QUARANTINE BLOG # 310

February 3, 2021

Today we visit Arches National Park, four miles north of Moab, Utah.  This look at another NP was inspired by KW and CJ’s Most Excellent Adventure of 2016.  

By way of introduction, KW is the Tasmanian devil (on the left) and CJ is the fox (on the right).  They are pictured stamping passports in Harper’s Ferry, Iowa.

In the photo below, they are seen with Mrs. Tour Guide, Cathy Sisler, and Mr. Tour Guide, Kyle Sisler at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Fargo, ND (from their 2015 MEA).

On their 2016 trip, the quartet hiked 1.56 miles into the park to take a look-see and visit the Delicate Arch, and then hike 1.56 miles out in 104 degree heat (with plenty of sunscreen and lots of water).

The story of Arches begins roughly 65 million years ago. At that time, the area was a dry seabed spreading from horizon to horizon. Eventually the seabed lowered, erosion set in and voila, there was Arches NP.  Looking at the Delicate Arch in KW and CJ’s picture, it is easy to forget that the park has been changing over the millennia, and still changing today.  On August 4, 2008, Wall Arch collapsed.  

Wall Arch had spanned a 71-foot gap in the rock since time immemorial.  It was already curving gracefully when the Egyptian pyramids were still under construction.  It stood defiantly while the mighty Roman Empire was collapsing an ocean away.  It was still holding strong when the Declaration of Independence was being signed in 1776.  And, most notably, it was still there on August 4 when everybody went to bed.  Erosion and gravity reign supreme over sandstone.  That was the night that nature wedged off one piece of rock or grain of sand too many.

Arches NP consists of almost 77,000 acres with more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches.  The area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was redesignated as a national park on November 12, 1971.  In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging Arches.  Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed (and you thought the fussing between Dems and Reps just started when Donald Trump was elected).

Here are some more formations.

Landscape Arch, the longest in the park and the fifth-longest in the world.

Double Arch.

Balanced Rock is one of only a few prominent features in the park visible from the road.  The total height of Balanced Rock is 128 feet, with the balancing rock rising 55 feet above the base. This rock is the largest of its kind in the park – it is the size of 3 school buses.  It is actually not balanced at all.  The rock boulder sits attached to its eroding pedestal.

👉  Here are a couple of more toys you may have had, played with, and no longer have, but wish you still did.

Monopoly was featured in QB 204, October 20, 2020 but I am revisiting it since I learned that creator Charles Darrow’s original hand-drawn version, made by in 1933, sold for $146,500.  Because Parker Brothers started printing 20,000 copies a week in 1935, that one of a kind Darrow piece was, well, one of a kind.  But in excellent shape, the 1935 set has sold between $300 and $900.  The most expensive Monopoly set ever made was encrusted with rubies and sapphires. It was put together by San Francisco jeweler Sidney Mobell in 1988. With solid gold houses and hotels, and diamonds in the dice for pips, this game was worth $2 million.

A big toy craze in the early 1980s was Cabbage Patch Kids.  Stores sold out.  Fist fights broke out over them.  One shopper found her car’s trunk broken open and a note placed where the Kid used to be: “I’ll return your doll for $1,000.  Otherwise your Cabbage Patch will become coleslaw.”  Collector prices are widely varied today.  An original 1983 Cabbage Patch Kid named Hetty Netty is on eBay for $899 ($20 for shipping, financing available).  Prices are all over the place, and as with any collectible, depend on the condition and the demand.

Pat and Joe Prosey own the largest Cabbage Patch collection in the world.  The Proseys’ collection, which is housed in a private, custom-built museum they call Magic Crystal Valley, is made up of about 3,000 pieces of Cabbage Patch  memorabilia, as well as around 5,000 Cabbage Patch dolls (though the couple refuses to call them “dolls,” opting instead to call them “kids,” and spelling out the “the D-Word” whenever they need to use it in their presence – like when people say “W-A-L-K” around a dog).  In 2015 they offered the whole collection for $360,000.  Evidently no one took them up on the offer, because on their website, the collection has been listed for sale again.

👉  Today’s close is by David Jeremiah

Rest in Jesus

“In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

When we don’t know how this is all going to work out, we have to hold tightly to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and rest in Him. That’s the message we often find in the New Testament.

In John 16:33, Jesus said to His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Jesus had been talking about His future death, but then He said, “Don’t get caught up in that. Make sure in the midst of these tumultuous times your trust is in Me.”

When we go through a tough time, if we’ve spent any time at all in the Word of God, that tough time is like a magnet that draws us to the Lord Jesus. Nothing will happen in the future that will catch Jesus Christ by surprise. And there’s nothing that will happen that He can’t help His children work through.

So rather than spending our time trying to figure out the nuances of what will happen, we should spend at least as much time getting to know Him better.

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