Road Trip!!!

Traveling with these three may not be the same as traveling with Rissa and Clare, but even late starts to the day can lead to pretty decent adventures.  The consensus last night (well at 2am actually), had been to be out of the house by noon.  Given that two of my new friends haven't been anywhere in pretty much forever, it took them a good while to get their act (and stuff) together, but somehow we still managed to be on the road by 12:20 which I think was pretty good, all things considered.

The goal of the day, get to Moab, Utah with enough time to check into the hotel and see sunset at The Arches National Park.  The drive didn't go too badly, even though there was one slight unplanned detour (should have turned Zelda on sooner people), a stop for dinner (or is it still considered lunch when you get up at 11am and eat at 3:30?), and then a drive through one wild thunderstorm. 

I'm not sure I can really describe the landscape changes as we made this six hour journey.  Once passing through yet another canyon to the other side of the mountains, we traveled across the top of them for a while, and then descended into desert-land, with straight, flat road that went on for miles.  Yet, while the land around us was flat and covered with sage brush, not far off to each side were mountains, and the further we traveled the more surreal their formations became.   I would have thought that humans had carved these on purpose, except for the fact that no other sign of their handiwork was around to give reason to them having done such intricate carving in the first place.

We passed the entrance to the park before reaching Moab itself, and I was in complete awe over the shapes of the rock!  It looked like something out of the Disney movie Cars, and all this time I had figured those carvings were exagerated for animation purposes.  I think I even saw a car formed from the rocks!  Di and Nate were also marvelling over the giant sculptures, while Clare had to keep her eyes forward and stay on the road.  I think she took solace in the knowledge that she'd soon be back to see things properly for herself.

Hey Wait Up!!

After a very brief stop at the hotel, we were all back in the car and up the road back to the Arches.   Since it was getting late, the consensus was to drive the entire road of the park and decide what parts we might investigate more tomorrow.  Its was probably half an hour to the far end of the park, where we finally got out and followed one of the paths.  The entire thing looked like a badly made movie set.  Seriously, if I'd seen this in a movie I probably would have made fun of it, pointing out how fake it was.  Yeah, the path was groomed, and in places there were wooden fences to keep you from wandering off in all directions, but the rest was clearly untouched... and fake.  As I said before; surreal!

Sadly, there was no sunset.  Well, there was a sunset, but not visible to us.  Occasionally we glimpsed sun on the rock formations in the distance, but where we were was completely clouded over and even looking menacingly like rain.  We weren't able to do the entire hike out since the clouds left us no real concept of when it would be dark, but we did see some pretty cool formations and even a couple of arches before turning back, walking about 2 miles in total tonight.

Reaching the car, the heavens opened and it started to pour once again.  Talk about timing!  It was a slower drive out of the park in the dark, but still magnificent as the shadows of the rocks hovered over us in the little daylight that was left.  Before we knew it we were back in town and getting settled in for the night.

Tomorrow's forecast isn't looking too hot, with 60% chance of rain, and thunderstorms possible.  I guess that will bring one blessing; it won't be so hot and the park might not be too busy.  One can hope.