This Pano was taken at Grand View Point in the Islands in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park. I shot this video a couple of years ago, but not until recently have I done anything with it. I used Adobe Premiere Elements to process the clip. It’s Western themed soundtrack, Prairie Dust,  is some of the canned music that comes with this software.

After uploading the movie to YouTube, I took a break from blogging and threw a leg over my titanium steed and went for a ride in the park. What a difference a day makes. The season had changed like someone flipped a light switch. I didn’t need any ice in my water bottle. Even though I had layered up it was still brisk, I could have used more layers and the northwest wind screamed like a banshee.

I am writing this while sitting in the waiting room at the Toyota dealership. The Prius isn’t feeling well. Several times over the past week, it refused to start. A little persistence eventually got it going, but… The car has over 100K on it and is now eight years old. I suspect it is the battery. Not the big battery, but the regular car battery that the machine uses for everything besides locomotion. We have been surviving for almost a year now on just one car, ever since Anne’s car executed its DNR order and was offloaded onto NPR. We’ve made do with just one car, but when that one car shows signs of age, it might be time to upgrade.

I would be happy with another Prius. Until now its reliability has been quite exemplary. Especially, when you consider that it was a Fukushima car that we bought when it fell off the truck. Even though gas prices have started to creep up again, Anne is looking for something a little more robust, as in off-road worthy. I think that I precipitated this opinion this last summer, by passing up one too many scenic turnoffs by saying that that turnoff doesn’t look very Prius friendly.

Canyonlands’ Shafer Canyon Road

Well they didn’t. Now I’m not saying that even with a more robust vehicle that we would go out and tackle the likes of Canyonlands’ Shafer Canyon Road. We helped a family fix a flat that they got on their big ass SUV, after trying to drive that road. Besides, I’m skittish about heights. Still, it would be nice to pull off the black top and park by the side of the road. To this end, we are planning on going to this winter’s annual car show, where with keeping all of our options open, we can go new car shopping. It should be fun. It will be an adventure.