Is it overcast when you're above the clouds? Or does this fall more into the undercast category? Or maybe we were just in a cloud sandwich at the Canyon, a thick mist filling the void below us, an unbroken cover above us, occasionally dusting us with flakes so that we felt we were living in a snowglobe. So to remember the visit, we bought a Grand Canyon snowglobe at the gift shop on our way out the next day.
After Casey and I passed through Turret Arch at the start of our day at Arches, I turned and saw this older gentleman had followed us up the path and I took a photo to use him for perspective on the size of the arch. Then I took this one, but after seeing it along with the previous one, I decided to try this in black and white and that's when this title hit me.
Having read Abbey's The Journey Home and Desert Solitaire before, during and after the visit, I felt more immersed in the words than I have for just about anything else I've ever read. And because of that, this photo not only takes me back to that morning two weeks ago today, but also to Abbey's country, to his time in the Utah desert.
2011 update: In the end, I felt that this was my favorite photo of 2010. It may not have been my best, but it wasn't far off.
To protect the grasslands at Little Bighorn National Park (and what still may be an archeological site, since I know they've found artifacts decades after the battle), a gravel path winds through the hills, leading you past markers where soldiers fell.
Between lunch with a friend on afternoon and a ballgame that evening in Scranton, I spent some time at Steamtown National Historic Site, a collection of retired trains on the tracks of a former maintenance yard and turntable.
Most of the western side of Jordan Pond is a delicate ecosystem, so boards have been laid for hikers. Casey and I stepped aside onto a rock at one point because three sullen teens were gaining on us -- one had her iPod blaring in order to keep out the annoying sounds of the calm forest -- and let them pass. Their parents soon followed, apologizing.
"I promised them ice cream at the end," their father said.
"We're following you, too!" I replied.
