In brief, these posts serve to introduce new readers — and reintroduce regular readers — to photos from the early days of this blog and, occasionally, to photos from days before this blog came into existence.

Although Colorado has amazing scenery, Utah gives it more than a run for the money. .

Today, I review a trip we took in 2006 that included Mesa Verde National Monument, Utah’s Arches National Park, back to Colorado’s National Monument, through Independence Pass, and back home.

The original post for these photos is HERE. In this post, I’m sharing the 157 photos from THIS Gallery.

Note: some are shared as large files so that interested readers can click and zoom in. Be patient since I don’t know how fast theyll load.

In the middle of 2006, I was still recuperating from 26 years of automotive-related work (I rejoined the workforce in September of that year), but Melisa had a part-time job at Williams-Sonoma.  Because of her odd hours and erratic work schedule, we didn’t have many travel opportunities.

But then she had a break on her schedule . . . a whole weekend off.

Eight years ago, November 30th, my back yard in Monument, Colorado . . . 

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Yes, some of you have seen these photos before . . . but not with these treatments. 

Click on the photos to see a larger version in a new tab or window. Click HERE for the SmugMug Gallery.

This will be a shorter post than most. Ain’t gotz an abundance of words this evening.

Here’s another treatment of the above . . . 

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So, that was 2008 . . . this is the same day — today —2016. 

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I wasn’t feeling 100% this afternoon, so we skipped the gym. Went to sit along a popular shoreline.