Vacation Day 7: Arches National Park

I found myself in the middle of an interesting emotional dilemma. 1. My twin babies had miscarried at 11 weeks the day before. 2. I was in the middle of Arches National Park. This was the where Brandon and I had originally planned to go on our vacation this year. We'd decided to expand it into our epic road trip through Southern Utah, but Arches was something that we both wanted to see. I had a choice. I could either stay in my tent all day and be sad, or I could get up and have a great time exploring the park with my husband. I don't know what you would have chosen, but I chose to get up and have a fun day.

The first thing we did was go on a hike from our campsite. Months before, when we made our reservations we had decided to stay in the Devils Garden Campground for two nights. We figured we would be sick of packing up our tent every day. Thank goodness we decided to do that, because we were not in the mood to pack up and leave. So we cleaned up the campsite and headed out to see some arches.
We passed Tapestry Arch and went on a quick detour to go stand under it.
Then the trail took us under Broken Arch. It only looks broken. It is really intact.
And finally we headed into the secluded area that houses Sand Dune Arch.
Brandon had never been to Sand Dune Arch and he enjoyed hiking the short path through the fins.
Then we were there. I told Brandon he wasn't truly part of the Loveless Family until he had been to Sand Dune Arch. I have so many great memories of playing in the deep sand as a kid.
Brandon and I sat in the cold sand and dug small holes. We ate Butterscotch pudding which happened to be almost the same color as the sand. I told Brandon about my dad digging deep holes that would fit us kids and then burying us in them when I was seven. I also told Brandon about another trip to Arches with my Aunt Vera when I was 14. Us kids figured out how to climb on top of the arch.
We stayed and played around in that area for a while. Then we hiked back to the campground.
Our jeep and tent are in the middle of this picture. This is what we could see from the trail.
We got back to camp and drove over to the Devil's Garden hiking area. We hiked and saw Tunnel Arch.
And Pine Tree Arch. Brandon remembers this arch from when he was a kid and came to Arches.
And finally Landscape Arch. Both of us had heard rumors that this arch had completely fallen down. It hadn't, but back in 1991, when both of us came to Arches as kids, a huge slab had fallen. The thinnest point is only 6 feet thick, but it's still standing. This is partition arch. We could have hiked closer to it, but the trail got kind of crazy and neither of us were up for an intense hike.
We hiked back to the parking area and came up with one of our best jokes ever. We made up a parody of This Old House called "This Old Dwelling" It's hosted by Bob Kiva and he shows off an old Pueblo that was being reconstructed by ancient Indians. Jokes include, "we used to live in this dwelling 50 years ago, but the herds moved on. Now their back and so are we. We are trying to fix this place up. In the past 50 years we've learned some new construction techniques." The parody includes lots of sayings like, "this is going to cost a little bit for per square foot, but it will hold up for a lot longer" and other common This Old House sayings. We laughed the whole way down the trail.
This is a common sign in Arches. It talks about how the soil crust is alive and so you should be careful where you step. I love the little drawing. It is understandable in any language. Speaking of language, Southern Utah is full of foreign people this time of year. I think Brandon spoke more French to other people then he did English. (He even was told to apply as a tour guide for one company) It was fun to say hi to other hikers and then try to guess what country they were from.
We drove over to the Window Area and hiked to North and South Windows. Here is a picture of both of them. I think they look like eyes with a big nose between them.
This is Turret Arch.
This is a cave that we think was used in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade.
And here is Double Arch which we know was filmed in that movie.
We were able to hike right up under most of the Arches (except Landscape with is considered too unstable.)
We went on a quick walk around Balanced Rock.
Here is Park Avenue. We didn't hike down this because we didn't want to hike back up. Still it was pretty just to look at.
And here are the three gossips. (When I was little I was told these were the Three Wise Men. I think that is a better name.)
Skyline Arch. As a kid I LOVED this arch. I don't know why, but it fascinated me. I was so happy to see it again.
After our long day of hiking we went back to camp and made taco salad. It was so nice to have fresh lettuce and tomatoes.
And it was really nice that we didn't have to set up the tent. It was waiting for us.
Here is what we called "The Jeep Commercial" Our jeep worked great the entire trip. It is such a good car to us. It was our first baby and we love it.
We burned up the last of our wood and made s'mores. For some reason I can only eat one s'more before I get sick. This isn't pregnancy related either. It has been going on for years. So Brandon makes like 5 s'mores and I spend all my time making one perfect s'more. It works out.

I bought Brandon this hatchet for Christmas and he uses it every chance he gets. We played a game called Commercials. (Actually we made it up) one person names something that the other person has to make up an advertisement for. The ultimate one of the night was when Brandon told me to make a commercial for an RV. I immediatly said, "Is your life not inconvenient enough? Buy an RV." Brandon then chimed in with, "Is navigating a parking lot just not the challenge it used to be? Buy an RV." We laughed and laughed.
We paid $20 a night to stay at the Devils Garden Campground. We got hot and cold running water, and totally cool scenery. In my opionon it was worth it. We went to bed much happier than we had the night before.

Vacation Day 6: Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands

We slept really well in Moab. At one point we woke up to rain falling on our tent, but when we got up a few hours later everything was dry. We took extra long showers since we would be heading into the desert for the next few days. Then we packed up everything and drove into Moab. We went grocery shopping and bought fresh vegetables for taco salad that night. We were getting a little sick of all the canned and boxed food we'd been eating.

This is the day the babies miscarried. Consequently we only took 24 pictures this day instead of the usual 100+. I won't go into detail about the when and where of the miscarriage. I'll just say that eventually we found ourselves at the overlook of Dead Horse Point State Park. We were staring at this amazing vista and we didn't even care.
We did care enough to learn that these bright blue ponds off in the distance are used for evaporating potash out of the water of the Colorado River. Potash is an ingredient in fertilizer. We also overheard a French couple arguing. All I could pick out was the girl kept saying "tu, tu, tu," (which means you) and the guy kept saying "je, je, je" (which means I) they were clearly not communicating. They moved their argument over to the edge of the cliff and we half expected one of them to push the other. It was mildly comical.
Dead Horse Point is right next to the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. So we headed over there. Brandon turned to me and said something like, "I don't want to be sad anymore, lets go on a hike." So we decided to hike to the Upheaval Dome.
From the air the upheaval dome is a perfect circle of rock layers surrounding this white peak. No one knows what caused the circle. There are two theories. One is that a meteor hit the area and the rocks flowed around the impact site. The other is that there is a layer of salt deep underground. Salt isn't hard under pressure, instead it is the consistency of toothpaste and so it can flow. The theory states that a salt bubble rose up under this area and caused the layers to push out in a circle. Both theories seem a little crazy but the salt one makes more sense to me.
After our hike we went to the Grand Overlook and stared out at another amazing vista. We sort of cared about this one.
We drove out of Canyonlands and into Arches. We didn't eat taco salad that night instead we had a can of stew. I went to bed early and Brandon soon joined me. It was the end of what we now refer to as "the sad day."

Vacation Day 5: The long way to Moab

We discovered an interesting thing about Goblin Valley that night. The wind blows like crazy! Our tent was blowing and shaking under all the strong gusts all night long. The wind was so strong that it was able to blow sand under our rain fly. The sand would then fall through the netting at the top of our tent. We were getting sand blasted. It was also really hot. We ended up sleeping with only a sheet over us to keep the sand from getting on us. It was crazy and it made for a memorable night.

In the morning we got up, ate breakfast, packed up the tent, and headed into the actual Goblin Valley. As soon as we got there a dust/rain storm started. We hurried and took this picture and then ran back into the car.

After a few minutes the rain stopped and we were able to walk down into Goblin Valley.
There are trails that lead through the valley, but the first part is all open and you can go where ever you want. You can also touch the goblins which is kind of weird after being in all the national parks that don't even let you off the trails.
I couldn't see any Goblins in these formations. All I could see was a bunch of noses. Brandon said he saw feet. So we named this body part valley.
It was pretty cool to look out at the weird formations. We had fun reciting lines from the movie Galaxy Quest which had a scene filmed here. The valley was used as an alien planet. One of the characters says, "Is there air? You don't know!" We repeated this line a lot.

After getting our fill of the strange creatures we headed on our way to Moab. There were two options on how to get to Moab. 1. We could go north about 20 miles to I-70 then head east about 40 miles to Green River and then go 30 miles to Moab. Or 2. We could go South all the way down to Hite Marina at the beginning of Lake Powell then head east and visit Natural Bridges State Park and Blanding Ut before turning North and traveling past newspaper rock and other interesting features along the road. Since this trip was to see as much of Utah as possible we picked option 2. We stopped in Hanksville to get gas for the long drive ahead of us. The gas station was carved into sandstone.

Then we started driving South. It was a very pretty day.
As we drove the hills turned into Mesas.
And we found ourselves looking down at the confluence of the Dirty Devil River and the Colorado River at Hite Marina the Northernmost part of Lake Powell.
When I was in 4th grade I did a report on Kane County, Utah. Part of Lake Powell is in that county and I've always wanted to see the lake. This is the first time I have seen even a part of it. It was awesome to look down at it. One day I'd like to see it further south where it looks even more like a lake.
Brandon almost fell of the cliff.
After Hite Marina we drove to Natural Bridges National Monument. There are three natural bridges that formed around one mesa. A road around the mesa allows you to drive to overlooks for each of the bridges. You can also hike down to the bridges. I think this place would be a fun place to do a back packing trip with scouts. The scouts could hike the trails that connect all three bridges, but they would always be within a few miles of the visitors center or the road.
The bridges are almost like those Magic Eye Images. They are hard to see at first and then they pop out at you.
We didn't have the time to hike down to see the bridges so we were content to look from the overlooks.
I really liked this national monument. I'm glad we took the time to stop at it. After Natural Bridges we continued driving. We went through this cool crack in this mountain.
Then we made it to Blanding. We stopped at Edge of the Cedar's State Park. I was expecting a dinky town and a dinky state park. Instead we found ourselves in the gateway town to the four corners area and the coolest Indian museum I have ever been in. We spent a long time looking at the displays in the museum and then we headed out back to the ruins of a pueblo. One of the ruins was restored and you can actually go in it.
This is what the rest of it looks like. It was interesting to think about actually living in a structure like this.
We got back in the jeep and drove north. There were storm clouds and we got hit with a little bit of rain, but we didn't get too wet.
We took a little detour off the main road so we could go see Newspaper Rock. There are tons of petroglyphs pecked into this rock. We had fun figuring out what they were. Our favorite was a picture of Santa Claus and his reindeer.
Then we drove some more. This is Wilson Arch. It is right next to the highway. In fact we didn't even stop for this pic. I just took it as we drove by.
We were in a hurry to get to our campground. We stayed at Ron's Pack Creek Campground in Moab. It was several blocks away from the highway and we never would have found it without the map they gave us. We pulled up at the campground and discovered it is the most laid back place EVER! We never even met the guy that runs the place. We never checked in or anything. I guess they are located far enough off the road that the only people who show up have reservations and so have already paid.
We paid $16 and had this heavenly campsite next to a creek. There were showers and hot and cold running water. Plus there was a water spigot right next to our campsite. We even would have had internet access if we had ever found Rob and got the wireless code from him. I highly recommend this place to anyone planning a trip to Moab.
We went for a walk by the creek.
It was so pretty after all the desert scenery the past few days.
We even saw this amazing double rainbow. What a wonderful day.