| Tuesday, January 17, 2023 | | Western Travelogue Part 3 - Monument Valley and Homeward Bound | After the Tetons’ rocky mountain grandeur and Moab’s arches and red rocks, I headed to Monument Valley, a spot Pete and I had intended to visit in our October, 2011 trip, but the weather on our designated day was not favorable.
On the way, I stopped to recreate that long look down into the monoliths that Forrest Gump made so famous. In fact the pull-off for the obligatory souvenir-style photograph is named after him! I also found time to drive through the Valley of the Gods and to stop at Goosenecks State Park and view the twists and turns of the San Juan River before entering the Navajo Nation and heading for lunch and my hotel. That stop also offered me a panoramic view of rock formations that reminded me of the patterns seen on many Native-woven blankets and baskets. I found it easy to understand how the natural beauty inspired their artistry.
I ate lunch at Gouldings Restaurant; the property includes props from several John Ford/John Wayne movies, including a stagecoach, a western buckboard wagon, and the cabin John Wayne stayed in -- but not while filming Stagecoach, as I originally and incorrectly wrote! The cabin was actually built for the movie, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and was the headquarters for his character, Capt. Brittles, in that movie. It's a good thing I have friends who know their classic westerns better than I do! I know Pete would have loved seeing those as well as so many of the locations featured in his favorite classic western movies. A museum telling the history of how Hollywood came to Monument Valley has been closed to the public since the onset of Covid, and I was sorry not to be able to tour it while there.
My hotel room balcony overlooked The Mittens, among the best known of the valley’s monoliths, and I watched one sunrise and moonrise from the balcony. At the first sunset, I darted back and forth – first to a balcony and stairwell across from my room to watch the sun go down behind rock formations on that side of the hotel, and then back to my own balcony to watch the afterglow light up the Mittens.
When Pete and I went west, I found myself seeking compositions that included the many gnarled and twisted trees that find a way to grow in what seems too arid a landscape. For this leg of the trip, I noticed especially the blooming plants made even more vibrant in early morning light.
I shared earlier on Facebook how hiring a Navajo guide gave me the chance to photograph sunrise in an area inaccessible to the general public. After the sun came up, we drove to several more locations before he brought me back to the hotel. Later that afternoon, I explored the 17-mile loop road that is open to the general public. Every angle seemed to provide a different but equally spectacular view. The mounting cumulus clouds I photographed in Wyoming and Utah followed me to Arizona, and my guide here repeated what I had heard earlier in my trip, how unusual the cloud formations were, and how lucky I was to see not only them, but the Rabbitbrush in full bloom. I just smiled.
Riding with the guide, I asked him questions about more of the landscape features, plants and birds I had seen. All of a sudden, something small and winged whizzed right past our windshield. I could have sworn it was a dragonfly! That was the last thing I expected to see in what I think of as a desert landscape. My guide said the small stand of shrubs and one tree we had just passed was growing next to a fresh water spring. Perhaps the dragonfly had come from there. That afternoon, at one of the pull-off spots along the loop road, I was concentrating on photographing some of the interesting plants at my feet when I saw another dragonfly. Please wait; please don’t go, I said! I was able to make a quick photo before it flew around me and I turned to keep it in sight but once I made a complete circle, I never saw it again. I might doubt the whole encounter if not for the photograph. Regular readers know from all I have shared in the past 18 months how special dragonflies have become for me. Its brief appearance, in a desert no less, was one more heaven-hug and prompted a surge of both joy and comfort. Over and over in so many ways on the trip, I received assurances that I don’t travel alone, that even my seeming seasons of desert hold oases – if I will just keep my eyes and heart open.
By the time I came home through the NC mountains, the trees were beginning to turn, signaling another season’s passage. I lost another dear friend and also had to put my Sheltie down within days of getting home. I was glad I had the trip to help fill up a heart made weary this past year with the sheer effort living through grief can be.
That has been my quest this year: to live through grief, with grief. To figure out the daily steps that can bring me joy, and peace, even while still grieving. Since love never ends, tears still flow at odd (or expected) moments. But this world, though emptier in one way, still offers so much beauty, so much to be grateful for, so many moments to cherish. That very emptiness offers a portal into fullness I can only sometimes glimpse here. But, oh, how I treasure the glimpses! That is why I’ve purposed in my own heart to continue to live, to walk in this world, and to seek all the beauty I can, for ever as long as I can—and to share as much as I can.
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click for larger image | Goosenecks State Park. The San Juan River makes numerous bends below and the park provides a wonderful overlook. |
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click for larger image | Another stop on the way to Monument Valley, Valley of the Gods offered great views and hardly any visitors! |
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click for larger image | The first sunset. This was the view from a stairwell and balcony on the front of the hotel across from my room. |
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click for larger image | Meanwhile, this was the scene in the other direction, from the balcony off my room. Anti-crepuscular rays over the Mittens! |
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click for larger image | Had I not seen this for myself, I would never have believed how the western red rocks glow at dawn and dusk. This is sunrise. |
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click for larger image | The trees in red rock country have to be resilient and tenacious. This one seems to be dancing in joy. |
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posted by eturek at 8:59 PM |
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| Wednesday, January 11, 2023 | | Story of a Sunset | It pays to pay attention.
I had afternoon errands yesterday that when I finished put me in Nags Head about an hour before sunset. So I went to the ocean, not necessarily expecting wonderful photographs right then. What I wanted was some fresh salt air and a few minutes to walk. While the skies had been mostly cloudy bordering on overcast for much of the day, I noticed that underneath the western clouds the sky was clear for a narrow strip above the horizon. Those are exactly the conditions I look for. If the cloud layer moved west (or “down” from my point of perspective) as the sun sank, there would be no sunset to watch. But if they moved east, or “up”-- or just stayed fairly stationary -- there was good sunset potential.
What I noticed immediately upon climbing the dune crossover was the color of the water. I am a sucker for color—pastel, vibrant, subtle, intense, you name it. And the color was subtle and pastel and varied. God’s playing in His paintbox again, I thought, choosing the palest hues. They definitely got my attention and I made several images as the light played with the moving wave swells before they crested and broke. At that point, I also began to notice the faint brushstrokes of color on the lowest level of clouds to the south. I expected a slight intensifying in color but still in pastel hues come actual sunset.
Boy, was I in for a surprise.
First, to the south, what had been a pale peachy yellow turned to a deeper orange. The ocean itself, which had hints of gold and turquoise when I arrived began to glow with pinks and oranges as the sky directly east began to warm up with shades of pink that eventually deepened and darkened to almost red. To the north, what began in blue hues with the barest nod to pastel pink and yellow, brightened with deeper pinks and mauve, and then, as the sun actually set, the clouds to the north lit up with streaks of neon red. If God was playing in His paintbox while angelic choruses were singing in the background, then He must have started while they warmed up and sang scales, then ran through a bit of Bach’s Ode to Joy and ended with a grand finale of the Hallelujah Chorus!
This is my life. I am not talking just about living near the ocean, which is a wonderful blessing I don’t take for granted. I am talking about living a life that seeks to pay attention, that tries to notice the smallest wonders, that like a child looks for patterns and colors in the sky, that always wonders what the light is doing now, and now, and now… a life woven in the beauty that every day provides, somehow, somewhere. Some days I have to look more intently than others. Some days I miss it.
I could easily have missed the blessing of last night’s sunset. I could have written off the potential I hoped for. I could have decided the results probably would not be worth the effort. I did miss a great sunset, in fact, a couple weeks ago, because I was engrossed in tasks in the house and frankly not paying attention. I am so glad I took the time to “notice what I noticed” yesterday afternoon.
It pays to pay attention.
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click for larger image | Standing atop the dune crossover, I first noticed the patterns and colors of the ocean itself through my longest lens. |
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click for larger image | Closer to the water's edge, I looked south to see the subtleties of warm tones in the sky and wave wash. |
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click for larger image | Looking north I saw that the tinges of warmer colors were even more subtle. Pale pinks contrasted with the blues. |
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click for larger image | At this point, the most intense color was due east, as the sky picked up what was happening as the sun sank lower in the west. |
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click for larger image | Just for fun I made one more long lens image of the ocean beyond the breakers, to compare with the one I had made 18 minutes earlier. |
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click for larger image | Here is a peek at the western sky through the dunes, made as I walked back to my car. Yes the sunset was amazing over the Sound but I am glad I went to the ocean. |
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posted by eturek at 12:05 PM |
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| Wednesday, January 4, 2023 | | Western Travelogue Part 2 - Moab UT and surrounds | For the second leg of my fall western trip, I journeyed from Jackson, WY to Moab, UT. Pete and I visited Moab in 2011 and I was excited to revisit some of the same locations and explore some new territory, too. By far the best part of the trip was spending an evening with our oldest grandson, Dennis, and then a second evening and the next full morning with his younger brother, Patrick. Dennis moved west after college, and it had been six years since I had seen him; his younger brother followed and we’d been apart for two years. In those two years, Patrick began photographing in a serious way, and our time together included a sunrise in Arches National Park! But I am getting a little ahead of my story.
While Arches is arguably the most famous and most visited of the parks in the region, it is not the only one. During the pandemic, a reservation system limited the number of visitors and although that system had been discontinued, visitation was monitored and no more vehicles allowed into the park once the daily quota was reached. Further, road construction closed the popular “windows” section until our last full day in Moab. So…what to do? Plenty, turns out!!
Besides Arches, I explored Canyonlands National Park( with a wonderful sunrise glow on the canyon walls and river below) as well as the Island in the Sky section, Dead Horse Point State Park (made famous by Thelma and Louise), the foothills of La Sal mountain range, Ken’s Lake (south of Moab off highway 191), and even positioned myself for a full moon rising above Fisher Towers, a dramatic rock formation north of Moab that glows an impossible russet red at dawn and sundown. The entire region is famous for petroglyphs and pictographs, and there are a number of those easily accessible to view along Utah Highway 279.
Although I left the fog behind in Wyoming, and the mornings dawned clear, the entire trip included afternoons of mounting cumulus clouds, which I will evermore associate with Ray Matthews, as we both relished photographing the drama they add to a landscape.
Both grandsons have become outdoor enthusiasts and are avid hikers, snowboarders and (in Dennis’ case) mountain bikers. Dennis took me along the road that parallels Highway 279 but is on the other side of the river, and showed me one of his favorite biking trailheads. When we got out of his truck, what should I find there but a good sized heart-shaped rock! (And yes, we made selfies there! Six years is a long time to go without a hug or pictures together!) I found another heart rock with Patrick two days later. Patrick’s and my adventure began with a sunrise in Arches, at a spot looking west toward the Three Gossips, not east, because the rock faces glow in the light of a low-angled sun. Without clouds to light up the sky in color, sunrise was more interesting looking west than east. Several other photographers had the same idea and it was a thrill for me to watch Patrick set up his tripod and carefully compose for the images he wanted to make.
After sunrise, he drove me through that section of Arches and I spotted in the distance an arch that looked very familiar—can we get over to that arch, I asked excitedly. Yes, indeed we could as the road construction project was completed and all roads were open. We pulled up into the parking area of Skyline Arch, got out, and I asked Patrick to stand in a particular spot while I made a quick photograph of him there. At that point, my heart was so full it spilled right out of my eyes and onto my cheeks as I explained that his grandfather Pete and I had been there, at that exact spot, ON THAT EXACT DATE, Oct. 6, 2011, eleven years earlier. In fact, I made my favorite photograph of Arches at that spot that afternoon eleven years ago and it has been hanging in our house since. On that trip, Pete could not walk out to the arch itself, so Patrick and I did, arm in arm much of the way and I was able to see the arch close up. Walking back, I glanced down, and that is when I found my second heart rock of the trip. Honestly, I felt so connected to Pete in that moment, and so grateful to share that beautiful spot with our grown grandson. I understood at a deeper level than before how the phrases “coming full circle” and “will the circle be unbroken” are connected.
There are a number of companies and individuals that offer guide services, in some cases to inaccessible areas, and I was grateful to have hired the local knowledge and expertise of Bryan Haile, both for sunrise in Canyonlands and for sunset at a beautiful arch inaccessible except by a bouncy 4wd excursion and a tricky walk (for me) over slickrock—which I never could have done without Bryan’s steady arm and support. But as you will see below, the reward was so worth the journey! Even Bryan remarked about how unusual the afternoon cloud formations had been during the time I was there and I just smiled and said an inward, “thank you, buddy” to Ray.
I am always amazed at the variety of landforms in what we call the American west. In a few hours’ drive, I went from “lofty mountain grandeur” of the Tetons to Utah’s red rock country with its canyons and arches and spires. No visit ever seems long enough, but after just a few days, I was off to Arizona and the famed Monument Valley—which Pete and I had planned to visit during that fall 2011 trip, but were unable to do so. Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode in the next blog—did you catch the broadcast reference there? Monument Valley is the locale where many of the classic, iconic John Ford/John Wayne westerns were filmed—as well as that key moment in Forest Gump when he decides, “I think I’ll go home now.”
That’s the thing about traveling. Ultimately, we go home. (That’s the thing about life, too.) But the best journeys see us home full of memories and experiences that expand our emotional and spiritual horizons as well as our literal ones. Perhaps these views and vistas prompt you to ask yourself, what journeys (literal or spiritual) do I want to make in this new year, and, how can I make them happen?
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click for larger image | What a glorious morning! The canyon walls glowed at dawn and the river was so still I could see a reflection from above. |
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click for larger image | When Pete and were in Moab, I was fascinated by all the twisted trees. Turns out I still am! |
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click for larger image | Now we come to my morning with grandson Patrick. I loved how the rim light accentuated the repeating rock ridges. |
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click for larger image | This is Skyline Arch, that Pete and I saw only from the parking area, but that Patrick and I walked to. |
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click for larger image | For a total change of scenery, just outside of Moab is the La Sal range. Pete and I drove up here too. |
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click for larger image | Because Moab is surrounded by higher elevation, I chose to photograph the moon on two nights before it was "full." |
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click for larger image | This is from Island in the Sky, another locale Pete and I visited. Again, note the afternoon clouds! |
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posted by eturek at 3:15 PM |
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