting and took about 45minutes to arrive at the entrance to the park. Well I guess the views were being saved for when you had paid your entrance fee and you were then allowed to stand dumbfounded in front of the most enormous expanse of 'moon landscape' you have ever seen! The colours of the rocks varied from pale and rose pink to deep purple and shades of olive green and grey. Wow! non of us were expecting this it was vast and you could see for miles across the Colorado and Green River Gorges as they meandered through the canyon floor and created huge jaggered crevices and vertical rock faces. Deep below right on the bottom of the canyon there were dusty tracks were people had ventured on adventure trekking trips, not for the faint hearted. We were happy to lok at it in all its glory from up high.
Then as if this view was not the best we then walked out to Mesa Arch a huge rock formation that had been shaped into a low spreading arch creating a 'bridge' across the edge of the canyon. Here the canyon was 'framed' by the rock and created a natural picture frame. It was beautiful.
The rocks around the edge were rich red in colour and had a mixture of orche and yellow sandstone patterns in them. The Jack Rabbits were hiding beneath the prickly bushes and the lizards scampered across the hot sands seeking shade under rocks and cacti it all seemed as if we were in a natural history TV programme.

From here we then drove onto The Arches National Park which was only about an hours drive away and litterally only across the road! It is amazing to think how there can be so amny wonderful natural sights all so close to each other. So with our Annual Park Pass now allowing us i for free as we had visited enough to cover the initial cost we drove up a steep road and wound our way round into the park through towering rock formations that looked like huge skyscrapers in a New York skyline.They cast huge shadows across the ground and you found yourself driving in and out of the shade for miles. Once the road straightened alittle the ground level evened out abit and strange outcrops of rocks jutted out of the ground at absurd angles and even more weird shapes.
The name arches was aptly named as the red sandstone images created shaped faces and hand like figures, some rocks were just rocks upon rocks looking like a building a child has just created using wooden brick blocks from a toy box. The strength of the wind, air, snow and rain had worked its magic.
Every road led to another feat of nature and we took far too many photos yet again! Never mind we shall enjoy looking at them on our return.
So with the sun setting and the colours of the rocks changing colours again we drove onto our next motel through Monument Valley another long way. So with Forest Gump in mind we drove down the straight road as far as the eye could see amidst huge jaggered rocks pointing up into the sky surrounded by flat dry desert. Weird and wonderful and very magical. You half expected John Wayne to come riding by being followed by a score of Indian Braves! It was just like the old western movies.

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