Last night’s post was really lame, but I was incredibly tired, so I forgive myself.

This morning my dad and I woke up at a quarter to 5 in order to get out to Arches National Park and hike up to our vantage point overlooking Delicate Arch. And, as the sun started to rise, the bane of my enjoyment of national parks appears. No less than 15 people are swarming over the arch I wanted to shoot before the sun is even over the horizon. Standing around it, laying underneath it, sitting down and leaning against it. Of course, I was well out of earshot from them, seeing as I was using a telephoto for the shot. So, we waited, and waited. We were there for a good two hours and I never could get the shot I wanted. The few decent shots I may have gotten occurred when people would wander “behind” the arch (at least from my perspective they were behind it), hiding their bright white or yellow t-shirts from my lens.

And to be honest, they weren’t the worst folks that I encountered at Arches (and several of the other national parks). At one point, we stumbled upon a tour group of 50 sitting and laying around under one of the more popular arches, only moving once a fellow photographer approached them and asked them to (after having waited 20 minutes for them to move off on their own). Then there’s the couple who couldn’t walk half a mile without needing to stop at the end of the short hike (again, directly underneath a very popular arch) and consume their bag of Cheetos for half an hour. (I never did get my shot at that location.) The lack of etiquette and common sense at how to avoid ruining a visit for other people is just astounding. And it isn’t just at Arches; when I was in Rocky Mountain National Park, a man felt the need to approach to within five feet of a trio of big horn sheep in order to get a nice up close picture of them, much to the annoyance of a group of 30 tourists he stepped in front of and myself, since he happened to fill most of the frame in my viewfinder.

Oh well though, enough ranting. After Arches this morning, we headed to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park, having been to the Islands in the Sky district on Tuesday afternoon. It was a completely different environment than we’d seen then. Well, not completely different, it was still a desert with rock formations. But the formations were totally different. Islands of the Sky was mesas and buttes, Needles was mostly spires and mushroom looking formations. Very cool and unworldly.

About 2pm, we hopped back in the car for our trip back north to Hill AFB, meeting my brother, his wife and a couple of his friends at Rooster’s for a little food and some time hanging out.

Tomorrow, picture processing and hopefully, Hill’s Air and Space Museum.

Travel Distance: 409 miles

Started the morning at 5am and hit the road to Arches National Park (about 5 miles up the road) in order to get some sunrise photos. Turned out to be a gorgeous sunrise and it looks like I got some great shots. My Dad and I came back to the hotel and showered while my mom got ready. We were actually in the park at a fairly reasonable time and walked… I don’t even know how far. At one point the thermometer in the Jeep hit 103, but as they say, at least it was a dry heat.

After somewhere around 250 pictures, 15 hours and 3 liters of water, we have retreated to a hotel room so we can get up again tomorrow and take some more pictures.

The plan was to hit the road at 9am this morning headed to Arches and Canyonland National Parks. Well, when you’re traveling with my mom, 10am isn’t too bad. Though she was up late ironing for some reason. (Who irons on vacation?)

311 miles later or so, we pulled into Canyonlands National Park for a gorgeous afternoon of shooting pictures. Due to the failure of my voice activated lightstand (and my failure to bring along one of the regular type) I didn’t get a photo of myself standing on the rim of a canyon, but, c’est la vie. Definitely a gorgeous park.

Sunset was spectacular, though we missed shooting in it because we were on our way to Arches National Park in what was left of the light trying to figure out where we wanted to be for sunrise. We’ve got a decent place scoped out, so hopefully that pans out. And now… definitely bedtime.

Travel Distance: 402 miles

My parents and I headed down to Salt Lake City in order to check out the Mormon Temple this morning. I have to say, I was more impressed with the Air Force Academy chapel than I was with the Temple. Of course, I didn’t feel like I’d been to church, preached at by tour guides and I didn’t have to fend off a conversion attempt at the Chapel.

That said, the interior decoration job of several of the buildings was quite impressive, especially the pipe organs that I saw. I was pretty surprised to find out that visitors weren’t allowed in the actual temple though, apparently one has to be Mormon in order to enter. The gardens were also pretty nice, lots of flowers, lots of trees, a couple fountains. I doubt I’d ever want to go again, but hey, I can say I’ve seen it now.

Tomorrow morning, we hop in the car and head to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Monument Valley and hopefully, the Grand Canyon.

Travel Distance: 65 miles

Not a whole lot going on today, got caught up on picture editing for the most part. Speaking of which:

Shoshone Falls:

The family at Shoshone Falls:

Scott at Craters of the Moon:

Sarah walking through a tunnel at Craters of the Moon:

Craters of the Moon: