Welcome to Ann Torrence photography - U.S. Highway 89, landscape, nature, people from Utah, the west, rural western U.S., national parks and international locations. Ann is writer of photography tips and and travel stories and essays. Photographer of U.S. 89: Character of the American West

Imagine a full moon rising over the Painted Desert one December afternoon, nearly 1,000 years ago when the youngest member of the San Francisco Peaks, Sunset Crater, was a smoking cinder cone. Several thousand Sinaguan people lived within a days walk in pueblos scattered across the juniper and sage mesa. Strangers journeyed many days to learn the meaning of the plume, which would have been visible from the mountains of Durango Colorado to Palm Springs, California.