The Colorado River’s extensive route takes it from the peaks of the Colorado Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Part of that route, only about 5%, is a scenic journey through the 277-mile long Grand Canyon in Arizona.

These four arches are a small sample of the many sculptured rock formations in Utah’s Arches National Park. In fact, people who count the arches in the park say there are 2,000 of them ranging in width from three feet to 306 feet. The state of the arches is changing all the time, with new ones being formed by ice, water and other environmental factors while others crumble away. Although it is still strong and not crumbling, the first in this series is named for the large crack at the center of the arch.

                                                                  Broken Arch

                                                                 Skyline Arch

                                                                   Windows Arch

                                                                     Pine Tree Arch

The badlands of South Dakota form a vast protected wilderness today. However, paleontological evidence shows that ancient Native Americans used the area as their hunting grounds, as did the tribes of the Sioux Nation in later years. The stratified layers of sedimentary rock show the changes over eons in the earth’s surface, which first emerged from under the sea as tropical land and then slowly changed to open woodland. Gray bands show evidence of volcanic eruptions at certain times in history. Geologists now have a good idea of what each layer represents, and there are many strata!