had an epiphany this afternoon, I've been in mainland USA for 11 days based on what I've seen in this time I now understand why most American's don't own passports.

Based in Moab we had an early start today (5am) and took off to the Arches NP. The area is semi desert - much the same climate as Aggeneys, where I lived in South Africa, but my guess it would be geologically a lot younger. The park is famous for its many large and spectacular rock arches, as the name would suggest. We spent the morning hiking around various arches and by midday we were glad of the early start. We spent the afternoon exploring Moab and sweeting. For dinner and sunset Andrus picked up some BBQed chook, bundled us into the van and said we were going to a lookout at a place called Dead Horse Point, overlooking Canyonlands National Park.

We parked in a car park (one of the few there) and walked out the paved walkway to Dead Horse Point. Upon reaching the edge of the looking and gazing out over the miles of canyons and koppies, showing the contrasting earthy colors in layers representing the eons and through it all the snaking Colorado river; I was blown away. The majesty of the view was close to indescribable.......it was a religious experience. After a few moments of gaping Andrus made the comment that if we called this the Grand Canyon and showed it to people they wouldn't know the difference. Instead of a multi million dollar promotional budget and millions of tourists annually Dead Horse Point is a place few have ever heard of and even less have ventured too. Perhaps twenty people were there sharing the view in total (our group was 13 of that number). This is when it hit me, I had seen such a variety of spectacular and varied natural wonders in the last 10 days. Most have left me gaping in someway, like the kids being released from their dad's basement in Austria seeing the sky for the first time. This is when I understood why such a low proportion of American's have passports. Why go elsewhere when you've got it all in your backyard. I love this place!