LONGWORD

There is a place waiting for everyone, which when you get there, you realize that you have always wanted to be there. This book invites you on a journey, lends a hand, and then helps you get a feel for the rhythm of the Earth’s history as seen in the giant geological museum of the Southwest.

I recommend this book to all who take pleasure in beauty, in the touch of sandstone, the view if sun setting over the desert’s landscapes shaped by water, wind, and frost.

For you who, either by your own choice or because of the wisdom, enterprise, and courage of your ancestors can call North America home; I dedicate this book to you because you will understand my attachment to a place where the soul soars free like the bald eagle. I trust that I can write something about the landscape or the hiking trails you love that you will find interesting or that will bring back pleasant memories.

And for you, who are just passing through with me, I intend to help you plan the great journey of your life.

It doesn’t matter if you stop for a breather on the trail more often because of the years you’ve left behind, or if you’re a young person at the height of your powers, passing us by, not slowed by the weight of your backpack or the steepness of the path.

This 384-page work, which has all the hallmarks of a guidebook, showcases the best natural wonders of the geographical unit once known as the Wild West. Just as the national parks are well-organized homes to unique geographical and cultural formations, the short stories are structured around information about these places.

These short stories are realistic, but often astonishing or even thought-provoking, and provide a glimpse of what a visitor can see and experience in this open exhibition hall of geological wonders.

The work is the first in a 3-part series taking you to sites within the Grand Circle. Dozens of parks are presented, with photographs and maps by the author providing a practical guide to the impossible task of taking in the beauty of the region, glimpsing the lives of the people who live there, making a home for 2-3 weeks in places where we have always longed to be, but where we are—and remain—mere guests.

The book takes the events of over 2 dozen trips and turns them into one big voyage. The starting point is Las Vegas, the adults’ playground. It takes the reader from first superficial impressions to a coherent overall picture, giving the reader a glimpse into a world very different from the national parks.

With our backs now turned to the cougars of Boulder City, our faces are tanned by the sun’s glow from the Arizona sky, the Sun King holding court over the Grand Canyon. Then on to the mother of all roads. Route 66 winds beneath our wheels to complete the circle and give us time to take in the man-made wonders.

The people who first came here were perhaps heroes or tenacious, skilled, or merely enthusiastic leaders, or just simply determined. They made their way into the unknown, then built dams, erected fairytale cities, protected and preserved their history and natural treasures—and finally helped us (the guests) to experience all this wonder This book is a tribute to the sacrifices, the examples, and the work of these great men and women.

Every day, most of us search for the path that leads to beauty.

Consciously or simply based on our values and desires, we strive to notice, see, and appreciate all that holds the promise of beauty. Once we have found it, we seek to become part of it and to share it with others.

At sixty, this book could be an autobiography, but that is only partly of what it encompasses. The author’s identity, or even the place or date of his birth, is in fact irrelevant. But the journey he has taken is far more important, and yet it is dwarfed by nature’s values that amaze, enchant, and define a life-long journey of unmistakable beauty.In the introduction, the author uses souvenir photographs from past decades to show where a hiking trail in one of the Garand Circle’s national parks actually begins. The answer to where our own journeys begin lies in the genes we carry within us, the values we hold, and the recognition that the world can be known if we have the desire, determination, and dedication to know it.

The inner arc of the book is an imaginary circle drawn around the meeting point of (Nevada), Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The timeline is essentially marked by the stories of my journeys between 1997 and 2022. The grey daily routine of our fast-paced world allows few to recognize the fact that in our ever-changing world, we are witnesses of change— of history.

Notable eras in the Earth’s history can be traced in the parks of the Colorado Plateau, a unique landscape of forms that for centuries has offered humanity both challenges and a seemingly inexhaustible source of close-up experiences with nature.

Just as the hundreds of beautiful photographs of the parks provide a backdrop to the almost indescribable wonders of this journey, the stories in this book prove that those who don’t hesitate to put on their hiking boots can witness the rise and fall of human destinies as they ride the train of life. Our common memories and values bind us together even when we are separated by a continent. Readers and writers alike can turn the pages of this book and recall the aching muscles of traversing a hot, dusty trail and the wonder of the images, smells, and moods of what was once known as the Wild West.

These jewels of our known world pave the way to beauty, part of a proud nation’s repository of history and natural treasures. It is in following this path that this book offers the open-minded reader a hand, a companion, and a guide.

Back in the happy, peaceful years before the turn of the millennium, a young Hungarian engineer came to the US for work. It was only a matter of hours before he realized his desire to see and experience as much as possible of the beauty of what was once known as the New World. For the twenty years since then, he has returned annually to explore North America’s most beautiful national parks and share his experiences with as many of his fellow countrymen as possible. He still feels a special fascination when he travels to the former WILD WEST states, where he is surrounded by the diverse landscape, the peace of the desert, the silence of the canyons, and, above all, the friendship of the people who live there. These are the moments when he experiences the joy of coming home, even if his homeland is thousands of miles away. This book takes the reader to the exciting, awe-inspiring world of plateaus and canyons, to the land of stone arches and bridges, endless forests, deserts, soaring mountain peaks, thundering waterfalls and rushing rivers showing the most beautiful jewels of our world and opening the door for the reader to realize

how wonderful our world is.