SUNRISE ARCHES FOR EARLY VIEWS

I asked someone who lives near Arches National Park their advice on what not to miss.

After maps and visitors’ centers and miles gone before we sleep, I got an unexpected answer.

“The most important thing about this part of the country is the sun. Try and see places like they were seen for ages, see the sights in the early morning light.”

Sunrise arches for early views?

Yep.

Before the sunlight started glowing off the rocks like they might burst into fire, it looked pale.

Pale, cold, and odd.

Why would cactus and trees grow in a hole in a rock wall?

It was the sunrise crew fulfilling something from their bucket list?

Lost travelers taking a break?

Lifestyle gurus selling a battery recharge the comes with a personal mantra?

Whoever they were, they were my kind of people.

Then Things Took A Turn

After this path up ends, people walk on wide rock stairs, then just rock slabs with steps up towed the window in the wall.

There’s a little fine gravel, but nothing slippery.

With lots of people around making the same journey, I saw an older woman off to my right who didn’t look right.

Either she was doing some religious crawl up the gently sloped stone, she fell, or she’d been abandoned.

And people walked by to let her to figure out by herself.

Luckily for her and her loved ones, I know distress when I see it.

She was in distress, clawing her way on the rocks.

Do I walk past like everyone else and see the sunrise with my wife in the window?

Or do the thing people raised right do?

I caught up after walking the the lady down the rocky descent, stepping off the trail and off balance so she wouldn’t fall.

She said she was from Germany. I held her hand.

When I tried to let go, she pulled me to help the rest of the way down. So I did.

Did I Miss Anything?

The glow in the window started looking like the pupil of an eye.

And there were two of them.

With those eyes on me from the arches I climbed up the rock to the arches next to them.

My life partner, travel planner, and mother of my children AKA my wife, is under the arch in front of the rock wall.

How far away was she after I said, “How about if I climb up here and you can take a picture?”

That far.

But it was worth it.

It’s always worth it if you look hard enough.

I’m looking. Are you looking?

Sunrise arches are the best.

What happened to the German lady?

Last time I saw her she was walking a loop round the arches and doing fine.