Photography

Camping in Moab, UT

Wilson Arch

We spent the day enjoying Utah! We drove from Monument Valley to Moab, which is just south of Arches Nat’l Park. Wilson Arch in the photo above (courtesy Damsel) is several miles south of Moab and not a part of the park. It is right along US 191 which we took to get here.

Since we have been to Arches NP several times in the past, we won’t be visiting there this time. We plan to join the Colorado River in North Moab and head upstream through the scenic river canyon as we head to Grand Junction, CO and thence to Montrose where we will be staying for a couple days.

Our campsite here in South Moab is nice – spacious with good views of mountains to the south and the red palisade immediately to the west. We’re comfy here and have good satellite TV reception and good 4G internet access. Our rig in its spot is pictured below. Click on either image to enlarge.

Moab Campsite

Monument Valley Day Two

Monument Formation

We spent the morning doing our usual camping routine – walk the dogs, eat breakfast, feed the dogs, etc.

Later, Damsel and I went shopping for curios, postcards and such at the gift shop here. We picked up a few things, but there is a better selection a mile down the hill from where we are, so we will be stopping there in the morning after we break camp.

We also took several walks around the area, some with the dogs and some with our cameras. This is a very beautiful campground in itself, but the views into the valley are very spectacular. We both took photos, but our net connection is quite slow, so most will have to wait to be uploaded until we get a better connection.

I took the view above with my Canon EOS SL1 at a focal length of 139mm. I cropped the image and applied color corrections to compensate for the haze. This is one of the more prominent monuments we can see from the campground. Click on the image to enlarge.

Camping at Monument Valley

View From Campground

For the next couple of nights we’re camped at Goulding’s Campground at the foot of Monument Valley. The view from the campground is shown above (we actually have to walk a couple of hundred feet from our campsite to see this). But the campground is beautiful itself surrounded by cliffs and red rock formations.

Our campsite is a little more reasonable than that of last night. We’re in a spacious pull thru with trees, a picnic table and all the shore power, water and sewer hookups.

Monument Valley Campsite

Even though it is early in our proposed journey, we are suffering from a couple of minor drawbacks. Foremost is that the automatic leveling jack system which was working perfectly at home has now decided to stop functioning. We can live with that since most campsites are fairly level and we can live with a little tilt. Other problems include the DVD player, which failed to function last night when we wanted to put on a video. We wound up watching the DVD on one of the computers.

Problems aside, we are here to relax and enjoy the scenery. Damsel wants to go to the main hotel complex down below to do some gift shopping and such. She will be enjoying that for sure. I’m enjoying the peace and quiet (not that at home is otherwise) but away from the retirement routine.

Montezuma’s Well

Montezuma’s Well

Damsel and I took off today on our August excursion. Our goal is to get to a couple of resting places of our ancestry, mainly in Colorado. On the way, we will stop at some scenic places like Montezuma’s Well near McGuireville, AZ, just a couple of miles off of I-17.

In addition to the well itself, there were some ancient Sinagua Native People’s ruins carved into the cliff above the well.

Sinagua Cliff Ruins

Our camping spot for the night is in Flagstaff, AZ at an RV Park whose accommodations are quite cramped for a motorhome like ours. There is barely enough room to deploy the pop outs and because of the tall pines, we have no satellite TV reception here.

Cramped Camp Spot

It’s only for tonight and we will know better “Next Time” we come camping up this way. There is a great campground where we have previously stayed on a couple of occasions in Williams, AZ, not too far from where we are tonight.

Image credits: top two courtesy Damsel and the campsite photo is mine.

More Summer Cactus Flowers

Summer Cactus Flowers

Several of the local cacti were in bloom today. Upper left: Argentine Giant Flower, lower Left: Cherry Red Flower with Pollinator and right: Queen of the Night Flowers at just after midnight this morning. The QOTN flowers are on a rescued cactus stalk in a pot in the courtyard.

We have been having intermittent rain and thundershowers and it was iffy as to whether we were going to be able to get any photos last night or this morning before the flowers all faded away as cactus flowers usually do. However, the weather cooperated and we got these photos this morning. Click on the collage to enlarge.

Summer Cherry Red Cactus Flowers

Three New Flowers

One of our transplanted Cherry Red (Trichocereus Grandiflorus) cacti has three new flowers today. These are the second to bloom on our cherry reds, the first having opened in late April.

These three flowers opened today on the “mother” cactus from which we separated several “pups” last October. A couple of the pups are also showing signs of flowers coming soon. Click on the image to enlarge.

Elsewhere in the xeriscape are flowers almost ready to open: two queen of the night flowers and a couple of Argentine giant buds will likely be open soon. Pictures to come for those as well.

Pride of Barbados Flowers Now Opening

Pride of Barbados

It’s one of my favorite days of the year when the Pride of Barbados (a.k.a. Red Bird of Paradise) flowers start to open in our courtyard. The flowers are a little late in opening this year, probably due to climate change a cooler than normal spring. The daytime temperatures are now regularly in the high 90’s to low 100’s and the flower buds on all three of my red bird shrubs in the courtyard are ready to go.

More about these flowering shrubs from Wikipedia:

Caesalpinia pulcherrima is a species of flowering plant in the pea family.

It is a shrub growing to 3 m tall. In climates with few to no frosts, this plant will grow larger and is semievergreen. Grown in climates with light to moderate freezing, plant will die back to the ground depending on cold, but will rebound in mid- to late spring. This species is more sensitive to cold than others. The leaves are bipinnate, 20–40 cm long, bearing three to 10 pairs of pinnae, each with six to 10 pairs of leaflets 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm broad. The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow, orange, or red petals. The fruit is a pod 6–12 cm long.

Caesalpina pulcherrima is the national flower of the Caribbean island of Barbados, and is depicted on the upper left and right corners of the Queen Elizabeth II’s personal Barbadian flag. Claire Waight Keller included pride of Barbados to represent the country in Meghan Markle’s wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.

Click on the image to enlarge.