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

I got out of bed before J, and when I looked outside at the conditions, a cord in the window shade for J's office window broke. :( Now we have to fix two of the shades. The sky was mostly clear with just a few small clouds on the eastern horizon and the wind was dead calm. J decided to stay in the RV this morning, so I made instant coffee to go and left by myself at 6:12 in the Jeep.

I had two Clif Bars for breakfast while driving.

I entered Arches National Park and headed straight to the Devil's Garden area. Then I started hiking in among the wonderful red rock fins and arches. I stopped to photograph a nice clump of Silvery Lupine with some red rock fins in the background (far left). I used a 2-stop graduated neutral density (ND) filter with a soft transition to help hold back the bright sky and red rocks. In hind sight, I could have used my 1-stop graduated neutral density (ND) filter with a soft transition to help hold back the bright lupine plant because I did something like that in Photoshop. I didn't photograph Landscape Arch because the clear blue sky wasn't interesting. I had a ball photographing some Nakedstem Bahia in the shade of one red rock fin. My favorite image (near left) is of the flowers against the rock.
Then I went to Partition Arch and photographed it with J's 17-40 so I could get wide enough to show more of the landscape on the other side of the arch (below left). This arch could be a good sunrise location, and pre-sunrise location, when the eastern sky lights up. Then I went over to Navajo Arch, and by the time I got there, the wind had started to pick up. Once again, I used J's 17-40 to get a wide and different view of the arch (below right). Because I've been shooting several images lately with a lens wider than 24mm, I've started to want the new, rumored, Canon 14-24 that should be similar to the Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24 f2.8G but still have all the functionality of a regular Canon lens on my Canon body. Because the wind had continued to pick up, I decided to head back to the trailhead instead of continuing to head towards Double O Arch — I'll have to go there another time.


I returned to the RV around 10:20 and we prepped the RV to move. We drove the RV and Jeep separately until we reached a convenient place to hook up the Jeep to tow, then we got underway at 10:55.

We took US-191 north and got on I-70 east. We got off at Exit 187, Thompson Springs, and headed a few miles north ...

To Sego Canyon around 11:35 to view the rock art. I had been there before, and it was J's first time. There are three main panels at the site: Barrier Style (pictographs below left, 6000-100 BC), Freemont Culture (petroglyphs below right, 600-1250 AD), and Ute Indian (petroglyphs and pictographs, 1350-1880 AD). The parking area by the panels wasn't big enough to pull the RV into while towing, so we just stopped on the main road. J started photographing the panels while I unhooked the Jeep, turned both vehicles around, then hooked up the Jeep to tow. Then I started photographing the panels and J said she loved them. After photographing some panels across the street, we found an area where we probably could have turned the RV around while still towing the Jeep — oh well. We left around 12:30.


We got back on I-70 heading east and I had Clif Bars for lunch while driving. We entered Colorado at 1:28.

We went to a Taco Bell in Clifton, just east of Grand Junction, around 2:15 so J could get some take-away.

Then we went to the City Market in Clifton to fill up the RV at $2.599/gal using our 10¢/gal discount and to fill up the Jeep at $2.669/gal using our 3¢/gal discount. We got underway again around 2:35.

I listened to an episode of Car Talk and J took a nap. We went over Vail Pass 10662 ft, 3249m) around 5:30 and it was very slow going up the steep hill to it.

We reached Idaho Springs, a historic gold mining town, at 6:40 and stopped to unhook the Jeep. Then we set up camp behind The Majestic Gallery, a co-op gallery where I display some of my work. I don't have to sit there tomorrow — we're just spending the night at a convenient location. I downloaded the images I took today and started to downselect them while J made dinner.

We had dinner around 7:35 of J's special, one-of-a-kind, pasta sauce with Italian sausage and broccoli over mini fusilli pasta.

After I did the dishes, I finished downselecting the images from today then did some computer work.