LIVING KAREN'S DREAM

Bluff Utah, Valley of The Gods

What better name for the amazing structures in this beautiful red land, standing tall as a powerful "god" would.

These stunning angles and colors of the sediment layers and rise and fall of the designs caused us to stop the car so we could stare!

"Hole In The Rock" Home, Utah

As we were leaving Utah I stopped in to see the Whole In The Rock Home which I had driven by a few times in years past and never took the time, this time I did. What an amazing place. It was all dug and blasted out by Albert and Gladys Christensen during the 1940's and 50's. It took 12 years and excavation of 50,000 cubic feet of sandstone. It is 5000 sq. ft. large. He drilled through solid sandstone to create a 65 foot tall chimney.

Main home entrance

Entrance off the kitchen

The first sculpture of this was destroyed. He was told by the powers to be that he had created it but not on his land so was told to remove it. He did by chopping it out. He was then fined for defacing the land. Go figure huh?

Main entry

This is the entrance near his studio.

This ended up being Albert sick bed until his death.

Gladys made this bathroom herself.

This is a very well designed kitchen with a built in deep fryer!

Gladys' bedroom

Huge fireplace.

A lovely and serene place.

Albert passed away in 1957 and Gladys continued living there and developed a unique gift shop. She lived there until her death in 1947. They are both laid to rest there next to the head stone that Gladys herself sculpted.

Moab Utah, Petroglyphs

The original people of the now, United States had artistic skills and the media they used to express those skills was on the nearby mountains of rock and sandstone. Here are some that were on the high cliff walls near our campground in Moab. Enjoy.

Moab Utah 4x4 trip

Well, if we are not eating or dancing we are hiking, ATV'ing or 4x4'ing. Here is a ride we took and had only one mishap, John got stuck.

After a hike to this arch I took this looking up at it.

Getting ready to drive under a huge fallen sandstone bolder.

Here we go under.

We were all loaded into various 4x4 vehicles.

Way high looking down!

Poor John, stuck.

Aren't these designs by nature beautiful.

Over enough time, water and wind this arch will eventually collapse.

Arches National Park, Utah

Nature has an amazing way of creating such beautiful sculptures from sandstone. The combination of water, wind and time create these beautiful designs. I took hikes to get close up but the best views are from afar to get the full impact of the sight. Most of these photos "speak" for themselves.