Chasing Petroglyphs: Arches National Park and Moab
I love that Arches NP has gone to a reservation system during the busy months. Everyone has an equal shot; you can book a time a couple months in advance. We love the morning light, so we have booked a 7:00 a.m. slot and it is a gorgeous day. There is no line at the entrance booth. There are no crowds at the various arches. It is all so relaxed!
The morning is crisp, cool, and magnificent with a bright deep blue sky.
Please forgive me, I am besotted with the textures and colors and the shapes of the rock and I have yet to show you a single arch.
Our preference, at Arches, is to drive to the very end, to Devil’s Garden, and hike while it is still cool, and then stop at the other arches on our way back. But we always have to stop at the one on the way.
A wealth of arches!
Because I can’t resist a good mountain 🙂
We hit the visitors center at Arches, then headed into Moab for lunch. It was around 11, so we were the first seated at Pasta Jay’s, where AdventureMan had a Caprese salad and Saturnalia pizza and I had a pizza Rustica, which was a garlic pizza base and Caesar salad on top. We split a Tiramisu, delicious.
When we picked up our Thai food last night, we could smell the pizzas from Pasta Jay’s, so we really had no problem choosing where we would go for lunch. Pasta Jays!
The heat in Moab is so dry that it is still cool enough to sit outside to eat. The setting is delightful, but oh! The noise! The Main street of Moab is full of trucks with heavy rumbling loads, squealing breaks and loud engines. There are Vans pulling ATVs, trailers full of kayaks and canoes, a constant, endless flow of noisy traffic.
But the food is delicious.
We are thoroughly satisfied with our lunch, and we are delighted also to head back to the peacefulness of our cabin.
So this is not like FaceBook, this is the real world. In the real world, not everything is perfect. We are really happy to have a beautiful, quiet cabin because with all the driving and hiking, AdventureMan’s back is acting up. It’s been tender a couple days. He insists that the hiking in Arches was actually good for his back, but when I bring up canceling our activity for tomorrow, he only resists for a while.
To me, it made sense to cancel, even though it was something we had really wanted to do, hike the Canyon of the Ancients in search of more petroglyphs. It would have meant a two-and-a-half-hour drive down, four hours of hiking, and a two-and-a-half-hour drive back. To me, that did not make sense with a tender back. Life is short. We can do the hike another year, hopefully find a cabin down in the Four Corner area where we can stay and do a more thorough exploration of several nearby areas. Once we canceled, we both felt relieved.
We also had dinner plans, a totally tourist thing, a Sunset Boat Cruise with Canyonlands, and included Cowboy Dinner. All we had to do was show up. It turned out to be really fun, and the dinner, all kinds of BBQ, was surprisingly good. Canyonlands guide Brandon was entertaining and full of good information, he showed us more petroglyphs and arches, and got us back in time for dinner.
A great ending to a great day.
Arches National Park
Almost every day of this trip, we would look at each other at the end of the day and say “This was the best day of our trip!” Arches National Park was one of the very best.
We got up early to grab a quick breakfast and then go to get in line to be in Arches as the sun rose. We had a map, and we had a plan – to see the famous Delicate Arch, then drive to the far end of the park and work our way back. We had our hiking shoes on. Big surprise – there is road work going on in the park and we can’t even get on the road to get in line – we have to wait until the park opens at 0700.
We watch carefully, and as soon as the guard starts letting cars in, we are there. We are car number seven.
There are three ways to see Delicate Arch. One is a long hike across a marsh and then up a rock mountain. We didn’t do that. Another is a short, easy walk to a viewpoint where you can see Delicate Arch way off in the distance. The third way is a hike up a steep path, mostly rock. We took the third way, and by the time we reached the top, I was gasping. I stay pretty fit, but the altitude kicked me; and I felt like a fish, gasping for air. I would love to say that it was so beautiful, it was worth it, but actually, the light was flat, we had early morning clouds and no sunlight, so it was a little disappointing.
We drove to the end of the park, and hiked to the end of the path, about a mile, to Landscape Arch. The air was crisp and cool. Everywhere we looked was another beautiful sight. Arches National Park was a thrill to the senses. And we had logged 10,000 steps before nine in the morning.
We kept meeting up with interesting people, people our own ages, people who have done a lot of traveling. One couple gave us a hint about a trip up the Irrawaddy, another man talked about the mess in Washington. These were all really fun people.
Forgive me for putting in so any photos, but this park was inspirational, so beautiful.
And, just as we started to leave, it started snowing. Just a few flakes, and then that cloud passed, but we laughed, so far – we’ve had snow every day.
We took the walking path, which ends here. The path continues, and as you can see here, it goes straight up steep rock. You can see people who are willing to tackle the rocks climbing.
There are a lot of port-a-potties at the entrance to the walk into the valley. This sign was in the bathroom. It cracked me up.
Three Trips Out
I must be feeling better. This morning I got an important quilt sandwiched – yes, even in these humid 90°F + temperatures, I was down on my hands and knees, pinning the three layers together. The colors are so beautiful it was truly a labor of love.
And – AdventureMan has been asking me about our next road trip. Oh, he is so subtle! He talks longingly of road trips we’ve taken, places we’ve stayed and loved, and how much he loves to be on the road. I understand; I get restless, too! So last night I began sketching out a two week road trip through the “four-corner” states.
I have a sister who loves this part of the United States, and I have heard from her for years about some wonderful places I have never seen. Bryce Canyon. Zion National Park. Arches National Park. There is some Native American territory I want to cross and a couple places we’ve stayed before, and loved. Best of all, there are two adorable little toddlers I haven’t seen for over a year, and my arms hunger to hug them – Little Diamond’s children, no longer babies, growing growing so fast.
I just did a first draft – haven’t made any reservations yet. I’ve been getting advisories from Trip Advisor about flight prices from here to Denver; it’s one of the changes we are going to make, not making ourselves drive hell-bent-for-leather for three days just to get to where our vacation will start. We are also driving fewer miles and staying more nights at each stop. We discovered on our Vancouver Island trip how much we enjoy that style.
We’ve been thinking about this trip for quite a while. We are eager to visit Montana, and we are eager to do more exploring in Alberta and British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies, and we are also realizing, after all these years, that it is more rewarding for us to focus on a smaller area and explore it at greater leisure. We’ll spend three nights in Santa Fe – a place we fell in love with last time we visited.
We already have two other trips planned and finalized, but we really needed a good road trip together 🙂
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