Hoodoos of many colors ...

Marlene Terry

Fall is my favorite time to travel.
 

First of all, from now 'til snow flies the temperatures especially in the southern regions of this great country tend to be just right. It's also past the traditional tourist season, when standing in line at shops and fast food/snack places can be expected and lengthy, and the change of the season is in many varied ways, spectacular as well as colorful.

Actually, if the truth be known, my hubby and I are hoping to take a long weekend soon and see some of the sights of our neighboring state, Utah.

Just recently our adventurous son, Jim, made a weekend jaunt from his home in northern California to an area not too far south of Salt Lake City. ... And the photos he shared with us? ... Well as I said, and as you can see today, they were spectacular and gave us the bug to go see some of that ourselves.

I'm pretty sure most would recognize scenes from Utah's Monument Valley on the border of Utah and Arizona  and those from Zion's National Park as well. But a closer destination, for us at least, and every bit as beautiful, is the place that Jim visited, Bryce Canyon.

It's just 600 miles from where we live, which makes it, maybe not an afternoon drive, but certainly a doable few days trip.

Bryce is not really a canyon in a traditional sense, as it wasn't formed by the normal running river water process, but by millions of years of continual freezing and thawing temperatures and Mother Nature's sculpting.

The naturally acidic rainwater first worked on the limestone that was already deposited in a great basin there. Then after the freezing and thawing conditions greatly expanded the volume of the standing water, first into ice, and then followed that with a rapid melt, the remaining rock began to heave, crack and literally explode into those breathtaking white, pink, and coral rock formations, that are known in the scientific world as fins (ridges), windows and my favorite, the spindly hoodoos.

... Funny I think, that until Jim told us that those formations actually DO have a name, I really didn't know what to call the sculptures and spindly formations, that occur now and then ... basically because of the same process ... inside my freezer. 
... You know. Those brown, icy, hoodoos that occur sometime after I place one of my sodas in there  to get it cold FAST ... ... and then forget to take it out!

...BOOM!

♦ Hope you'll let me share YOUR stories and photos here at my residence "In a Nutshell." Email me at nutshellstories@gmail.com.