hommage à la utah
i’m going to be honest, when we were in a sports store purchasing spikes, there was one exact moment that reminds me i was in utah: alongside a wall of fishing equipments lies a whole other wall of guns.
before that moment, we have been in utah for almost three days. mostly we spent our days in national parks, away from civilizations. the rare moments that we were not in the wild, we were refueling the car by various gas stations.
and before utah, i spent days and nights in the tiny bubble of ann arbor, michigan. my daily routine operates within nothing more than a 3-mile radius. i guess i’m fairly insulated and have been living inside the cave! (never thought living in ann arbor would be a proper extension of the cave analogy. but with the fable-like plato, i guess we all could do anything to refurbish and reinterpret the myths).
however, even though i have taken three paragraphs whining about utah, the purpose of this blog is not to instigate abomination or hatred. instead, i aim to offer my most sincere homage to utah. at the same time, my fascination about america is real. this country is remarkable and bizzare, with so many different contradictions. a state as such is beautiful, marvelous, as well as conservative. now we live right within.
(my photography skill may have improved, or i just got some serious luck with 9:16 ratio… )
above are for the arches. i love the little museum by the visiting center which briefly introduces how arches are formed over centuries. apparently, those rocks were once in the sea. at one time, they had a lot of salt within. and at a different time, the salt melted. i also love the gift shop by the museum.
the last picture in the series above records our second morning in the arches: it was snowing and raining. the day before, it was springtime sunny. an important fact about national parks is that we usually can experience four seasons all at once within 24 hours. later that afternoon, the sun came out, and we hiked two different trails!
i’m thankful to my group beyond anything. we were family for a week! as a first-time outdoor person, they taught me everything: how to set up a tent, how to cook dinner in the cold, how to keep warm in the night, and how to light a fire during windy times… among the numerous other little tips i learn from them, i’m most grateful to the friendship from my fellow wolverines! you are the best—katharine, char, amanda, aayushi, and sarah:)
another fun fact: don’t dress like a muslim like i did in utah…
we didn’t get to explore the canyonlands, but we did spend a night there. lucky for me: because of the cold, i got up at 5am and watched the incredible sunrise. the scenery is similar to grand canyons. no words could properly describe that sunrise. sadly we had to leave early in the morning for another 5-hour drive to zion.
by the end of this trip, spring has officially arrived. daylight saving time started, and i felt renewed and inspired. january and feburuary in michigan have always been incredibly hard for everyone, taking a tremendous toll on everybody’s mood. a trip out into the west is a perfect break from the darkness, morbidity, moodiness, and couch-potatoing.
i was instantly hooked by this quote… i forgot which book this was. i picked it up from the bookshelves of the gift shop at zion.
so long.