deserts – Page 2 – Better Living Through Literature

Desert Weekend

March 10, 2014 Karen

My oldest friend (we met in math class in junior high!) had a birthday over the weekend and wanted to celebrate in Moab. So I hopped in the car with my other friends and had an epic 72 hours.

One of our group is a landscape photographer, so I actually got out of bed to catch the sunrise. Turned out it was too cloudy for good color, but I got to hear the desert birds waking up.
(This was by The Windows in Arches National Park)

Then it cleared up and the sky did this:
(Heading into Arches from the west, looking southeast to the La Sals)

And then there was the evening light on the red rock.
(In Arches; I think the Petrified Dunes area)

The whole trip had really amazing light and clouds.
(Around the Sand Dune Arch area in Arches)

The group all had 4WD vehicles so I got to see the back roads around the park and arches I’d never been to.
(Looking through Eye of the Whale Arch, west side of Arches)

We hit Canyonlands, too, in the Needles area, and saw Newspaper Rock on the way in to hike some of the Chesler Park loop:

And yesterday, before we headed out, my friends used their backpacking forum notes and GPS skills to get us to something called “Magic Mystery Arch” (in the Sand Dune Arch area, but no trail).
(The arch is back against the wall, but it looks almost solid until you see light through it.

We walked up under it and looked up through all the magic mystery:

The sun and the light were just incredible, all weekend long. The long views and the rocks made me think of this Paul Bowles quote I’ve posted before:

Once [someone] has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute.

My inner hippie (in Canyonlands here) agrees.

All I Want Is Another Vacation

November 17, 2011 Karen2 Comments

The last two weeks being back from Moab have just run me over. Work isn’t particularly tough right now, but I’m feeling pretty worn out by it.

Let’s think back to a happier time a couple weekends ago, when my inner hippie was set free in the morning in Arches:

Doesn’t she look happy?

"It Is Clean"

November 7, 2011 Karen1 Comment

That’s why T.E. Lawrence reportedly liked the desert; I could add, “It is indifferent.” And this weekend, it was also cold:
Fortunately, Mom and I were prepared with winter gear.

Also fortunately, we escaped the enormous mesa-top lizards this sign showed us:
Lizards not to scale? Or do they come as big as bighorn sheep now?

To The Desert

November 3, 2011 Karen

I’m headed to the desert by Moab soon to make my inner hippie happy and get some perspective. Here’s Paul Bowles‘ feelings about it (even though his desert was the Sahara):

Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating…Once [someone] has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort or money, for the absolute has no price.

Friday Unrelated Information

October 14, 2011 Karen

1. It’s the birthday of e.e. cummings today. Everyone write your emails in lower case and leave out punctuation to celebrate. We’ll call them e.e.mails.

2. Check out this video of time lapse desert landscapes and nightscapes. Space and deserts: Everything my inner hippy wants.

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Found here.

Why I Still Live Here, Despite The Legislature

March 2, 2009 Karen3 Comments

“Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands and liked where I came from. I was used to a dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors–tan, rusty red, toned white–and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sagebrush and the sight of bare ground.”

Wallace Stegner, from the essay collection Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West. (The title’s from the Big Rock Candy Mountain song!)