Between Moab, Utah and Four Corners the land goes through many subtle changes. It dips and curves around red bluffs, then straightens out, flattens out and goes from red to orange to sandy-light formations, mostly mesas. You look up at them for a while till the road climbs to a long plateau and the formations are down below...over and over. The land itself can be dry desert grass, rabbit brush, sage and pinon or juniper trees; then there are no trees at all, even no grass and the red soil is lit bright orange by the sun. Along the often dry riverbeds, there are cottonwood trees for a refreshing touch of green. Sometimes the sky is black but one butte, formation or rocky mesa is brilliantly lit. Formations go from sheer red bluffs to hard crusted sand hills to cow-flop-plop looking piles of rock. It can be striking if one pays attention. In the distance is the blue shape of Sleeping Ute Mountain. It is said that the sleeping Ute will one day wake up and drive the white man from this land.
There are diversions, of course. Newspaper Rock is one of them, some of the best petroglyphs I've seen. They are supposed to depict about 2000 years of Native American life though I don't know how they determine the age. There are a couple dated entries, 1906 and 1943, scratched on by more recent people who also wanted to record their existence.
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