Arches and Canyonlands

After doing laundry on Wednesday we came home and hunkered down waiting out the storm. The dust was incredible! Rod took this picture so we could get a before and after view. You can't even see the mountains in the distance.


This is what it's supposed to look like.


Thursday Howard and Linda had to work at their camphosting job so we picked up some pizzas and salad and headed up to their place in Arches. On the way up we decided to stop at the trail that goes up to Delicate Arch. We had done it last year and knew it was just a quick hike up to it. Well, we got on the wrong trail. We were about halfway in when we realized this wasn't the same trail. This one was 3 miles long and went right up to the arch. The other one is only a mile and you see the arch in the distance. We knew we didn't have time to do this hike with pizzas still in the truck so we came back down. I think we'll need to come back to this park again next year because we really want to do that hike and some other hikes in the park also.

We saw these guys while we were driving up. Unbelievable!!


We also stopped to look at some Ute Indian petroglyphs


The pizza


Rod is digging into the salad first


We left before it got dark this time and it was incredibly beautiful driving down the park road during the sunset.


Today we joined everybody at Brad & Suzanne's trailer where Brad had prepared breakfast tacos. YUMMY!! We had such a good time visiting with everybody while we were here in Moab. We sat around for awhile but Howard and Linda really had to leave because there was a missing hiker in the park and they wanted to help out with that. He had been missing since the night before. When we left he still hadn't been located.

Howard and Linda heading off to work


Our plan for the day was to go to Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky. We said our good-byes to Howard & Linda and Brad & Suzanne and headed out that way. It's 18 miles down to the gate at Arches and then another 30 or so miles to the entrance to Canyonlands. The scenery is absolutely amazing. Huge rock formations are everywhere.



We got to Canyonlands and all I have to say is WOW!! It's unbelievably beautiful. It reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon but on a much smaller scale. Some of the places Rod couldn't go to the edge because his legs got wobbly looking down the shear cliffs. This is Mesa Arch which sits right on the edge of the cliff.


Heights don't bother me...


This was taken from under the arch


Even this little guy wasn't scared


Tomorrow we're headed out of here to Salt Lake City for a month to visit family. I'll leave you with some more amazing pictures from Canyonlands, Island in the Sky.