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	Utah/Nevada continued... Headed out for Tropic and toward Kodachrome Basin State Park and Governor double arches. I chose to go to the arches first because it's an 11 mile dirt road ride and I haven't taken the truck in the dirt once this trip yet. The drive was very easy, though I can see when it's wet that the clay top would become completely impassible. Got to the arches in no time at 40mph and proceeded to explore around. I was hoping to catch an arch in an arch view but they're side by side, making that vision impossible. After some shooting, I decided that wasn't good enough and that there had to be a way up the back of the mountain. Heading around to the back, I found a way up and proceeded. The walk up was quite easy, especially once I found the trail. Maybe 5 minutes up. This way allowed a completely different perspective of the arches, encompassing the surrounding landscape rather than the sky. It was scary to be hopping around on the sandstone 60 feet up a drainage chute. Just had to be careful in my jumping over to the smaller arch to get a self photo. Didn't want to become a casualty. Tore back along the dirt road and headed for Kodachrome since the day was wearing on and I wanted to see much more. Since Kodachrome is a state park, the old handy national parks pass doesn't work so you have to shell out $5. Sadly, I wasn't very impressed with the driving tour. You really don't see too much driving around - this place requires hiking. Perhaps several hours of it. Unfortunately it was getting late enough that I didn't want to spend the rest of the day hiking in a place that didn't catch my fancy. The ancient towers of geysers would've been interesting to see but not when compared against some of the other big stuff in the area. Disappointment befell me but I had to remember that not everything can be Bryce, Zion or the Grand Canyon. That's why this place is a state park. Taking my leave, I returned to Cannonville and along the way caught photos of a barn against the eroding cliffs, similar to the barn in Jackson against the Tetons. At Canonville, I bought lunch at the general store and called via payphone the airplane guys at Ruby's Inn, hoping they'd be there. My cell phone isn't hardly working at all here so it's the payphone experience. Got a hold of the airplane guys and set up a flight for tomorrow morning, 9:30am, to Monument Valley since there's no way I'm driving that far out just to see that. Very excited, I realized I'll need a place to stay that's close so I called Ruby's Inn right back and made a reservation so I didn't get screwed out of that by "doing it later". Too many of those mistakes. Now I'm excited! By this time it's about 2:30pm in the afternoon, so I decide to head toward the next location so I can blow past it tomorrow. The petrified forest of Escalante was another state park, smaller but perhaps more interesting. Unfortunately, by the time I got there it was near sunset and I wasn't too hot on marching around in the dark, trying to find petrified wood. Escalante State Park has an interesting feature that allows handicapped people to walk a short paved path with some petrified wood set around it so the feel for it can be had. Fascinating idea! That's was all that I needed. As a substitute for fun, I found the lake in the park to be partially covered in ice. All I could see was being on the ice, falling through and becoming a Utah-cicle. Instead, I tested various sized rocks tossed appropriately to punch through the ice. Amazingly, it was quite resilient and withstood some impressive impacts from 20 pound rocks thrown as high as I could. Fun, wrecking crew! Skidded rocks across the surface of the ice clad lake and was fascinated by the sound it made, somewhat like a taught steel cable hit by a hammer but with a wider sound. Ice tossed across the surface skidded an amazing distance. Tried to video samples of what was going on. Getting dark, it was time to head all the way back to Bryce to get my room, grab dinner and prepare for tomorrow. Charged and backed up all the camera gear and headed off for a pork chop dinner, quite tasty. Now am sitting in the lodge by the fire typing this missive, waiting for the night to wear on before heading to bed. For the initial misgivings of this trip, it's been quite enjoyable thus far. Now I just need to wire the iPod to the truck stereo... December 31, 2005 Saturday This should be a fun New Years Eve. Got a plane ride over Monument Valley planned and then head out of the Bryce area and explore more of the state route (SR)-12. Fell asleep in front of the fireplace for an hour in Ruby's Inn at Bryce. Pretty darned funny. Ran over to my room and did a last on the photo equipment before clocking out. Woke up around 6:45am, just enough time to get everything together, wander around a bit and get to the airport. Didn't want to waste an hour with breakfast at the restaurant so I picked up a Danish from the general store just to have something in my stomach when flying, especially since it's a windy day today. Time wasn't passing very fast and I hadn't gotten a picture of Thor's hammer at Aquacanyon viewpoint, so I headed into the park. It was windy, cold and gray outside by the time I arrived at the overlook. I took a photo anyway just because I didn't drive all around just for nothing and headed back, stopped at Rainbow Arch overlook, took another gray shot and tore back to the park entrance. If I'd obeyed the speed limit, it would've taken just over an hour to do that short run. 35MPH is darned slow. I did see a deer at the last second to remind me why you don't drive too fast through there. Tore over to the airport with about twenty minutes to spare. Apparently a mother and son signed up for the morning flight, so I had company, Kathy and her son Chris. Just as well, someone else to chat with. We packed into the Cessna 206 Wagon and we were off. Lance was the pilot out of the Ruby's Inn establishment that guy had 1000's of hours of flight time - he had captain's epaulets (4 bars). We were up in the air in no time under gray skies and got bounced around a little but not too bad initially. We cut over Bryce and over an undulating fault line that actually curves east-west rather than north-south. Saw Kodachrome park from the air. Much more interesting from this perspective and understood that to really see the park, you do have to hike around it. Or fly over it. Then on to Great smoking mountain which is a large underground coal mass that caught fire about a hundred years ago, probably due to lightning strikes. You could actually see the sink holes from where the coal had burned out enough underground for it not to support the rock above it. You could actually drive there from in-between Boulder and Escalante, a mere 57 mile one-way dirt road drive. Quite fascinating but that's a half day trip, maybe next time. The far mountain to the north near Boulder has two fascinating features - it has the largest aspen grove in the world, an unbelievable amount of acreage and it has a tree line above 11,300'. Most other places have a tree-line right around 10,000'. Lance wasn't sure why that was but it's certainly remarkable. I needed a recorder to get down all the fascinating things Lance related. One part of Lake Powell had an amazing feat of engineering - Brigham Young had ordered some of his colonists to cross the lake and river, setting up a town beyond it. However, they had to build an access road down to the lake from the high bluffs above. It took a YEAR to complete. The bee hive state indeed! We passed over Rainbow Arch, a huge bridge only accessible by air or water. Or perhaps a very long walk. Only by flying there can you appreciate the remoteness of the location. On to Monument Valley. Just as the flight director said, the weather over Monument Valley was almost pristine with just a few clouds hanging around to make things interesting. You run into structures name after what they look like, in order than I can recall - Train Car, (someone's) tomb, Three Sisters, Totem Pole which climbers climb and must be brought to by an Indian guide, the Castle, a different, dark structure rather than red, the best trading post (name?) in the southwest on the Navajo land, the Navajo school up against a bluff, and several others I'll recall later. Previous page  Next page
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