Bridge View Drive is a 9 mile loop in the Natural Bridges National Monument that leads to overlooks and trailheads to all three natural bridges found in the park's boundaries. The photo opportunities from the overlooks were not real good, so I did not get any pictures of Sipapu or Kachina Bridge. However, despite my knee, we could not resist hiking the easiest of the three trails to Owachomo Bridge to get a close-up view of at least one of these natural wonders.

The trail to Owachomo Bridge is .6 miles long, and drops 180 feet to the bridge. Owachomo is the smallest, but oldest of the three bridges, and it is no longer being eroded by a stream. It stands 106 feet above the dry streambed, with a span of 180 feet. But just like natural arches, the rain, frost, and ice still cause chunks of rock to fall from the underside, and has thinned the span of the bridge to only 9 feet thick.

The most ambitious of my mosaic experiments is shown here. I worked to solve the alignment problems of the 5 images in this mosaic, but the distortion problems and especially the color problems were ignored and are still obvious. But it was still interesting enough to include the experiment on this page. This image is bigger than most of the others on these pages (1600 x 576, and 87K bytes), so be prepared if you decide to click on this thumbnail.

An 8.2 mile loop trail connects all three bridges, which is a hike that Beth and I will probably attempt on a future trip to the area.

Well, for all practical purposes, our vacation had come to an end. We still had to find our way back to Tucson, but the sightseeing and hiking was over for this trip. We visited 7 National Parks or Monuments, as well as other spectacular nature displays. As our Miata sits below one of the huge sandstone cliffs in the area, we are left to wonder how many changes will take place to the beautiful scenery in all of these parks and monuments before we return for another visit. But we will return, and I'm sure nature and it's persistent sculpting of the landscape will still manage to create humbling and awe-inspiring works of beauty that will always beckon us back again.