It was worth it

We didn't know when we got up at 5 a.m. and drove for an hour and hiked with flashlights for half-a-mile more that we would run into 20 people already set up for the sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands.

And we didn't know that it would be a space so small that only the early few would get the prime shots as the sun would light the underside of the arch and the canyons and rock formations in the valley below.

Or that people from Norway and Japan, India and Texas would be vying for the shots past rows of photographers who'd set up tripods already an hour before and that by sunrise there would be more than dozens, there would be hundreds.

But we had our muffins and orange juice and could last all the way until the others had gotten their shots.

And it was worth it.