Day 12 - Arches National Park

Day 12 (June 6) -- Well, when we awoke it was beautiful to see Moab, Utah.  It is a small outdoor adventure community which does not allow any big-box stores (no Walmarts for us until Las Vegas!).  We did have to stop and buy a new mallet for our tent stakes because the rubber one was ground to a pulp by our groundhog stakes (they are a "Y" stake which will really hold in the ground, but are murder on mallets). 

So, after we got showered and ready for the day we hit a Burger King and then drove a few miles out of town to Arches National Park.  This park has the many famous natural arches made of sandstone which has eroded.  We were really looking forward to doing some hiking in the park, even though it was 90+ degrees and a desert.  I think we all drank at least a gallon of water that day!

Interesting Rock Formations in Arches

Delicate Arch (zoomed in from viewpoint)

Boys sitting on rocks on trail back from Landscape Arch

Kids in Front of Delicate Arch viewpoint

Hidden Arch

Daniel taking our picture

Landscape Arch

We drove to some of the viewing points and stopped first at the North and South Windows Arches.  We hiked over to one and then over to the second arch.  After that short hike we saw a few of the other arches from the road and then hiked to a viewpoint for Delicate Arch (to actually hike up to it was 3.3 miles and we didn't want to commit to that long of a hike because we were still on a bit of a schedule.  At some point we decided that we couldn't keep hiking and make it all the way to Bryce Canyon that night (a 4 hour drive).  So, I called and made reservations for a cabin in Torrey, UT which was about half way to Bryce.  That way we could hike for a few more hours and then drive.

At the end of the driving loop was a 1.4 mile hike to Landscape Arch.  That was a nice hike at the beginning because you are walking between giant sandstone cliffs which shaded you.  Then you had to hike through soft sand which was a pain (at least for most of us -- Daniel liked hiking in the soft sand). 

After seeing the park we headed past White Sands Missile Defense and down the scenic road to Torrey, UT.  I'm not sure what was so scenic about that road.  We nicknamed it "Dirt Clod State Park" because there were these giant mounds of grey dirt on the sides of the road for miles.  I think they were natural formations, but they were very strange looking (almost like a giant dirt bike track).  Otherwise it was deserted. 

Everyone in front of Landscape Arch

Capitol Reef Rock Formations (see the colors)

David at Capitol Reef

However, after you get through all of the dirt clods you get to Capitol Reef National Park.  This was another park I'd never heard of (even though I lived in Utah for 4 years).  This was actually a lot of pretty rock formations right off the main road.  The visitor's center was closed when we went through, but we got some great sunset pictures of the formations.  We decided to go back to the visitor's center the following day to at least get a stamp in our passports (those National Parks Passports books that we all have).

Sunset over Capitol Reef

The RV park we stayed at was very nice and our "cabin" was actually a converted RV.  David and I had a separate bedroom in the back and the girls had a loft which had about 4 ft of head-space (about 2 ft above their mattress set which was on the floor of the loft).  The boys slept on a pull-out couch, but they had a TV in the main room, so it made up for the less than ideal accommodations.  They watched an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents while we did some laundry since our RV was located right next to the laundry room.  They also had a nice gift shop there and we were able to get the boys some Capitol Reef t-shirts, along with one for me (David got one from Rocky Mountain National Park that says "I made it to the top").