I woke predawn (and by that, I mean I opened my eyes around that time, cause "sleep" could not describe what was going on) and waited for the booth to open so we could pay too much to enter the park and await the coming dawn. We were in luck, however, in that sunrise was magnificent. In addition, there was very little little traffic, so we had full run of the place and got all the views and photos we wanted, took our time driving through the park, and then continued North to Natural Bridges National Monument. Here is a small video of sunrise:
(btw, I am laughing cause no one slept the night before, so "good morning" is kind of a joke)
During the first 30 minute stretch outside of Monument Valley, the ground rose up and a huge expanse of land unfolded in front of my windshield. As we rose out of the mesas onto the plateau, I had this immense sense of belonging. It was overwhelming, the connection I felt with the ground and clouds and sunbeams and greens and browns and tans and blues and reds and reeds and horizon and the imaginary connection between it and the sky and the ground and me...and I am not afraid to admit, I started crying. I don't know exactly what was so sad and so beautiful about what was happening, all I know is that I had to pull away from it, cause I was about to fully break down into a full sob. Nothing wrong with that, it is just that I was still driving, and I had to think about doing that for a minute, and when I came back to what was in front of me, the moment had gone.
I can only describe it as being taken out of perspective. A "disassociated" experience if you will, as if you were playing a video game on flat screen all your life and suddenly you were given a full, wrap around system. Suddenly you have a peripheral that is infinite, yet you can't move for a fear of losing this total, naked view of the world around you. I became an eyeball with no lens, no iris, and no body, just one big pupil, taking it all in and learning so much new information that the brain is bypassed and the soul learns directly what the Universe is teaching...or something like that. You kinda had to be there, and if you have been, then you know; and if you have not, then pray that someday you will.
So we then drove up a cliff to get to Natural Bridges National Monument. It is hard to keep saying "no exaggeration" after every descriptor, but seriously, it was a cliff. The grade was around 10-12%, much of the road was unpaved, and I had my doubts about making it up the 1000 vertical foot climb to the top of the plateau. Luckily, the car is a beast, and she made it up just fine and we were on our way to Bridges. Once there, brochures in hand, we drove to the first two overlooks, which by this time in our trip and where our bodies and minds were in terms of wear and tear, they did not seem so impressive. However, it was impossible to get any kind of scale, considering the Statue of Liberty could fit under the first one we saw, but from half a mile away, the scale became so skewed that even knowing how tall it is was a moot point, cause there was no way to visualize it. Anyhow, we walked down to the third bridge, took pics, took a pause for some needed rest, and then back to the car and off to the Canyonlands.
Anyhow, I couldn't drive anymore, so after we filled up on gas and had lunch at a Subway, Tom took over and led us into the Canyonlands. The approach was surreal: the road follows a gorge bottom that is surrounded by these massive cliffs that seem to go on forever. The landscape takes on an alien feeling, as if we were on some distant planet that has yet to be discovered by any being. Of course, this is how Tom and I would probably describe it. Jeff couldn't describe it if he wanted to. Not that he lacks the artistic ability, he was just sleeping through it all...again. So we make it to the Visitor Center, get a map, and drive around looking at all the tourist spots for a bit. We get out for about an hour and climb around at a dead end for a bit, and I came to realize how easy it was to get lost and confused in that place. We only went a few hundred yards in, on well-used "trails" and on the same rock formation, but get just one formation over, and everything looked the same, and it was near impossible to find the parking lot just a few hundred yards away. That was some pretty scary stuff, luckily we were too tired to do anything more than the drive-thru experience (which I am not proud of, but seriously, give us a break, this trip is getting long!) And once again, to the car and off to Arches National Park.
Here is a small view of Canyonlands:
If my writing seems like it is getting a little halfhearted, I assure you it is only a reflection of the writer's attitude at the time. At this point in our journey, we had visited 18 states in 20 days, hiked and visited around 13 national parks and monuments combined, countless state and national forests, and untold mileage to our retinas in terms of shear volumes of scenery...it is no wonder we were getting a little jaded. This is no more evident than at Arches. We already debated just not going there at all, but after some deliberation we entered the park, and after seeing the first few attractions without having left the car, we decided to get out to see Delicate Arch in all of its iconic familiarity, and we left the park as fast as we had come, walking only 100 feet outside the car to see an attraction: the real American Dream. Anyways, goodbye Utah.
So it was off to Gunnison, CO, where Marie Humenczuk had said she would hook us up with a shower and suggest a place to crash. Well, we ran into trouble right after eating at a Taco John's in Montrose, CO. We were supposed to take 50 into Gunnison, but we missed the turn and continued down 550 for about 30 minutes. Well, we were already running out of daylight when I noticed that the 14,309ft Uncompahgre Peak seemed a lot closer than the last time I was in Gunnison. That's when I asked our driver if he knew where we were, which he did not, and then I realized our mistake, and suddenly our 9pm ETA became 10pm. Well, night came and the mountain roads are taking longer than expected, and we arrive at Marie's nearing 11pm. After showering, we head out to a campsite she suggested, we decide to break the rules and camp at the parking lot (what would they do? Make us leave in the morning?) and we fight the swarm of mosquitoes to set the tents up and pass out happily under a wooden canopy.
No comments:
Post a Comment