Click to start a slide show of Bryce Canyon, Utah pictures.

On September 11, 2001, we left on a trip to Bryce Canyon and Idaho. We had traveled only 15 minutes from home when we heard about the attack on the World Trade Center. We thought about turning around and heading home, but instead decided to continue our trip.

That night, we slept in a campground at Bryce Canyon, on an air mattress in the back of our van. I remember awakening in the middle of the night, wondering if the attack on the World Trade Center had merely been a dream. In the middle of the night, the attack seemed impossible and unimaginable. But the next morning brought back the realization that the world had, in fact, changed significantly on September 11.

Carolyn and I decided to hike down into Bryce Canyon, the same hike we had gone on two years earlier with Danish friends. Carolyn thinks that Bryce Canyon is the most beautiful area of the United States, and I tend to agree with her. Walking down into the Canyon, through the hoodoos, and then looking back up at the hoodoos, I felt a little better about life and the world.

When we live through horrible times, it helps to be in a beautiful place ... not because it allows us to forget the horror, but because it makes the horror tolerable. Events can be put into perspective. Bryce Canyon has existed for millions of years, and it will continue to exist for millions of years to come ... unless we allow our genetic insanity to destroy the entire planet.