[You may view a map of Arches National Park in PDF format.]

I awoke around 5:00 and looked outside. It looked like it might be interesting for sunrise. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping, and we left in the Jeep around 5:40.

I had Clif Bars for breakfast while diving.

We entered Arches National Park and the cloud layer wasn't going to cooperate for sunrise which was around 6:10. So, we went in search of subjects to photograph with the banded cloud layer. The most interesting images we captured were near Balanced Rock (near left). The image was created from one RAW file processed twice to capture detail in the bright sky and in the dark foreground. When Canon makes a Mk II version of the TS-E 45, it'll be tempting to get one. Such a lens would have been a big help for this image, and others like it, to get more of the image in sharp focus. Then we headed towards Wolfe Ranch and stopped to photograph some Rough Mulesears. I had a ball taking macro shots of the flowers (near left).
We went to Wolfe Ranch and hiked out to the nice petroglyph panel that depicts a bighorn sheep hunt with three riders on horseback. It's a relatively recent panel because horses didn't arrive in the area until the 1700s when the Spanish came through.

On our way out of the park, we stopped to photograph some of the juniper and rocks near the top of the hill by the entrance.

We returned to the RV around 12:20 and I had my usual lunch while reading more of the May Outdoor Photographer. I downloaded and downselected the images from this morning and J took a nap. I processed RAW images in Capture One (C1) from earlier this year to adjust exposure and white balance and then create TIFF files after assigning final file names. J awoke around 4:45, and there were nice clouds outside.
We had dinner around 5:55 of leftovers: chicken mole for me and Parmesan pork tenderloin for J. We both had some watermelon for dessert.

We left around 6:35 in the Jeep and ...

Went back to Arches National Park, and in particular to Turret Arch in the Windows area. A solid cloud layer on the western horizon foiled any kind of "grand sunset" photography, but I had fun exploring a new area beyond Turret Arch and found other things to photograph. My favorite image from the evening was of a clump of Fremont's Peppergrass among a weathered and twisted juniper trunk (left).

We returned to the RV around 9:10. I downloaded and downselected the images I took this evening, then did some computer work.