National Park Tour - Arches

We took the girls on a two week camping adventure to six national parks this summer. We headed west with our pop up camper mid-August and spent the first day driving all the way to Casper WY. The next day we spent driving across WY, part of Colorado and into Arches. Addi is very into taking pictures these days and used our phones to take pictures of nearly every hill she saw out her window. When you live in the Red River valley, hills are pretty exciting things. We have 100s of photos like the first one below. We stopped somewhere in Utah (I think) to have lunch the second day. It was listed as a birding hot spot and so we stopped for a picnic lunch. As we were walking along the road next to a wetland and looking at birds, Alexia came quickly walking back towards us and said very calmly a rattlesnake just rattled at me. He was between us and our car so we had to walk around him, and he put on a show that was very effective at keeping us away, but of course Chris had to get a picture.

 

 

 

At this same lunch stop, two women in two different jeeps pulled up with cameras. As we were chatting with them, they had all sorts of suggestions for places we needed to see on our trip. The first one was Sego Canyon, which was just 5 minutes off our route into Arches. We decided to give it a try, and it was well worth the visit. It was a very impressive pictograph site with images from 3 different time periods. They were all pretty cool, and there is NO WAY we would have found this place without their advice. You can see some of our favorites in the pictures below. It was on Forest Service land, and the place was deserted. 

 

 

 We made it to Arches as the sun was setting, and it was a beautiful drive in. The next morning we got up early to hike to Utah's most famous landmark, the delicate arch. It was our first hike of the trip and everyone was feeling pretty energetic. However, I don't think we all realized how much of a drop it was going to be once we got up there. We were  not brave enough to walk all the way over and stand under the arch. But I think we got some good pictures regardless. Alexia wouldn't even turn around to sit with us for the last picture, but she took a picture of the rest of us.

 

 After hiking we came back and had brunch at the campsite. Then Addi and I decided to do a short loop hike from the campground that was supposed to go to two more arches. The trail was deserted. We made it to the first arch and enjoyed just sitting under the arch and enjoying the view with no one around. Then we continued on to the next arch where we did see a few people. As we were following the trail to head back, we entered a very cool canyon, which is the last picture you see of Addi here. As we were wandering the canyon we somehow lost the trail following another path that had been made. We walked for a good half a mile until we realized we were no longer on a trail. We were able to retrace our steps and bush wack through some brush to get back to another part of the trail. We were never that far from the main road, but it was quite disconcerting. Addi was a trooper and we eventually made it back to camp right around the time that Chris and Alexia started to come looking for us. I guess he could see me the whole time on his phone and was wondering what we were doing.

 

 

It was monsoon season in the desert while we were there, which made for some impressive cloud formations and rain showers most days. But also some amazing rainbows. After our afternoon lost in the desert hike, we decided to visit the visitors center and get dinner in Moab. As we came back to the campground, we decided to visit some of the other very famous arches in the park. Chris worked hard to find silly ways to get rainbows coming out of our daughters. We also got some nice rainbow in arches pictures. The evening light and rain showers made for some beautiful views. It also kept the people away, and we had these arches nearly to ourselves. The double arch was one of my favorites.