The MVP Duck Pond

I took Frodo for a walk in Monument Valley Park a few days ago, camera in hand. I specifically wanted to photograph the south duck pond because I noticed last year that it had been restored. This park has two ponds, the lower one of which went dry several years ago. It had once been a nice little body of water with an island in the middle, and it was home to waterfowl, fish, reptiles and amphibians before it slowly turned into a dusty and garbage filled eyesore. Monument Valley Park is large, stretching two miles/153 acres along Monument Creek, so even though the empty pond looked grim for far too long, the rest of the park was perfectly fine, including the other pond just to the north (although it too started to go downhill in recent years -- more on that later in the week).

Anyway, last fall I was doing some senior portraits in Monument Valley Park and noticed that the lower duck pond looked beautiful again. In fact, it looked better than it ever had! So I made it a point to go back at some point and get pictures, although it took me a few months because even though I frequent the park for walks, out of habit I would ignore this pond because it looked so wretched for so long. But no more! I'm so glad it looks lovely again. The above photo is looking southward toward downtown, and the bottom photo is looking northwest toward the mountains.