Arches
Arches National Park, in north of Moab, Utah, was was an important feature of my earlier life. I first visited it in 1962 (when it was only a National Monument), it was the goal of a road trip in the mid '70s (during which I confused Joseph Wood Krutch and Edward Abbey), in the early '80s I camped there one New Year's Eve, and in the early '90s I took my then girlfriend there. I probably haven't been there in thirty years, but what my memories lack in detail is offset by their vividness. As Ed Abbey said, "This is the most beautiful place in the world. There are many such places." As beautiful as these natural arches are, those are not the arches I want to talk about here. I mean architectural arches. Any solid structure that encloses space and prevents things like rain falling from the sky, or heat rising up into the sky requires something special: history investigates when and where these innovations appeared. Lean-tos are prehistoric. Ancient Egyptians...