ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

Our very tight parking space in Grand Junction. Thats a fence on the right. We couldn't open the door fully!

Driving south west on highway 128 in Utah along the Colorado River

A view from the trailer door looking south west at Big Bend BLM campsite

The view east from our doorway

Mostly vandal proof picnic tables? Solid rock

Hwy 128 along the Colorado River

Along Park Avenue in Arches

Any idea why this is called Sheep Rock?

The Balanced Rock

Skyline Arch

Sand Dune Arch

Broken Arch

Delicate Arch from below

Some of the crowd at Delicate Arch

The north and south windows in an area of several arches

Sunday Aileen wasn’t feeling too chipper so she missed going to church with Ken and Marie. We did make it to the Gospel Fest later which included lunch of barbequed pork and beef, beans, coleslaw and bun. There was lots of dessert, too. The entertainment was very good. The first group was a ma and pa family with kids from 12 down to 4 months on stage. The second and third were mature groups while the last was a family again consisting of 4 girls and 2 boys ranging from 11 up to mid 20s. The last group was the most professional of the day. One of the guys in the third group used to play with Bill Monroe years ago and he was a banjo picker extraordinaire.

We left Grand Junction on Monday but first Ken guided me around town to do some last minute errands. We washed the truck too as when it rains in Grand Junction, it rains mud. Really! I think the wind must blow dust off the high ridges which mixes with the rain because after just about every rain, things are covered in mud. We found a place to fill our propane on the way out then when to Fruita, which was along our way west, to dump the tanks free at the visitor centre. We had a late lunch there. We turned off I-70 at Cisco and took Hwy 128 down along the Colorado River toward Moab. We tried to get in a BLM campsite close to Moab but the two closest were full so we had to backtrack about 7 miles. We are in the river canyon with towering red walls on all sides. While the road is fairly close, there is little traffic after bedtime.

After many years of seeing pictures of Arches National Park, yesterday was finally the day we got to go there. The weather was gorgeous although the temperature was cool for the most part. I was amazed how busy it was though. The summer season must be insane. We couldn’t find any parking up at the end of the road so couldn’t check out any of the features there. I did walk in to several of the arches. I went to the lower viewpoint for Delicate Arch. Maybe another time I will do the trail up to the arch. It was so crowded up there when I was shooting from below and when we were driving along we could see all the people strung out across the slickrock part of the route.

Today has dawned cloudy and I think it will be a day of some rest and hopefully, we can find WiFi in town to catch up on emails and post this blog. Today is our 42^nd anniversary.