up and running

Hi All,

I have been having some trouble loading photos and now blogger has a new feature in which comments are being "moderated" to avoid spam. I have to figure out how to approve your comments. I found them deep in a file, though. Thanks to any of you who have gone to the trouble of commenting and being told you had to be "moderated"! I'll work on that one.

So the road trip continues. Here are some last photos of Utah and Arches National Park. Edward Abbey country. Winter is such a great time to go. We were almost the only ones there. This area is scorching hot in the summer and overcrowded with tourists and campers. The snow on sandstone was lovely.

Here is a passage about Arches from Desert Solitude by Edward Abbey.

It seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb, brush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

I actually take issue with his comment about lifeless sand. There are lichen and other organisms living in the sand and hikers are warned to stay on paths. One footfall on fertile sand and irreplaceable ancient life forms are killed.