Another Trip to Colorado

Sunrise on the Res, originally uploaded by ivoryblushroses.

Thursday's drive to Colorado began in the wee dark hours of the morning. By the time the sun rose, I was near Monument Valley. The colors in the landscape were made more intense by the night's rain showers. The light and color in the landscape was glorious.


It was the most beautiful I think I've ever seen the Reservation.


The rays of morning light showed off some distant peaks that I believe are actually in Colorado.


Between Blanding and Bluff lies a lovely green valley that I always look forward to seeing. There are some abandoned houses here that I love. Each time I see this one, I find myself wishing that someone would rescue this lovely house and bring it back to life. It's just the kind I place I would love to have. When I stopped to take the photo, I discovered an plaque stating that this was the site of an early Mormon settlement called Verdure.


I took a break from the long drive and spent a couple of hours at Colorado National Monument. The scenery of this eastern rim of the Colorado Plateau is spectacular with a high vertical rock walls, amazing rock formations and many canyons. Some ladies that I met along the way were nice enough to take this picture of me.


The steep red rock walls of the canyons are spectacular. I love how the creek in the bottom zigs and zags it's way along and how brilliantly green the vegetation is over the creek.


These formations are known as the coke ovens because their shape is similar to the coke ovens used to heat ore. The twisted and knurled shapes of the bristlecone pine made a great frame for the view!


All along the rim, the junipers are in full fruit. In places the berries are so blue and so profuse that at a glance they appear to be blossoms!


All across the Plateau, the rock and soil is layered in multicolored bands ranging from white to gold to green to red to purple. At this outcropping, I loved how the green soils were capped by a layer of golden stone and carried a band of deep ochre red in the middle. It's fascinating to think about all the things that have happened across the eons of time to create these different layers. Seas that have come and gone, rivers that passed by for a time, times of dense forest, ages of deserts. We live in such a blink of an eye as geologic time goes. I find myself wondering what mark our time will leave on the land.


Back on the road again, I headed east across Grand Junction and into orchard country. There is such an extreme contrast of the lush trees on the valley floor and the barren rock buttes above.


At this orchard, the apricots and plums hanging from the trees were stunningly beautiful! I couldn't resist buying a small bag of apricots ~ so yummy when they are fresh and wonderfully ripe!


I also picked up a couple flats of succulent peaches!


Which resulted in a the baking of a couple of yummy peach pies!