Gold and Beautiful

On Day 4 we woke up at 4:00 am and were at Canyonlands National Park to take sunrise pictures by 5:45 am. Canyonlands national park is vast and Mesa arch in the park is a perfect place to take sunrise pictures. There were a few photographers there, but the arch is not huge and the place is quite small. As our canyoneering tour guide had told us most of the times you have to fight for your spot. Luckily we didn't have to do that. But it was extremely cold and the sun took it's own sweet time to rise. We were there for an hour and were freezing. We should have probably waited longer to take more shots, but it was impossible to stand there or move around to take pictures from different angles, in spite of dressing in warm clothes. The arch glows a nice shade of red in the sunlight.  That was the last arch we saw. People had told us that we would be arched out by the end of the trip, especially since we were spending so many days in one place. But we were not!! We loved every...

I always prefer to get done with the final exams earlier in the week, finish grading and assessments and then take a break. So I was definitely disappointed when I found out that all three of my final exams were scheduled on the 7th and the 8th. Classes ended on the 30th, I presented two projects at the STEM symposium on the 1st and would have had to wait until 7th for finals, grading and assessments. So at the last minute S and I decided to make use of this time and flew to Moab, Utah.  We spent 3 days at Arches National Park and couldn't be happier. We wanted to go to Arches during Spring break, but the weather was too cold in March. We could have waited for the semester to end and then gone, but then the temperature would have been extremely high. So, April would have been an ideal month to visit Moab, but I couldn't cancel classes in April and flying to south west cannot be (or rather should not be) done over a  2 day weekend. There is so much to do.... for anyone ...