Arches National Park

We woke up yesterday morning still not ready for the long drive to Arizona for Thanksgiving. We're thinking we may not even go, so we're thinking up alternate plans. Rocky Mountain National Park came up, Aspen was mentioned, as well as Durango, but those are all cold places right now so I check out the weather and notice it's seventy degrees in Moab, UT. We decided immediately to go to Arches National Park for the day and were out the door in twenty minutes, and on red soil in three hours.


Did I say soil? I'm not actually sure if the boys' soles actually touched soil, there were too many rocks and other cool structures to walk on to waste their time on mere dirt.






The boys ran this whole trail out to the arch, while Jewel would stop every hundred yards or so and build a small mound out of the soft sand and poke a stick through the top. On the way back the boys would trample down the mounds, and Jewel would do quick rebuilds.



Arches may have their balancing rocks.

But we've got a balancing Jake.



This view shows the many different terrains in the park. There's the labyrinth of caverns to the left, petrified dunes straight ahead, along with some green dirt, more pinnacles and the LaSal Mountains in the background. So much more than just arches.

This was named Park Avenue because it resembled the high rises in NYC.

Then that must be Central Park the boys are running through.


The setting sun produces the prettiest glow.




We spent a fabulous day in the park and I couldn't convince Joey to go on one more hike so it was time to say goodnight to Arches.


We were hungry and tired so we went into Moab for supper and also ended up getting a room. A nice, BIG, hot bath was the perfect ending to another well exhausted, yet exhilarated, day.

We planned on either going back to the park the next day or driving some 4x4 trails but when we woke up we felt ready to head to Arizona so we came back to a messy bus and loads of laundry in order to pack. Laundry done, buss kinda cleaned, we're leaving for Arizona in the morning.