4TH OF JULY

Parade participant

July 4, 2013



Yesterday was the 4th of July.  We're in the small town of Moab, Utah.  So we decided to take in the small town atmosphere and go to the local parade.  The parade circled around the little city park just off the main street.  It was a slice of Americana.  After the parade, there was a band playing patriotic marches in the gazebo while children played in the grass or ate snow cones and cotton candy.   There was a watermelon seed spitting contest, a dunk tank and pony rides.  

In the evening we went back to Arches National Park to hike up to a view point and see the show piece of the park, Delicate Arch.  It was 100 degrees during the day and it was still pretty warm for the hike up.  It was only a mile and a half, but it was a climb.  We made it there for sunset along with lots of other folks.  A photograph doesn't really do the scene justice because it's hard to get a perspective of how large the arch is or how precipitous its perch is on the edge of a sandstone cliff.  

In this picture I used a wide-angle lens so you can see the people around the arch and get an idea of how large the arch is.  One day, this arch will fall as wind and rain continue to erode the sandstone.  There are many other arches in the park in various stages of development and deterioration.

Tomorrow evening we'll go back to Arches and explore the "Devil's Garden" area of the park.