The long-prepared high school reunion trip to some of the American national parks started on September 17, 2004 and ended almost two weeks later on September 29. There were nine participants: the Wang brothers (Wang Juwei and Wang Julong, i.e.Stanley) and their wives, Wang Qinghua, Zhu Junlong and his wife and Chen Wenru and her husband. The overall architect of the tour was Stanley who had put in a lot of time and energy, drafting plans and providing maps and other reference material.

Altogether we covered nine national parks and monuments, saw many natural wonders such as arches, natural bridges, ‘windows’, mesa tops, ruins of Indian pueblos, etc. and drove through large uninhabited areas, sometimes for hours without seeing a single soul. Most of the breathtaking scenes we saw are in New Mexico and Utah but we have also been to a Four Corners Point which actually touches four states including Colorado and Arizona plus the two states mentioned above.

Some of us ranked the scenes we had been to in terms of majesty and grandeur in the following order: the Delicate Arch, Mesa Verde, Muley Point, Sky City, Natural Bridges, ect. Few words could describe the stunning scenic beauty we came into. It was an amazing experience. Stanley has put the pictures he has taken on the Shi Xi web site and you will be able to have a glimpse of what we have been through.

The Delicate Arch is one of the arches in the Arches National Park. Most of us went up a comparatively easy trail to the Landscape Arch and then stopped at an overlook point to watch from a distance the Delicate Arch. But Stanley, Meili and Qinghua went on to take a rugged climb to the other side so that they could watch sunset through the Arch. According to Qinghua, the Arch, shaped like a horseshoe, is “sitting” on a “big bowl” whose circumference runs 1000 meters and which is around 100 meters deep. It is virtually impossible to catch both the “bowl” and the Arch in a picture. So the only way to have a good look is to get to it and be there.

Mesa Verde in Colorado is Indian ruins (of the Ancestral Pueblo) once inhabited for 700 years before being deserted around AD 1100-1300 where we saw the “Cliff Palace”, the “Balcony House”, the Sun Temple, etc.

We learned about the majestic beauty of Muley Point from two fellow tourists who also stayed at Roger’s House, the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at in Blanding, Utah. The couple came from Belgium and they were so obsessed with the scenery here that they would come back from time to time (or every year?). As the dirt road is not well marked on the map, we later got their word further confirmed by Mr. and Mrs. Black (owner of Roger’s House). The trip there proved to be well rewarded. No words could portray the panoramic yet varying scenes we saw. And beneath there are still vast unexplored and even inaccessible areas. It has not achieved the status of a national park, not yet. But we ranked it No. 3.

The Sky City is actually ruins of a once well-developed matriarchal society. The Indians had built their pueblo (village) on the top of a mesa (small high plateau with steep sides). The place is now abandoned. But people (Indians) still come back to stay 10 days a year, observing ceremonial duties.

Qinghua had the strongest physical build-up of all. At the Natural Bridge Sipapu, he and the Wang brothers went down the cliff to the bridge and then came up. It was a rough climb, quite steep, taking them about fifteen minutes to get down and another ten minutes to come up. They had their pulses taken immediately after they came up. Wang Qinghua had the lowest pulse - 120 - after he came up which returned to 88 five minutes later. Wang Juwei had a pulse of 136 and did not lower to 70 until half an hour later. Stanley had a pulse over 150 after the climb but returned to normal in less time than his elder brother.

The guys took turns to sit behind the steering wheel. The ladies helped with preparation of lunch sandwiches and evening coffees, and, occasionally, a home-cooked meal. Basically we stayed in hotels. But in a small city called Blanding we stayed at Roger’s House, a Bed & Breakfast which was run by a couple and had a kind of family atmosphere. There we gathered in the kitchen or in the living room in the evening and saw movies on a computer: Baraka (a movie without narrative or dialogues), Winged Migration (about migrating birds) and The Great Waltz (about Johan Strauss). We sipped coffee and reminisced about the ‘happy old days’ and felt as if we were back in the teenage time.

As most of us had departing flights on September 29, we said goodbye to each other on the 28^th which day was the mid-autumn moon festival. Junlong told us it was also his birthday on the lunar calendar. So we had a sumptuous dinner in a very good Chinese restaurant named Hong Kong Tea House. Two days before, we had had a send-off party in honor of Meili (Mrs. Wang Julong, who departed two days earlier than the rest of us). Almost in every town and city we visited, no matter how small the place was, Chinese restaurants could be found. And we preferred to patronize those as the food there was not only more tasteful but also less expensive.

From Salt Lake City where we departed, Stanley and Qinghua would go on driving to Reno, San Francisco and then Los Angeles where Stanley would drop Qinghua and then go back alone to New York.