Utah in the Rearview Mirror
Utah may be only the 13th largest U.S. state by area, but within its borders we found diversity enough for an entire continent. Now that we’re leaving this remarkable place, we thought it fitting to spend a moment reflecting on what we saw here.
Impressionist Zion
The autumn colors that adorned Zion National Park’s rosy canyon walls looked to me like they were drawn from a great impressionist painting. In honor of that thought, I figured I’d try something new and show Zion as it might have been portrayed by Monet (or, more likely, one of Monet’s significantly less talented students). Original photos here, here and here.
Where Man’s Best Friend Finds a Friend of His Own
3,700,000
That’s approximately the number of animals euthanized in the United States each year.
They come to that end because of broken homes and busted dreams; because too few animals are spayed or neutered and because too many are deliberately bred; because their owners are completely out of options or simply out of patience.
It’s a shockingly high number. More than 10,000 every single day. For the most part those killings are conducted by shelters trying to free up room for the steady stream of new animals that come through their doors. The old, the sick and the unwanted are euthanized to give those animals more likely to be adopted a space and a shot. But the volume of new arrivals is so large that a typical shelter puts down 60% of the animals it receives.
If killing six in ten animals seems like a strange form of rescue to you, you’re not alone. Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, thinks so too.
Buckskin Gulch
Buckskin Gulch in southern Utah is the longest and deepest slot canyon in the southwest and quite possibly the longest in the world. It also happens to be the first slot canyon we had the opportunity to hike.