See the photos from Day 16 by clicking HERE.Get this. Today we got up at 5:30 a.m. to leave by 7 for Arches National Park in Moab, Utah to arrive by 10. We planned to leave there by 2 p.m. to head back to the Magill's in Fraser, Colorado. We were on schedule to make it there by 6 p.m., but we hit the craziest traffic ever about 60 miles outside of Denver - a sign said it would take 3 1/2 hours to get there! We ended up arriving about 7:15 p.m. after about 12 hours in the car. By the time we reached our Fraser residence, we had amassed 5,280 total miles driven since June 21. And we aren't done yet!
Arches, as the name quite obviously suggests, has many spectacular sandstone arched rock formations for your viewing pleasure. It was 96 degrees in Moab's desert today, which made hiking to some of the arches a rather sweaty experience. Let's just say that no amount of Botox could curb the arid desert drippage. Vampires, such as myself, with our pasty white skin, should have applied SPF 904, but failed to do so thinking, "We'll just take a few photos of some rocks. No big deal." There is no pain yet, but I'm waiting patiently.
The most photographed/famous arch in the world, Delicate Arch, can be viewed one of two ways. You can either embark upon a three hour tour like a desert style Gilligan or, you can choose one of two lazy ways, which we did. One is a 100 yard walk from the edge of the parking lot down a path to a fenced area, basically a corral, to see the arch from about 1 1/2 miles away. The other is a 1/2 mile hike, the route we chose, over a field of flaming hot coals, while skipping through a ring of fire and finally frolicking inside of a bakery oven. Oh, and the incline of the elevation is about 600 feet, which is only 36 feet lower than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis in the dry desert air. Put simply, it was less fun than a 5 year-old's tee ball game. Great photo ops though.
On the other hand, some of the arches were relatively close to the parking lots - within 1/4 mile or so. However, it's a lot like Vegas. You know, "The Bellagio is right there, so let's walk. It's not that far." Two miles and 147 foot blisters later, you collapse into the world famous fountains at the precise moment the show begins. Same thing for arches -they are farther than they appear.
The other problem was humanity. Humanity by the busload. Humanity selfishly taking their own sweet time while others wait for a parking space to enjoy the views or releasing their busloads in the middle of the lot as opposed to the unloading zone, thus blocking cars until every last jerkface disembarks. Humanity screaming at the top of their lungs just for the sake of screaming. Humanity climbing around on natural wonders like it's their backyard jungle gym. Humanity ignoring the clearly posted signs to stay on the trails and not trample the desert plants. Humanity not keeping an eye on their offspring (no instructional signs about that here). Basically, humanity being humanity. Sometimes, I really hate humanity.
Anyway...
Water is an absolute necessity in the desert and mass quantities of it, which seems only to be forced from the sweat glands mere seconds later. Once you got past the fact that you were sweating like a warthog in the Sahara sand, Arches was a pretty amazing place. How do these things form? Why are they here? It's just awesome. That being said, see the photos HERE and enjoy.
Next stop: Day 17 at Rocky Mountain National Park and then back to the STL.
1 comment:
You have quite the thing for dead trees - have you noticed that. I will pychoanalyze later. . .
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