Blog text and images by Patricia Banks©
We devoted a whole day to driving from Monument Valley to Moab, Utah, so that we could thoroughly enjoy each dramatic landscape along the way.
“Arches National Park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins and eroded monoliths.” It has taken more than one hundred million years of wind, water and ice, erosion and geologic upheaval to create this amazing landscape. We have seen the very beginnings of similar features – scored half circle arch shapes in cliff faces in a number of other canyons. In the Park, many hiking trails are relatively easy. The area is hot and dry, so we wore hats and took plenty of water with us.
The magnificent views are other worldly. I found it a challenge to choose a painting subject that would do justice to a landscape that has evolved over millennia and continues daily to perfect itself. The show-stopping display of cactus flowers beg for my brush’s attention and the grand view’s awesome beauty is hard to pass up. The variety and scale alone are daunting! I am reminded at once of the seeming permanence of these monoliths and the impermanence that is evident everywhere from the forces of nature.
It is indeed a privilege to witness sand, rock, flora, fauna and the survival of the lucky!
We devoted a whole day to driving from Monument Valley to Moab, Utah, so that we could thoroughly enjoy each dramatic landscape along the way.
“Arches National Park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins and eroded monoliths.” It has taken more than one hundred million years of wind, water and ice, erosion and geologic upheaval to create this amazing landscape. We have seen the very beginnings of similar features – scored half circle arch shapes in cliff faces in a number of other canyons. In the Park, many hiking trails are relatively easy. The area is hot and dry, so we wore hats and took plenty of water with us.
The magnificent views are other worldly. I found it a challenge to choose a painting subject that would do justice to a landscape that has evolved over millennia and continues daily to perfect itself. The show-stopping display of cactus flowers beg for my brush’s attention and the grand view’s awesome beauty is hard to pass up. The variety and scale alone are daunting! I am reminded at once of the seeming permanence of these monoliths and the impermanence that is evident everywhere from the forces of nature.
It is indeed a privilege to witness sand, rock, flora, fauna and the survival of the lucky!
