We just returned this past Monday.
After staying at an airport hotel the night before, where we left our car for the next seven days, we flew to Las Vegas last Tuesday. Upon arrival we immediately picked up our rental car, then drove to Virgin, Utah which is near the Zion National Park. We spent a wonderful day hiking in Zion, stayed at the same hotel that night, then drove to Tropic, Utah which is near Bryce Canyon National Park.
After another full day of awe-inspiring sights at Bryce, we drove to Page, Arizona that night so we would be nearby the Lower Antelope Canyon for our pre-booked tour the next morning. Again, magnificent! After the tour, we drove the 15 minutes to Horseshoe Bend National Park, walked around a bit, succumbed to the exhaustion that the previous days hiking had created, then, after a nap, drove to the Glen Canyon Dam, which, while human created, was still impressive.
The next day we drove to Gilbert, Arizona by way of Montezuma National Park, relaxed a bit once we arrived at the hotel, then met the family for the rehearsal dinner. The next day we found a local preserve to walk through, an amazing place which seemed to house all the waterfowl that could possibly live in such a dry state as Arizona. Finally, the happy occasion, a beautiful ceremony, good food, nice toasts to the happy couple, and much conversation.
The week ended with the flight back to Philly, then the ride home with a stop at a local restaurant for some dinner.
In the movie, French Kiss, the main female character played by Meg Ryan, is riding on a train through France, and while looking out the window at the magnificent scenery, waves her hand and says "Gorgeous!"
Nora and I found ourselves waving our hands and saying gorgeous so many times last week, that it became a joke as, wherever we went, around every turn, the vista was other worldly, magnificent, truly inspiring. Nature's work at its best.
Yet it is important to remember that canyons such as in Bryce, soaring cliffs such as in Zion, incredibly colored rocks such as in the Lower Antelope Canyon, were all created over thousands of years. Natural processes such as erosion and tectonic movements need time as one of the ingredients to create such impressive sights.
It is a lesson that humanity needs to be reminded of, often, as it certainly seems that we are far more driven by short term, immediate gratifications. Perhaps it is the natural reaction to the fact that we only have, individually, 80 to 90 years at our behest. Certainly that is a fraction of the time that a river has to carve out a canyon.
Still, do we not think of future generations, when we imagine a better world? Do we not want the legacy for our children and grandchildren to be one of hope and opportunity?
One the flight out to Vegas, I engaged in a lively conversation with my seat mates. At one point, I repeated my lament that the promise of the baby boomers, of which I am one, did not transpire. We were given all kinds of advantage yet have fallen far short in improving the world. As it turns out, make love, not war, was just a slogan to make ourselves feel better, not a true way of life. We became just like the leaders whom we protested against, trading our aspirations for a better world for large 401K balances, gated communities, and, worse, disdain for our children who call us on our hypocrisy but whom we label spoiled, or lazy. As if children don't emulate their parents.
I previously mentioned that we stopped at the Montezuma National Park on the way to Mesa. This park houses some rock formations that were the homes of the people who lived in that area centuries ago.
We are generally very dismissive about the true natives of our great country, preferring to glorify the Europeans who came here in the 15th and 16th century, but people lived on the lands now called America for hundreds of generations, before being "discovered" by Columbus and his contemporaries. We ignore their accomplishments, their harmonious relationship with nature and the environment. Even the name of the national park, Montezuma, reflects our ignorance of the people who lived there. Montezuma was just the European's lazy connection between all "natives" regardless of where or when they lived. Montezuma never lived in the area of this castle, but that didn't stop those invaders who came there from naming the area for him. After all, weren't all those savages the same anyway?
It makes me wonder how differently we might be treating the land and our environment if our ancestors didn't exterminate the original Americans, makes me wonder if we would have maintained the link between nature and the environment which existed for thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans. Perhaps if less conquering and more listening had occurred, we wouldn't need to be reminded that there is nothing that can't be accomplished with time and effort. Wouldn't need to visit national parks to see how nature reminds us of this when we visit a place of natural wonders.
I am saving this post under the title Environment, a label I use for all posts that refer to reflections about nature. Before creating this post, I read a few of my past entries; here are links to three of them.
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