the earth unfolds

[part three? four? of an unknown number of entries concerning my trip home. i won't lark on this forever.]
i've just settled back down into my desk with a mentaiko flavored rice cracker after walking through a group of boys tucking their shirts in before they entered the teacher's room.

within days of arriving in america, the red, destroyed skin under my eyes began to clear and i stopped itching. i've basically been itchy for a whole year, so it was really really a relief. mom and i headed to the utah desert almost immediately for a long-anticipated camping trip.
oh desert that i love!





usually, an august trip to this area would be ridiculous (think: ow, blistering sun), but there had been several days of rain, so we gave it a shot...and we were the only ones. we didn't see a soul or another track on the road.
the sun went down on our cheeseburgers and baked beans, and thanks to that rain, out came some seriously hungry mosquitoes...probably already two days old without a meal in their little blood bellies. after brushing my teeth at a brisk jog to keep from being an easy target, i dove into the tent after mom, and we made a desperate collective effort of zipping every conceivable opening in seconds. the tent was then engulfed in a haze of insects lusting after human wine. the volume of the whining hum was great enough to be truly disturbing, and they hovered around the tent all night. my dreams were colored by the pervasive sound. i shrunk away from the sides of the tent to avoid being stuck through the fabric, and indeed, there were hopefuls plastered to the mesh, beaks prickling, in case we chanced to lean that way.
the morning breeze blew most of them away, and we were able to get on with the business of eating breakfast. we headed up and up towards the edge of comb ridge. my pictures don't do the height justice, so here is a little more about it.
we drove on several hours through wide open roads to reach lake powell, essentially a canyon that's been filled with water. this was one of our frequent haunts when i was a little girl, though neither of us had been there for ten years. the resevoir is 186 miles long (300km) and is deeper than 500 feet (150m) in some places. it's the same approximate area as singapore. not to get all fact-y on you, but if you've never been there, maybe it's difficult to grasp the marvelous expanse of it...in the middle of the desert. not much has changed since i was born, even the bathrooms at the campground are exactly the same with the same cold shower.





we headed away from the arid red rocks and back into the mountains where we were arrested by a field of huge sunflowers. i'm sorta sick of seeing sunflowers on baby cards and calendars, but as the sun went down, it was impossible not to be amazed by their brilliance.


we frolicked in the field, laughing that the sun flowers were all pointed away from the sun. as we neared home, a rainbow formed over the valley. i thought to myself as i have many times, "holy crap, colorado is beautiful."