Day 2: Arches National Park

There are definitely less glamours sides to living in an RV, but it is worth it. Well, I can say that because I never messed with this stuff, but I think Marc would agree.

Arches was hot! There is a lot of truth to the saying that dry heat is different than heat in the southeast with our humidity, but it is still a desert out there and it was hot. The arches are more off the beaten path here, so there was some hiking involved.  We chose only to do the easier hikes on this trip with the girls, but sometimes "easy" wasn't all that easy.

We were grateful Kayla caught this rock before it fell over.

Park Avenue

 

We then took a hike to the Double Arches. This was a fairly level path, but like everything out west, it seemed a lot closer than it really was. 

 

 

And one of us was more interested in desert sand than the massive arches in the background...

 

The next "easy" hike was one to the Delicate Arch.  This is the arch that shows up on every picture and postcard of the park.  We opted not to do the 3+ mile hike to get right up to it, but this hike was no joke.  While I wouldn't call it strenuous by any means, you would definitely lose your breath on this climb. The girls were troupers, though!

Thanks to a zoom lens on my camera I was able to get a little closer. :)

 

 

Saving the park from a falling boulder!

 

 The Three Gossips

Balanced Rock

 The path up into the park was quite a winding ride. Guardrails are optional in this part of the country it would seem, but Marc kept his cool and drove like he had been driving a 35' RV for years.

 

 I said these looked like fingers coming out of the ground. Marc said toes. What's your vote?

Many pictures don't quite grasp the beauty of this part of the country, and then some of them show the colors more vividly. 

After driving through Arches we headed back to our campsite and walked downtown Moab for a while.  It was such a quaint little town, and I wish I had more pictures.  These misters were a highlight for the girls.

We had a yummy dinner at the Moab Diner and then after walking around we enjoyed some local ice-cream as well. On the way back home I had some fun with Brooke who LOVED to push the buttons to cross the street.  I managed to keep her away the whole walk back.  We laughed so hard at her antics trying to get to the buttons and mine to keep her away. It became the joke of the trip anytime we were near a button to push.

This was the only RV park we stayed at with a pool.  The girls were so excited to take a quick swim before it closed.

If only she was as organized about life inside the RV as she was about the towels, flip flops, and cover-ups at the pool.

After some quick showers (the facilities there were fairly nice and I was able to get all 3 showered much faster than us all taking turns in the RV), we headed to bed and prepared for visiting Canyonlands and Dead Horse State Park tomorrow.