It was our first arch. We hadn't reached Moab yet, working our way north from Monument Valley which we'd only seen via highway drive-by. I'd made lots of mental notes of places I'd really like to come back and shoot some time when we weren't trying to make it all in a single day. I finally realized that my typical night-before-a-trip non-sleep was not standing me in good stead. Steve and I were working - reluctantly for me - on deciding to scratch any plans for the rest of the day other than getting to our motel and settling in.
Just that. Just settling in. It was a challenge. There was way too much to carry in and it fell on me to do most of it. Plus walk the dog. Our ignorance had led us to believe we could dump stuff in the room and turn around , head to Arches, scout for the spot to set up at 4AM for my fantasy galaxy shot, come back and hit the sack.
Heather Too had finally settled in to car travel in her kennel. It had taken her almost no time to start whining once the car moved, and she continued it for about three hours. At first Steve whistled his latest ear worm to her, and she'd quiet down for a minute. Then whine. We agreed ear plugs should have been on the packing list, but with so much stuff in the car I wasn't sure we'd even be able to find them if they had been packed. Eventually she settled down, though we discovered she'd pushed her pillow up and over the kennel door. Typical of our other dogs, she refused food, even treats, and wouldn't drink at our stops. She almost made up for it at the motel, but by that time I was well beyond caring. Food and water were there, do what you will, girl. Let's charge everything and go to bed. By then I couldn't think straight and was physically twitchy. No way was that stars shot on the agenda. Plus a quick weather check suggested the light rain he'd driven though after Wilson Arch would be lasting.
Fortunately, Wilson Arch came before that drop-dead point. We were given plenty of warning of its location with highway signs, and a huge pull off space easily capable of handling the two semis and half dozen cars stopped there. From there, it was all up.
Steve did it with his eyeballs. I walked a bit. He had such a headache by then that he didn't even carry out his announced plan of rolling down his window to take a shot. I saw the picture I had to take, and it involved a bit of a climb. My climb was nothing like what was needed by the young people who insisted that they reward themselves for their efforts by standing inside the arch, making a clear shot of it impossible. I only climbed about 12 vertical feet, though it was on such a diagonal that it took several minutes.
No, I didn't take the dog with me. By now she didn't even wake up when the car started, so why mess with that? The real challenge was all the loose silty sand covering most of the rocky way. In a word, slippery. Just what a geezer needs. But the picture demanded the effort. Along that way lay the real prize, a dead gnarly tree. I was hoping to capture it inside the arch, but the angle just wouldn't work. The closest I finally chose to approach gave me a shot of it just under the arch. Of the seven shots I took along that trek, the final one was worth it. It did involve bending way down with the camera angled back up, doing that on unsteady ground, with unsteady legs, while wondering how on earth I was going to get back down without an unfortunate face plant - or worse.
Even if that had happened, the shot would have been worth it. Steve and I both love gnarly old dead trees, the kind where all the little branches have dropped away, and the twists in the grain of the remaining wood speak of a long struggle for survival. This was the epitome of those trees, ageless yet still clinging there, its very presence turning a ho-hum arch into an epic tale of time.
As it turned out, coming down wasn't the ordeal I'd feared. I had to turn sideways and stair-step my way, feeling the sand give with each motion, but suddenly a stranger popped up and asked me if I wanted help getting back down. She looked to be in her forties, an unmasked smiling face, and offered her arm to steady myself by. No way was I going to be too proud to accept that offer, and we made it down incident free. As I settled back in the car, she was already all the way up at the tree, stopped for her own picture, shooting between the branches rather than including them.
Pity. She deserved something more special.
As a final note, I dropped right off to sleep while Steve tried to catch a favorite TV show. Finally waking up to lots of stomping and door slamming from the room above us, Steve noted my alertness and informed me it was 10:45. I was so out of it I had to ask morning or night? Night. Of course I couldn't get back to sleep, so this post is the result. A quick peek out the door and confirmation online informed me the skies have cleared, so we're still planning to get up at 3 AM. Now I just have to get my foot to wake up enough -no comfy way to sit on the bed to type - so I can put the laptop away and try for another nap. The upstairs neighbors have finally quieted down.
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