A Different View of Terrorism

Linked to Signs, Signs

Something Different

I'll get back to the southwest trip.  I can't leave the subject without showing you Canyon de Chelly.  For "My World" this week I want to share what I have been seeing in my own backyard.

 I took this through the window, a bird I hadn't seen at the feeder before.

 I managed to sneak outside and get a sharper shot, a black headed grosbeak.

 I'm not sure about this one since I can't see the back or wings but I think it is a non-breading American Goldfinch.

 No doubt about this one, a beautiful American Goldfinch in full breading plumage.  When I enlarged the series of images I found out that the goldfinches eat the green cones on the birch tree.  No wonder it is always full of goldfinches.

 The female Anna's Hummingbird likes the delphinium.

 The California quail provide regular entertainment in the garden.  The brown smear coming from the upper right is an out of focus branch.

That's my world this week and you can see other parts of our wonderful world by following the link to 

That's My World, Tuesday, hosted for us by Klaus, Sandy, Wren and Sylvia.

Antelope Slot Canyon

The last stop on our tour was Antelope Slot Canyon, a place of light and shadow I had long wished to visit.

This in on the Navajo Nation and can only be visited with a Navajo guide.  It's a place that cries for HDR processing so for the rest of these images I took my RAW file, made +2 and -2 images in the RAW converter and then used tone compressor in Photomatix.

Several Navajo companies have rights to lead tours here so it is very crowded.  You can get a longer tour that allows you to set up a tripod but that wasn't an option for us.  The companies each have other slot canyons they can visit which are less crowded but again, that wasn't an option for our group.

You could get an unobstructed view by looking up.

Our guide knew all the tricks, he showed us this heart shaped slot.

He threw sand on this ledge for a "sandfall".

Find more shadows at Shadow Shot Sunday, hosted for us by Tracy in Brisbane.

Utah Sunset

We bookmarked our Road Scholar trip with some camping.  At a campground on the Virgin river we caught this great sunset.

See more interesting skies at SkyWatch Friday, hosted for us each week by Klaus, Sandy, Wren and Sylvia.

Rainbow Bridge National Monument

Day nine was cold and cloudy but this was the day we were scheduled to take a tour boat over 40 miles up what had once been Glen Canyon to view Rainbow Bridge, the largest known natural bridge.

 I can still remember the controversy in the 60's over the flooding of the canyon to form Lake Powell.  Proponents of the project said it would make it easier for people to see Rainbow Bridge.  David Brower of the Sierra Club responded, “Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?”

 Since it follows the line of the canyon, the lake is relatively narrow with many arms.  It is down one of these arms that the boat took us to access the bridge.

 A short hike from the dock took us to the bridge

 There it was!  Enlarge this shot and you can see not only the ranger in the foreground but some tourists at the base of the left leg of the bridge.  It is huge.  I can't describe the feeling of being in the presence of such an example of nature's grandeur.  I didn't want to leave.  But it was a long hike or swim if the boat left without me so I hiked back to the dock with the others.

On the ride back the skies started to clear and the wind came up.  As we had on the way out, Hubby and I braved the cold and stayed on the upper deck to better see the scenery.

You can find more watery sites at Watery Wednesday, hosted for us by 2sweetnsaxy.

Day Eight

On day eight we covered a lot of territory.

 The first stop was Edge of Cedars Museum.  This is a Utah State Park in danger of loosing its funding.  It has an amazing collection of artifacts, well curated.  I had wished we had more time.

 The ruins on the the site included a kiva that visitors can climb down into.

 It was a cloudy day, if it had been sunny I could have captured shadows from the cutouts in this sculpture.

 The many sculptures were an added bonus to the site.

 The Next stop was Gouldings Trading Post for Navajo Tacos.  They seemed more like tostados to me but by any name they were quite good.

 The sky was perfect for this iconic image of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

 Our final stop of the day was a Navajo Culture Center in Page, AZ.  I had mixed feelings about this place.  It wasn't run by the Navajo Nation and the man who ran it seemed to have an agenda beyond teaching about his culture.  We did learn some interesting facts about weaving and tradition but I left feeling conflicted.

These dancers were very good but they were dressed in the tradition of plains tribes doing dances from plains tribes.  We were told that Navajo dances couldn't be performed because it wasn't the proper season.

I would have rather spent more time at Edge of Cedars, there was a lot I didn't have time to see and I think I would have learned a lot more.

You can find many view of this wonderful world of ours at That's My World, Tuesday, hosted by Klaus, Sandy, Wren and Sylvia.



Bridge or Arch?

While the terms "natural bridge" and "natural arch" are often used interchangeably, geologists usually make a distinction.

Rainbow Bridge

 The term "bridge" is usually used to indicate a span that has been eroded by a stream running through it.

Double Arch

Arches are also formed by water but by the freezing and thawing and chemical weathering of water.

Linked to Sunday Bridges, hosted for us by Louis at San Francisco Daily Photo.