The midnight light of a full moon illuminates the Mittens against a speckled sky of stars.

After a long eight hour drive from Salt Lake City to Monument Valley, I remembered first being greeted by a friendly stray border collie as I opened my car door in front of The View Hotel.  A few minutes after settling in we made our way to the back patio, which opened to this iconic scene.  The clock was approaching midnight as I stared out across the archetypal view of the American Southwest, immortalized both in film and as a significant part of US history.  I thought about a bygone era of cowboys, Native Americans, cattle ranchers, and all those who have set their eyes upon these buttes decades ago.  Did they view the Mittens as beautiful beacons of hope for a better life or monstrous manifestations of desert desolation?  To me it was the later, but as the full moon cast its light across the landscape still dark enough to reveal an endless sky of stars I found an alluring solitude.