These were all taken on Day 2 at the North Rim using the digital camera.
As I went in Park that morning there were bison on both sides of the road, just past the entrance. This wasn’t all of them – there were more on each side!
It is amazing what gets dropped over the edge at various observation platforms. Anyone lose a nice pair of Ray-Bans?? These were WAY down there….
These were all taken on Day 2 at the North Rim using the digital camera.
These were taken from the back of the observation room at the Lodge looking through each of the 3 big windows. Talk about a room with a view!
This was taken from a conference room which overlooked the larger of the two outside observation decks. I was absolutely STUNNED at how few people were at the North Rim the second day I went (a nice, sunny day as opposed to the overcast and rainy day the first time I went).
These were all taken on Day 1 at the South Rim using the digital camera.
And it appears that I inadvertently shot some of the bird pictures I was hoping to get (those not as tight of a shot as I would have liked). Better to be lucky than good, sometimes.
These were all taken Day 1 at the South Rim using the digital camera. I have lots more, plus photos from Day 2. I will stagger those posts over the coming days.
The first day I was at the South Rim I overheard a tour group guide tell his flock that tourist helicopters are no longer allowed to fly over or down in the Canyon and that if we saw one it would be a Park Service helicopter. Sure enough, later that day one went in, and a short time later came back out. As it flew in I watched it as it flew down in the Canyon towards one of the closer formations until it became an insignificant speck. This just reinforced the fact that the Canyon is HUGE.
More birds of a more conventional sort (sorry if these are duplicates of what I posted the other day):
And some folks having fun “way down upon on the Colorado River”:
And I’m not sure exactly what this was but I was sure glad it was on a nearby rock and not on me!
Here is a collection of random things from the past two weeks or so.
This is the first Runaway Truck Ramp I think I have ever seen that was recently used (before being groomed for the next victim). It was on the dreaded interstate I took on my way up to Arches National Park in Utah.
There is a non-graveled lane to the right which is evidently how a tow truck gets on site to extract the, now stuck, truck. I saw another ramp somewhere on this trip, I don’t remember where, that was twice as long as the conventional ramp and ended almost completely vertical. I swear, if it had been paved instead of covered with gravel it would have launched the offending truck into space!
Next up, some cool vehicles I saw in the little town of Oatman on the day I drove part of Historic Route 66.
Next, a hot air balloon I saw shortly after it was launched while I was on my way to Scottsdale to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright residence.
And then there was the tent on the property of Taliesin West which is typical of where Mr. Wright’s apprentices were expected to stay while working for him.
And later that day, a mountain I passed on my way east to Show Low, Arizona.
Then, on the day I drove up to the Petrified Forest National Park I saw this in a field off to my right. My guess would be that the externally rusted tank holds water for the cattle which lives on the property and is pumped up from underground, initially by wind-generated power and more recently by solar-generated power.
And finally, when I arrived at the Park there was a bicycle rally in progress. Here are two riders I met when I was at the Visitor Center, ready to embark on the second half of their ride for charity. They are riding the newest craze, an E-Bike which is motor assisted. I may need to look into that when I get home. My brothers gave me a bike for my 50th birthday (to try and promote a healthy lifestyle) but the bike rack on my car got far more miles put on it than the bike ever did. I’m not in very good shape and just don’t have the stamina for bicycle riding. Kudos to those who can ride considerable distances for charity, motor-assisted or not!
And a conventional bicycle, waiting for it’s rider who is off taking a break.
This locally found phytosaur bone was on display in the Visitor Center of the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. I’ll let the accompanying signage handle the spelling, pronunciation and size relativity matters.
The Petrified Forest National Park overlaps a larger area (which runs through parts of several states) called the Painted Desert. It is called that because of the numerous formations which contain a multitude of colors, generally in the form of striped layers.
The colors are more vibrant in person and, like those in the Grand Canyon, are their intensity can be affected by both sunshine, sun angle and cloud cover.
The Painted Desert is a large area in the western US which contains formations with a wide range of colors, or in some cases merely multiple shades of white and gray.
There are two people on the path in the photo below, to give you some idea how big these particular formations are.
And there are people on an overlook at the top of the photo below.
This formation is located within the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. There are several rocks which contain numerous petroglyphs, images scratched into the surface of the dark areas on the rocks. These images tell a story, so the result is kind of like reading a newspaper.
These huge rocks must be viewed from an overlook so I had to zoom in using the digital camera.
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