Southern Utah is amazingly beautiful. I took this picture through the window, while driving, not far from Kanab. No place in particular.
The road crosses Kanab Creek here. Yes, the hills and cliffs really are red. Lots of westerns were made here in the old days. And TV shows: Gunsmoke, Bonanza, etc. Some of the sets remain standing.
Weather changes quickly and dramatically in S. Utah. It can be raining, and then, an hour later, the sun is blazing.
Everywhere you go in Southern Utah, it's beautiful.
Here are some shots from Bryce Canyon. I won't bother showing the familiar Bryce "hoodoos." Too familiar.
(Click on the pics.)
OK, OK. Some Bryce hoodoo action.
A beautiful pet cemetery in the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (on 33,000 acres just outside of Kanab).
16 comments:
I just knew you'd like Utah. I was there about 5 years ago, and I remember the colors of everything were very pronounced. You captured this beautifully, and you seem to have experienced similar weather as well.
The people seemed very eerie to me though. You get a similar vibe?
I think that the natives are not particularly interested in visitors and perhaps view them as alien. I guess that makes them seem eerie. At least some of the locals seemed decidedly non-eerie, however. There was this Mexican gal who seemed to run a local restaurant. Her "charm," it seems, is her willingness to treat customers like family--i.e., she was openly annoyed by everything they (and we) did. Of course, being that way would be a perfect cover for a Martian who, like all other Kanabian Martians, is thinking evil thoughts about the silly transient visitors, who, one day, will become a tasty meal as they hurtle through space and back to the planet Mormonia.
Well, I think that the natives are, in part, thoroughly jaded by the millions of tourists that pass through Kanab over the years; maybe their jadedness and longsufferingness (how do you like *that* word?), or maybe a kind of stoicism (we will get our town back come September) come through as eeriness. Plus, they have a sloooooow pace of life that comes with small town living. To the likes of us, that in itself can seem eerie!
Kanab-lover
Okay, blogsters, I have a survey question that will no doubt reveal my--well--OLDness. I find that I can't concentrate on the posts or comments unless I turn the sound way down on Chunk's playlist. And I speak as one who admires both Chunk's taste in music and this blog tremendously. That's, maybe, my problem: I just can't divide my attention between the two.
So, with all due gratitude for Chunk for sharing his fantastic musical favorites, I still must ask: is this a problem for anyone else? Is it one of those generational things?
--A curious MAH
Good question. The answer: yes, we are old, and our inability to listen to engaging music while thinking/composing is bizarre and "eerie" to young people. On the other hand, in the case of most young people, their thinking is a trivial and thoughtless activity, like chewing gum. BS is the exception. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the tendency of non-young people to reject new things and to even object to them (unthinkingly). Part of me wants to actually use my Twitter account. But most of me say, "Why on earth would I send this information into the world? I am not that important. Besides, such transparency is unseemly and undignified." So, am I a troglodyte? A Luddite? Or am I merely discriminating? Gotta go. The keys on my typewriter got all bunched up.
Check out the new book "Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life," by Winifred Gallagher. There's a nice critical review of it on Amazon. I mean to read it as soon as I can focus for long enough to order it.
--MAH
My judgement of eerie comes with from the experience that I was raised Mormon by my mother. I almost think it is a matter of fact that these people are eerie. They wear magic underwear, they have magical pocket rocks, and they whisper secret names to each other. I went to Church every Sunday for the longest time, and still never got over the creeped out feeling I had inside. I felt a similar experience when I talked to people in Utah. I feel it still when I am in a church (Mormon or Lutheran). It's EERIE!
Chunk: You are important enough to the people who sign up for your twitter. And you don't have to post comments telling of your every action. So, I think you are discriminating. You have a blog, this very conversation is taking place under a post titled "What I did this summer." I don't think the transparency is the problem.
If it helps at all, my personal rationalization is that the wiser should pick up these things to demonstrate and inspire proper usage. There is what seems to be the use of a twitter (frivolous nonsense), but the genius in you should know better than to do as everyone else does. So, do your own thing with it.
But, don't make the mistake of the Sex Ed. folk and assume that because you can abstain from sex (or use of technology), so should youth.
Jestful summation: Teach wise, and proper use of equipment, by using your equipment.
MAH: This is precisely why I typically dislike these things. Loud music is distracting while reading, but Chunk has a few good slow songs so I just switch to those.
- Needs to learn to write less, BS
Just go ahead and ignore the spelling/grammar mistakes above. Thanks.
- Needs to learn to write, BS
Spelling? Grammar? I'm still reeling from that command to use my equipment!
It was sort of a crass post. I hope you are reeling in laughter (it was in jest), and not in anger. Or maybe you're just shocked; I'm okay with that.
However, if you are angry, I take refuge in the ambiguity of my statement, and cleverly retort with "That's not what I meant."
elusive, BS
I thought it was funny, dude.
Well, now I just appear overly-sensitive. Looks like I am in need of some equipment.
So! When does Roy begin using his Twitter (That's supposed to be a real question)? Oh, and what ever happened to the Roy Bauer Facebook fan club?
I understand Facebook about as well as I understand Twitter. Heck, I didn't even know there was a fan club!
What's my motivation? I seem to lack that.
Oh no, your memory! There was a Facebook fan club, and I thought that was why you were all over Facebook.
Though, I'll be honest I'm notoriously bad at the social things. It has utility for me, where members of my family are using it to keep each other updated, and friends and I can keep in contact (we sometimes capture the UCI engineering lecture hall late at night, until dawn to discuss physics, math, etc.). Though, aside from the utility value, I'm not so certain there is some sort of intrinsic worth in playing with these things. Though, there might be some sort of opportunity cost.
I have my Twitter hooked up to my Facebook status update, and I'll write things, without a care in the world who reads them, to make myself feel witty. This can be an intrinsic value I suppose. But, I'm a simpleton; something as trivial as changing which direction I face when I brush my teeth seems to satisfy me.
Why do you write a philosophy blog? The reason you do that might be related to a reason for micro-blogging (synonym for Twittering). Welcome to your future Roy; it's stupid.
I do feel welcome. It does feel stupid.
I can't hear the music because I'm pretty much deaf anyway.
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