Note that almost all of these photos are full crop on either the horizontal or vertical direction. I have cropped to different aspect rations on some but my point is that I am confident that the horizontal shots will print well to 6′ and possibly double that.
I have spent much more time around mountains, forests and beaches than I have in this type of scenery so sorry in advance that this post will have a LOT of sere land shots 
My first target was The Painted Desert National Park / The Petrified Forest National Park. I’m not old enough to get the amazing Senior National Parks pass but even the America The Beautiful annual pass is a fantastic deal. On this trip alone I was in 5 national parks.
Overall it was just really nice how well these parks are maintained. Everything clean, the roads nice, even the people didn’t litter that I could see. I was on a kind of large scale mission without enough time to really slow down and hike around but there was a great variety of amazing views.
(click on a photo in the gallery below to enlarge it)
The other thing I liked was how many ravens were around. Where I live it is rare to see one though I do from time to time. Ravens are quite smart of course but the other thing I never realized is that not only can you find some by just listening to their distinctive croak but also by the beat of their wings. I had never read about it but I found the sound of ravens’ wings to be very distinctive.
I really enjoyed a chance to try some high key shots of them and I am pleased with some of the results.
