After 2 weeks in Colorado, we left Grand Junction on a short drive to our next destination, Arches National Park.  It was 131 miles (211 km), mostly on Interstate 70, though the actual straight line distance was 60 miles (96.5 km).

As we traveled west in Colorado several days earlier, the landscape had gradually changed from high mountain forest and tundra to high desert country, with quite a bit of farming in the Grand Valley of the Colorado River (once called the Grand River).  Driving west into Utah, the landscape became more and more desolate with a stark and fascinating beauty.

This was our third visit to Arches National Park.  The previous two were brief, but this time we had three nights reserved in the park at Devils Garden Campground.

Arches National Park is in eastern Utah.  It has over 2000 natural sandstone arches and many other interesting geological formations, such as spires, balanced rocks and sandstone fins.  It was designated a national monument in 1929 and became a national park in 1970.

Selected Information Resources:

Arches National Park.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• Discover Moab
• GORP
• The American Southwest

On Labor Day morning, we were packed and ready to go – and I had no intention of trying to blog the trip as it happened.  Every time I’ve done that in the past, I would get behind or miss a few days and I’d never get back on track.  So this time, I’m going to blog about the trip after the fact.

The following map shows the route that we traveled with our motorhome – about 3,500 miles total.  It does not show all of the little side trips we made with the car that we tow behind the motorhome.

We left Monday, September 5th and got home Wednesday, October 19 – a trip of 6 weeks and 3 days.  We spent most of our time in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and traveled through parts of Oklahoma and Texas while travel from and back to our home in Arkansas.  A lot of the places we visited were old favorites, but we managed to find plenty of new favorites that we had never been to before.

I’ll be posting more as I work through the photos and videos.

On our first night at Arches National Park, I was so excited with a photo that I had taken that I went into to show Karen, then went back out to try to get more – and tripped over a big rock that was in plain view even though it was dark since we had the outside light on.

I’m a bit too old to go tumbling like that.  Fortunately, except for a gravel nick on the arm and a leg that was a little sore after hiking for the next couple of days, I wasn’t hurt.  I was a bit afraid for my camera as it hit the ground pretty hard, too. Fortunately, it’s pretty tough and came through unscathed, though the lens did gain a a few scratches.

So what was I taking pictures of that had me so excited that I didn’t watch where I was going?

Stars, of course.

Now, I’ve seen a lot pictures that others have taken of the night sky, but I’ve never been successful, not that I’ve tried in a long time.  The following photo is the best of the bunch that I took at Arches.  It was taken at 9:26 p.m.,  a couple of hours after sunset.

There was little or light pollution to mask the stars.  It is a sight that many of us seldom, if ever, have the opportunity of seeing these days.

The area just above the hill that looks a little smoky or, perhaps, milky is our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The exposure time for the photo was about 60 seconds.  Towards the end of the exposure, I used a large flashlight to “paint” the hill with light so that it would show up in the image.  The hill is actually a huge rock, one of many in the campground area we were in.

Below: Part of our campsite, with  a Scrabble game set up, a portable speaker unit for IPOD, and my Kindle on the table.

Whenever we go on a trip, I take a lot of pictures.  Before I share any of the pictures, I post-process them – sort of like putting them through a digital darkroom – to remove flaws and adjust the saturation and contrast.  It takes time, but I have been able to streamline my process somewhat.

I have just completed processing the last groups of images from the first big western trip we took after I retired in 2007.  I’ve started creating videos using photos from that trip, with background music from YouTube audio swap. The first two of the series have been already posted:

• Nebraska – A Ranch in the Sandhills
• Have you ever seen a wild ass? – feral burros and more in South Dakota’s Custer State Park

Since I’ve finished with all the groups of images from the trip, the video for today is a montage of photographs from the trip; for the most part, one picture each day of our travels and explorations.

The audio track is Paul Mottram’s “Sidewalk Saunter.”

(click on image for larger version)

Gallery: Arches National Park, September 24, 2007, Utah

Arches National Park is a U.S. National Park in eastern Utah. It is known for preserving over 2000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations.

The park is located near Moab, Utah, and is 119 square miles (310 km²) in size. Its highest elevation is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and its lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. Since 1970, forty-three arches have toppled because of erosion. The park receives 10 inches (250 mm) of rain a year on average.   (wikipedia)

See more of our Image Galleries at Haw Creek.

Windows Area, Arches National Park, Utah – September 24, 2007

(click on image for larger version)

Gallery: Arches National Park

See more of our Image Galleries at Haw Creek.

Balanced Rock

Arches National Park, Utah
September 24, 2007
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Arches National Park images
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Haw Creek galleries

Arches National Park, Utah

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Arches National Park images

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Haw Creek galleries

day80

Trail to Delicate Arch
Arches National Park, Utah
September 24, 2007

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Arches National Park images.

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Haw Creek Galleries

day 54

Arches National Park, Utah
September 24, 2007

From the Arches National Park gallery.

Haw Creek Galleries

day 39

Old Faithful Hamilton’s Store

Devils Den Paddling

Campfire at Elkmont

Blacktail Plateau Drive

Heavy flow

Green River Ferry

Abyss Pool

Smoky Mountains on a cloudy day

Still recovering

Cedar Falls at Petit Jean

Lake Fort Smith Campground

Near the end of the season

Cave Formations

Milky Blue

Autumn Grass

Graffiti in the Park

Leaves on Lake Bailey

Foot Bridge

Sorghum furnace

Mountain Laurel

Canary Springs

Another blog that I’m trying to post to on a regular basis is Haw Creek Out ‘n About. I’m currently only posting photographs from our travels there.

The images posted here are photos that were posted on Haw Creek Out ‘n About over the last month.

All of my photos that I publish here and on Haw Creek Out ‘n About are from my online photo galleries. They are randomly selected and only used one time. Photos published on Haw Creek Out ‘n About will not be published on Exit78, except for those use for announcements of new galleries, and vice verse.  Some of the photos may have been been posted previously, before I had established the galleries.

While I would like to publish other material in addition to the photos, I have so many photos that I really want to focus on getting the photo galleries built.

I suppose that I could just post all of the photos on Flickr or some other service. However, the photos are intended to be integral part of my Haw Creek web site, — which will eventually include information to go with the photos, so I want the photo galleries on Haw Creek.

I hope to be adding more photo galleries to Haw Creek soon. When they are up, I’ll announce them on each of my blogs.

day 32

We visited Arches National Park in 2007 and had hoped to do the same this year.  However, with the contract job terms, it now looks like I will be working part of the time that we had planned for traveling.

This new photo gallery is from our 2007 travels.  We were on our way home and had planned three nights and two days visiting the national parks in the Moab, Utah area.  One of the two days was spent at Arches National Park.

It was our second visit to Arches.  The first one was even briefer — just an afternoon, I think, on our way home from one of our vacations in the early 90s.

The day started out a bit windy and chilly.  It was Karen’s birthday, September 24, 2007.

We took a couple of short trails. One of them went to — and around — Balanced Rock. The other trail was in the Windows Section and went to North Window and South Window Arches, as well as Turret Arch.

After lunch, we went to the Delicate Arch trail head parking lot at Wolfe Ranch. The trail is 3.0 (4.8 km) miles round trip.  A short side trail leads to some petroglyphs.

There is no shade on the Delicate Arch trail and much of it is over open sandstone called “slick rock.”  The National Park Service recommends at least a quart of water per person.

The trail is marked with rock cairns.  At the end of the trail is the most famous arch in the park, Delicate Arch, which is used as a background for Utah license plates.

Even though the day started cool, by the time we were done, it was plenty warm and neither of us had any water left, though I had nursed mine until the very end.  If it had been a warmer day, we would have needed more water.

day 26

Karen on the Edge — Grandview Point Trail, Canyonlands National Park

The Grand View Point Trail begins as the end of Grand View Road on the southern tip of Island in the Sky Mesa. It starts at an approximate elevation of 6,100 feet and heads one mile southwest along a level path.

September 23, 2007 at 11.56pm CMT
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/350)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Flickr page

A composite image from several photos.

I was too close to get the whole thing in the viewfinder, so took some overlapping images and used autostitch to assemble them into one image. That’s why some of the people look a little ghostly. They were in two or more of the overlapping images and got “blended” into the scenery.

The same arch can be seen from a closer viewpoin in Utah Sky in a Natural Frame.

Photos in this composite image were taken September 24, 2007.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

I was going through some of the photos of the trip and came across this. It was taken a couple of weeks ago at Canyonlands National Park.

Comments on “A new photo of you-know-who”

October 9, 2007

teeni @ 7:53 pm

Hey – you really DO look like your Simpsons character! LOL. And with those beautiful canyon walls in the background, it is hard to tell how tall you are!

October 10, 2007

dcr @ 12:53 pm

Just how close were you to the edge?

BTW, you ought to check Sabrina’s blog…

October 11, 2007

Mike Goad @ 9:47 am

I was actually about ten feet from the edge and sitting down. It was also a pretty windy day, hence the windblown hairdo and sweatshirt.

pete @ 11:54 am

Great photo. Were you getting those huge updrafts from the canyon? Saw the Grand Canyon once and when you got near the edge you could feel these intense winds blowing up from the bottom. Really crazy.

October 12, 2007

Opal Tribble/Vegan Momma @ 7:53 am

That’s a great shot of you. I really like it. What a lovely background. Thanks for sharing.

October 15, 2007

Little Things Mean A Lot @ 7:44 am

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