On May 13th Anne, myself, and our friends Skip and Maureen left Visalia California for a two week vacation, a trip that had been in the planning for a year. Much of our vacation would be spent in Yellowstone National Park beginning the next Monday and carry us until a Saturday morning checkout from the Old Faithful Inn. We had decided earlier that we would take a few days and make a detour to Arches National Park near the eastern boarder of Utah for a quick one day visit. So at 6 am on that Thursday we left for what we had planned to be a two day trip into Arches NP. In six hours we hit Las Vegas, we can’t stop here it’s only one in the afternoon. At five we stopped for a light dinner and decided “hey, we are only four hours from Moab, we’ve already done a ten hour stretch, what say we go for it!”. Yes, you guessed it, we rolled into Moab 14 1/2 hours and 830 miles later. Our first stop was a Hotel for the next few days, and then our next stop was a Hotel, and our next, well you get the idea, there were zero rooms in Moab available. What to do now, oh I know, let’s hit the local pub for some libation after our short drive through three states. We decided on a Mexican Restaurant on Old Hwy. 191 which was still open at the now 10:00 hour. At this time I really thought we were destined to spend the night in the car, which meant a few double bourbons were part of the menu. For what happened next I give all the credit to Maureen for she decided to ask the waitress if she had a friend, friend of a friend, even an acquaintance that was working a reservation desk at any of the hotels for a room and that there would be 20 bucks in it for her. We figured even one room for the four of us was better than the car and gas station restrooms. I had barely finished my first bourbon when the waitress returned telling us she had found a room. At this point I couldn’t get into my wallet fast enough to flash another 20 dollar bill for another miracle. She laughed and said she would see what she could and before we knew it she had a room for us at the opposite end of town. All in all we had a great two days in Arches, took hundreds of pictures even with the ugliest of spring storms hitting us over the two days was a memorable experience. I decided to process this image first as a tribute to the dramatic moods we experienced during our stormy days in Arches. Arches is one of those spots on this earth that can be enjoyed no matter what mother nature does.

I have already posted on my Flickr page a few of our favorite American Bison images from Yellowstone NP ahead of this blog and we have many more stories to tell as I process more images.