What words can describe adequately the breath-taking beauty of this image, taken in Peru? I believe buildings can be seen in the foreground! Frank
Growing up in the Chicago area, I had never seen any landscape more varied than a flat cornfield, field of grain, or flat housing development, except for in John Wayne movies and those like Kilimanjaro. Knew all my young life I longed to see mountains in person! My new wife & I set out on a honeymoon trip the day after our marriage, July 19, 1965, in my hot-rodded new Ford Mustang. Me, I had never been beyond Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, or Wisconsin, in all my (then) 23 years. Asked her which way to go, east or west. No hesitation, "west"! By then, we chad been very close (!) for 2 years, completely at ease with each other, ready for new horizons! We hit I-80, interrupted by discontinuities throughout Iowa and Nebraska, took I-80S towards Denver. Soon enough, I began seeing wisps of strange-looking clouds in the far distance! Never experienced anything like them in my life, asked Susan: they are mountains!! Once I saw them close-up, i was hooked ! No way, thought I, would we remain much longer in "Crook" County Illinois! As we progressed further, through Colorado, my map showed a short-cut through Utah, heading towards our destination, eventually, my uncle's place in California. That short-cut, 2-lane highway where another car might be seen every 40 miles, clinched it!: Goblin Valley State Park, Capitol Reef National Monument, Zion State Park, it was as surreal a landscape as I had ever seen in a movie. These were the most beautiful natural places I had ever seen! Unbeknownst to us, as we headed southwest in Utah, that beyond the formerly sleepy little Mormon town of Hanksville, the newly-created artificial man-made lake of Lake Powell, formed by the completion of Glen Canyon Dam, was actively filling with water as Lake Mead had 20 years earlier! Hanksville had been a center of operations during building of the dam. Lake Powell stands in my book as much lovelier than Mead, with it's beautiful multi-colored sandstone cliffs in hues of red, purple, and bewildering mixes of color. Frank
@Thomas Stearn Alas, no, I did not, and have regretted that fact all my life! I rank Utah as the most beautiful State I've seen, because of it's variety of deeply-colored rock formations. My wife, having lived in Alaska a year with her first husband, might differ with me on that! Frank
Utah is a fine state to travel through by train. It's probably a fine state to travel through by car too, but I have never driven there.
@Ken Anderson One can drive a car almost as far in Utah as they can in Nevada, without seeing another human being. Truly wide-open spaces, and beautiful ones, at that. If you think Nevada is all Desert, think again: Lamoille Canyon, in the Ruby Mountains:
I have been through it via both those means, and I found it delightful! In the train, you can watch the scenery and you don't have to pay attention to the road.
@Shirley Martin Ma'am, (and I don't care a bit if that intro offends you), I often pause to reflect upon just how fortunate I really am, lucky, actually, to still have relatively good health, acceptable mental faculties to recall and recount accurately my experiences when applicable, and not to have become so stodgily immovable of opinion as to be labeled cantankerous. (hopefully!). And, I thank you! Frank