America the Beautiful!

The drive from Colorado to Utah was amazing.  Cannot come up with enough superlatives to describe the scenery.   The word scenery makes it sound like I am referring to something planned and set into place, like scenery in a play or a movie.  That’s not it at all.  It is just amazing how different this part of the world is from space I usually occupy.  Reston, Northern VA, D.C.   I love the Washington area and don’t really think I can imagine myself permanently living anywhere else.  

The nature of things here- mountains one second, jagged rock up shoots the next, canyons followed by hills that look like piles of white sand- but huge and with intricate designs from the wind and rain.

The colors change too.  For a while you are looking at all this dry, somewhat desolate red mountains, then there are some trees adding green to the view.  You look up and see clouds that cannot really be so big and white and fluffy- yet there they are!

Right this minute I am sitting at a picnic table in a campground in Utah.  The highway goes right in front of the campground, so the whoosh of cars is an almost constant companion.  It is cool, maybe 60 degrees.  As I look up, what do I see?  Mountains all around me.  They are reddish dirt with scrubby trees.  Nick said that he thought that the trees look like the little trees he use to have on his HO train set.  The ones with green sponge like material as the leaves.   That’s about how they look.

We have seen a lot of signs warning of large wildlife crossing the road, and one sign saying that there might be eagles on the roadway (eating road kill?).  We haven’t seen anything but the one quick squirrel I saw dashing across the busy highway.  He made it!  It is unnerving to be worrying about wildlife when the speed limit varies from 75 to 80mph.

Yesterday we were in a store and all of a sudden, when another shopper said “sure looks ugly out there” we looked and saw a real downpour.  The cashier said that this is the desert and it’s not supposed to rain like that.  We waited a few minutes to make sure the roads were not so flooded that we couldn’t drive safely.

Nick is back from his shower.  It’s my turn to get a shower and get on the road.  We are heading to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I cannot wait; I have already taken over 400 pictures this trip.  Thank goodness for SD cards!

I think I may have a slight case of altitude illness.  Last night when we got here I was gasping to breath.  My mouth was so dry I couldn’t get enough to drink.   I was also a little bit dizzy.  We are at about 6000 feet.  I looked it up, and it is possible to feel it at this elevation.  We are going to be at an even higher elevation for the next three days or so.  I plan to take it slow and easy and work on the knitting I brought with me.

Now, let’s see if I can get this to load onto my blog!