beyond cinderella

Yesterday our son, Pat, and daughter-in-law, Celina, took us to visit Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park in Utah.

We left Fruita, Colorado and took a beautiful scenic drive to Moab.

For our daughter, Shantel, I will do my best to describe the beautiful scenery we saw. The scenic drive took us through an amazing canyon that follows the Colorado river. The mountain colors are almost beyond what I have words for, because they have multiple shades of color. Shades of red, blue, white and hues of everything in between. And, in some areas, they stand majestic against the deep blue sky, green grass, and trees that surround them.

From Moab, we made our way to Canyonlands National Park. The information we received when we entered this National Park says “Canyonlands National Park preserves 337,598 acres of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires in the heart of southeast desert. Water and gravity have been the prime architects of this land, sculpting layers of rock into the rugged landscape it is today”. It reminded me a lot of our Grand Canyon in Arizona, but on a smaller scale.

Pat, Celina, and Papa like to stand on rocks too near the edge for my taste. But they don’t have a fear of heights like I do… 🙂

At one stop, while we were at a very high point in our visit of the park, Pat pointed out a dirt road below us that goes around a mountain. He told me we were going to go on that road when we left the area we were at. I looked down at what looked like a one lane dirt road to me, looked back at Pat and said “we are?” But I was thinking to myself “not this girl, I’ll stay right here and you can pick me up on the way back.” Then Pat laughed and said no, that road was only for the off-road vehicles. Well better them than me!

One of the things that always amazes me when I visit areas like this, is how some trees seem to be growing right out of solid rocks. I captured a picture of a tree that was doing just that. There is a huge rock/cliff and a tree is growing right out of the rock. These particular trees don’t seem to need much soil to grow, and they are beautiful.

As we made our way around the scenic drive of Canyonlands National Park, each stop we made to take in the view was more spectacular than the last. It was truly hard to say what part of the park was my favorite. The next picture shows high spires that start wide at the bottom of the canyon we were looking down into, and they taper off into pillar shapes at the top.

We didn’t go all the way through the park, because Pat and Celina also wanted to show us as much of Arches National Park as we had time for. They needed to get back home at a reasonable time and get the kids from the sitter. So we left Canyonlands National Park, went to lunch at the brewery in Moab (thanks for the tip Mary) and made our way to Arches National Park.

One of the first things we saw as we entered Arches National Park was the courthouse towers, which are tall stone columns that in this case, look like what would be on the front entrance of a real courthouse.. Just amazing.

There are hundreds of unique rock formations throughout the park. Some of them form walls, while others look like balancing rocks,

and still others have windows, or arches, carved into them from years of wind carving holes into the rock.

As time was running short, we didn’t get to go through all of Arches National Park either. Pat said we went through about half of both Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park, but it was enough for us to get a good idea of what both parks offer. Both parks are amazingly beautiful while being very different.

We did get to see on of the larger arches or windows, and Celina and I did climb up and into the hole that makes the arch or window.

Then we made our way down from that arch, and on to the next one that had one large arch or window and another much smaller one carved out of the same rock.

The next arch formation had a rock sitting to the side of it at the entrance of the arch, and that rock had three other rocks on it that to me made it look like people who might be the gatekeepers of that arch.

As we made our way back to the parking lot, from a distance, you can see several more arches carved into a huge rock formation making it look the entrance to several caves.

And just to the side of that was one last rock formation with two small arches or windows, but to papa and I, the large rock formation looked like two big elephants. One laying down with its trunk up in the air, and one standing behind that one with its trunk pointed down towards the ground.

It was a beautiful fun-filled day, and we so appreciate Pat and Celina spending the day showing us around these two amazing National Parks.

Stay Tuned!

Today Bill/Papa and I went target practicing.

We bought a package of reactive targets,

and a box of 525 Remington 22 long rifle shells,

and drove out to a free state shooting range just outside of Kremmling, Colorado.

They have designated areas here for folks shooting rifles, clay pigeons, and hand guns like what we were going to shoot. I like the fact that most of the shooting areas have shade, and they are blocked off by high dirt walls from other folks shooting.

I had never loaded a gun in my life, and in fact, I had only shot a gun once or twice, when I was very young, and my dad took my brothers and I out target practicing with a rifle that kicked so hard it knocked me to the ground, and that immediately ended my desire to ever shoot a rifle again… But I loaded my own gun today, after Bill/Papa showed me the proper way to load and handle a gun.

That allowed Bill/Papa to just worry about loading his own gun, and not have to worry about helping me…

When our guns were loaded, Bill/Papa and I walked together to the spot where we would shoot at our target. Then I took aim,

and shot all my bullets, and missed the whole target all but once. This is my first target after my first try.

Then Bill/Papa took aim,

and put all his bullets into the target. This is one of Bill’s first targets.

After I made more than several attempts to try and get more than one bullet into my target, Bill/Papa showed me how to shoot by cocking the hammer, so I wouldn’t pull the trigger so hard, which was making my hand move all around, causing me to miss the whole target almost every time. What a difference that made. By the way, Bill/Papa had a trophy from the Army given to him for expert marksman. He said he was the top marksman in his company. Who better to teach me how to shoot! This is one of my targets after Bill/Papa showed me the better way for me to shoot! I got all but one bullet into the target and one is even touching the center bull’s-eye. 🙂 I believe I like this kind of shooting…

After several rounds of hitting my target where we were, we decided to move over to a spot that had a seat and table to use that I suppose is designed to help you have better control and aim… That didn’t work out at all for me because the target was much too far away. But I did give it a good try. As I was taking aim, I was reminded of a quote I saw that showed a picture of a big male lion charging after it’s prey, and above the lion it read “you get what you focus on, so make sure you focus on what you want”. Well, I was focused on hitting that target, but it sure didn’t help any when in the middle of my full attempt at concentrating on my aim, a train went past right behind me, and of course, had to blow that loud whistle…

Bill/Papa sat down, and of course, he hit seven out of nine times from 90 feet away. Great job!

After a couple of hours of fun target practice, we walked around and picked up empty shells,

and trash, and put it in a bag to carry out with us because we always try to leave places we visit a little better than we found it.

Then we packed up our gear, and headed home for lunch. It was a really great time and we will for sure be back to do it again… 🙂

Thank you Bill/Papa for showing me how to load and properly handle a gun, and especially for showing me how to shoot better, by cocking the hammer before I shoot, and then like you said”gently squeeze the trigger”.

Stay Tuned!