Arches National Park, Utah

I think the all day drive  the day before and setting out early for the expeditions to Canyonlands, Arches, and "The View" took their toll. By the time I got through Moab and into Arches, I wasn't operating in top form. Similarly, processing the photographs, sleeping poorly, and spending the day writing the blog posts has left me a bit worn out. I'm going to try to keep the commentary short and give myself a breather today and start again fresh tomorrow.

This view from the serpentine climb into the Arches NP looks back down Utah 191 towards Moab, the patch of green beyond the highway and around the bend. The mountains in the background are. . . you guessed it: The LaSals.

Just out of frame to the right on the far side of the highway, is The Moab Fault. It was important enough to build an overlook for park visitors to survey it this prominence, but I couldn't process the information before me and opted for the best vista available. Sorry. Even now, I can see it, but the Wikipedia article doesn't clarify things for me.   

You can't tell me that's not a statue of Nefertiti. I don't know why it's there or why she should be talking to that emaciated gentleman in the cloak selling watches.

I started laughing as soon as I saw Nefertiti and it continued all the way through the park. This was one of the first big stops on the drive and it was immediately apparent to me that the hoodoos had taken on personalities and were presenting stories to the park visitors. You have probably guessed that I never got that nap I mentioned in yesterday's post.

This group is Julia Ward Howe in a hoop skirt wearing a backpack (Why? Because we're in Utah, and everyone wears a backpack in Utah.) haggling with a Mandarin who is trying to sell her an authentic copy of the Ten Commandments. Behind the Mandarin is Balthazar, who, having wandered away from his own group, is waiting to ask whether Julia or the Mandarin know where he can find Caspar and Melchior.

There's a name for this: Pareidolia. No, really. Look it up. It's seeing the man in the moon, or finding rabbits or tigers in cloud shapes. Leonardo da Vinci addressed it as a device for painters, writing "if you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms." And here I thought I was just getting punchy from lack of sleep.

Reverting to type.
Without a hoodoo in sight,
Just shoot the LaSals.

I couldn't help it. I thought this needed a haiku since the pareidolia didn't take hold for the vista above.

Here, Charlie Brown is sitting on the pitcher's mound addressing the team: His performance has suffered because the red-haired girl missed his birthday party or something. Peppermint Patty and Lucy, I think, are facing him. Lucy is psychoanalyzing him. Snoopy is lying on his doghouse, thinking about the Red Baron. Schroeder couldn't take anymore and is curled up on his piano, sucking his thumb. Linus, of course, isn't in Utah. He's also sucking his thumb. . . and hugging his blanket. . . but waiting elsewhere for the Great Pumpkin.

It's only 10:30am; plenty of time to recuperate for tomorrow's post. In the meanwhile, click HERE to go to my Arches NP Album on Flickr and tell me what YOU see.