More of people jumping out of perfectly good airplanes

This was a perfect day for jumping, and the skydivers made the most of it. I watched five planeloads go up, and then do a variety of acrobatics as they spiraled down to land right next to the runway. Some of these jumpers have done thousands of skydives, and think nothing of it.

The shot above is of a tandem jump, with a new jumper being introduced to the sport by an instructor with control of the jump.

I prefer the safety of a cage with great white sharks trying to get in on me--which all goes to show that danger is in the eye of the beholder.

People jumping out of perfectly good airplanes

I would never consider doing such a thing, but those who do seem to have a wonderful time.

These jumpers were at the Mesquite airport, 90 miles North of Las Vegas on a gorgeous Fall day.

Yes, well--it's still hard to express an enormous complex of parks like those around Monument Valley and do them justice. Photography's limits are absolute.

You can see how close I came to succeeding at the YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/divexprt

Any feedback is welcome (well, most feedback is welcome), as I always want to make new shows better than those that preceded them.

After an adventure in a place like Monument Valley, there is great pleasure in trying to take the best of the stills and videos and tell a story that does justice to the subject.

In this case, I'm busily working on the YouTube show. there's plenty of material, but what to put in and what to discard? And what music might best go with the sequence when it is assembled?

Much to do, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...

I'm delighted to hear from Andrew Fox that I'll be traveling back to South Australia to dive with the great white sharks December 10-17.

There is a new spring in my step!

The Town named after a Rock

The little town of Mexican Hat is located in a cluster of parks in southern Utah--Monument Valley, the Valley of the Gods, Goosenecks and Natural Bridges.

Mexican Hat takes its name from this unusual stone formation on the outskirts of town. Known as Mexican Hat Rock, it is a perfect signpost that you are entering Mexican Hat from the North.

A smaller cousin to Monument Valley is the Valley of the Gods, thirty miles North on the road that climbs the Moki Dugway and continues to Natural Bridges Natural Mpnument.

This short video clip sweeps the buttes of the Valley of the Gods, and ends with the escarpment in the background which the Moki Dugway climbs.

The buttes here are graceful and slender, but not quite as tall of those in the larger and more famous Monument Valley.

Still, since it gets almost no visitors compared to the number that go to its bigger cousin, it is a peaceful Paradise...

What a place for a full Moon!

When I set up my trip to Monument Valley I chose the full Moon days in hopes of achieving pictures like these. The thousand-foot high formations in the valley were the perfect counterpoint to the rising Moon.

While the weather and clouds closed in for two nights, the first and last nights were brilliantly clear.

From a single spot, using wide angle and telephoto lenses, I shot the Moon. The Moon could not have cooperated any better...

Driving the Moki Dugway

The video of a huge aircraft doing a flyby over Monument Valley (the post prior to this one) and the drive down the road shown in this post were two of the highlights of an amazing trip to southern Utah.

When you drive from Monument Valley to the Valley of the Gods and then on to the Natural Bridges National Monument, you have to drive the astonishing Moki Dugway.

The road is a series of switchbacks carved into the near-vertical face of a huge escarpment. As you drive down the Moki Dugway, the Valley of the Gods is off to your left, a series of formations off the face of the escarpment

The more you drive this vp;pssa; engineering achievement, the more fun it is--I drove it four times, once with the video camera out the window.

This is just a half-minute clip from a seven-minute video of the entire drive from the top to the base. That video is now up on my YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/divexprt.

Hang on to your hats! This section is about halfway down the face of the cliff. Here we go!

A military flyby over Monument Valley

After returning from Monument Valley, I was eager to see if certain videos came out as I remembered shooting them.

One of the most striking was a low-flying 4-engine military aircraft swooping low around Merrick Butte and doing a flyby past me as it left.

It came out. Hope you enjoy it!

Goosenecks, indeed...

Today's Sun made it possible to take pictures at the dramatic Goosenecks State Park, off the road to the Moki Dugway. It is another meander of the mighty Colorado river, just like Horseshoe Bend near Page (100 miles away) and Dead Horse Point State Park outside Canyonlands.

The shame is that Horseshoe Bend is carved in brilliant sandstone filled with iron for red color, while the others are lacking the rust color and are really hard to make beautiful.

Tomorrow is the long drive home, but I am looking forward to actually processing all these pictures and the videos of the low-flying bomber and the Moki Dugway drive....

Goodbye to Utah--for the moment...

What a difference the Sun makes!...

Yesterday the Sun was elusive and occasional, with winds and dust. Today the Navajo spirit of hospitality returned, signified by a blazing Sun and the winds dying down.

Moreover, they were kind enough to plant a busload of schoolkids to show the size of the span under the Owachomo Bridge. Very kind. Children and park rangers look tiny under a 200-foot high span, but they are there. They even sat still. I took complete advantage...

At least I got to drive on my favorite road again...

As you will read in the posts below, the weather can turn in a hurry here. Still, driving to Natural bridges requires going up the Moki Dugway, then driving straight ahead for forty miles.

The Moki Dugway is so dramatic that it's really hard to resist stopping and trying to photograph it.

Despite the ugly weather, treasures...

The weather really grew foul--scudding clouds and high winds, At one point, the wind blew the car door shut on my leg and I had momentary visions of a Pegleg Pete pirate costume. My blood is the squirty kind.

Survived that and despite the conditions raced up my favorite road, the Moki Dugway, to Natural Bridges National Monument. three immense bridges have been carved by the Colorado River.

For those who like to get into the scientific weeds, arches are formed by freezing and melting water in cracks in the sandstone, bridges are formed by river erosion--though they look much the same. These are big--over 200 feet high...

I knew the weather was too good to last

Last evening, big clouds formed, and the wind picked up. We waited for the clouds to part for the full Moon, but it was well up before it broke out of the cloud bank.

As a parting grace, a break in the western clouds allowed the setting sun to hit the Mittens and Merrick Butte. Magic

The Valley of the Gods and the Moki Dugway

The Valley of the Gods, near Mexican Hat, Utah, lies at the foot of a massive escarpment. At the West end of the valley is the amazing road up to the top of the cliff called the Moki Dugway. This drive is 'an experience,' as they say. Meeting an overloaded pickup with a big trailer adds to the terror.



I stuck my video camera out the window all the way back down. Ought to be something to see.



As for the Valley of the Gods, it is a smaller brother to Monument Valley formed by the same forces.

A Giant Fish in Monument Valley?

I came around a corner in Monument Valley today, and towering above me was an enormous--well, either a scorpionfish or a frogfish. I put one of each up for comparison, but you can decide which. Just goes to show that Mother Nature has an impish sense of humor...

Later, the not-quite-full Moon came up, and cars down in the valley turned on their lights.

Magic on every side!

A bomber flies through Monument Valley

I drove this morning from Las Vegas to Monument Valley, arriving with plenty of sun left. I do always tell people that I am the luckiest man on the planet, and here is another example of my guardian angels' superb work.

As I was setting up some shots of West and East Mitten and Merrick Buttes, what do I see but a huge bomber, flying low, coming right toward me.

Since I had my video camera on my tripod, I jumped to that and have a complete flyby with this magnificent landscape and the bomber soaring past me in a fifteen or twenty second pass.

I don't have my video editing program on this laptop, but when I get home, I think I know what will be the star of the show...