If you were to ask me what Arches National Park was a year ago I wouldn't have known what to say besides a tourist attraction that lures in the wealthy, ignorant doctors and lawyers which is somewhere out in the inhospitable desert -- a place where nothing but the buzzards and lizards live and the cactus grow tall and mighty. Now, almost six months later, I can tell you that this so called "desert" is more than just its stereotypical label. It doesn't surpass its hostile tag by any means, but it does exceed the critics beliefs in my world. The deserts diversity is intriguing to me and continues to interest me, even when I'm 1,700 miles away from it, living in rural Western New York. The Arches shot up from the bright sand and towered over the junipers and cottonwoods that shaded the cryptobiotic soil. Magnificence is the only word that I can think of that is semi-close to describing these massive concrete sandstone formations. After taking in the breathtaking views of these rocks, and snapping over 200 pictures, it was time to move on to another part of my journey; never forgetting the Arches and the history that they hold under each layer of sand.
