The Light Over the Ranges

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Just returned from a week in the Southwest. We flew to Phoenix for my husband's family reunion, whence
we were told it would be a six-hour drive to a place in Utah called Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell.
That place was kind of a speed-boaters' sink-hole, a sore on the butt of a region awash in beautiful 
scenery.  Fortunately, we'd been given wrong directions, and it turned out we had to drive 11 hours
through incredible scenery, through the Navajo Nation, past Monument Valley, past a town called 
Mexican Hat, Utah, due west of Four Corners.  Judging from the red stone formations, we couldn't have been too far away from Jeshimon.

Driving through this area in the late afternoon-evening, it was hard to get away from the phrase "the
light over the ranges."  I suddenly understood why TRP chose this location for certain scenes in the
book.  The mesas and rock formations are ancient, formed by millions of years of erosion, but with the
light traveling over them, they seemed to change constantly: an interface of time and light.  Photographs certainly don't do it justice.  The fact that I had The Road to Shambala on CD didn't hurt.
Great place to visit (just avoid Lake Powell unless you're a speed-boat freak).

Laura