Friday, October 29, 2004

Moab Photo Gallery

I finished labeling my Moab, Utah pictures. It is strange that I would go into a desert paradise and spend half a day taking pictures of a town. The town is no where near the scenic quality of the surrounding area. However, my concern is the way that we humans interact with our nature.

I recall Edward Abbey correctly describing Moab as the ugliest town in the most beautiful section of earth. For that matter, my early visits to Moab struck me with the complete and absolute lack of aesthetics that dominates the Utah mind.

Fortunately, as the town evolves from a backwater Utah community to a resort town, more and more people are starting to realize the unique character of the desert. Will enough people realize just what we have before we destroy it? The Republican Party in Utah is doing every single thing its corrupt power to destroy everything that is beautiful in the US. Republicans were once the conservationists. Why have they allowed the Bushes of the world turn their party into the wonton destroyers of the world?????

Anyway, back to Moab. As the town turns into a resort area and millions of tourists drop hundreds of millions of dollars in the area, a minority of the population is starting to realize what a unique thing they have. Will this be enough to save the desert. Tourist themselves trample the land. For example we see people into extreme sports really tearing the place up. Moab has yet to sprawl like Park City, Sun Valley and other resort areas. Will this region take the route and centralize or will the pressures for development destroy its unique characteristics?

Living in Utah, where the dominant mindset is to develop at all costs, I felt a hint of optimism as I wandered through the trail system surrounding Moab. There is both awareness and effort.

Here is a picture of an elephant pushing over Delicate Arch that is displayed on the Utah GOP web page: Will we trample this earth?

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