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Day eleven we slept in a little, then drove a couple miles out of Moab to Arches National Park. I read a couple chapters from Ed Abbey's Dessert Solitaire the night before to set the mood. Driving up into the park you get back into the rock formations, and it is indeed awe inspiring. All said and done, we felt the park was at the same time more impressive and less impressive than Canyonlands. The rock formations are nothing short of amazing, and for that reason everything is much more impressive. But the park is also much smaller, so we felt content taking it all in in a few hours, then headed through Utah, spending the night in southern Idaho. I felt a certain pull to cruise up to Moscow and visit my home of two years where I dropped out of college, but there was a stronger pull to finish the trip.
A first look at the landscape in Arches. We were a little disappointed that the place wasn't immediately littered with arches, at the same time taken with the dramatic landscape.
Amie posing in the hot wind in front of Courthouse Rock at the entrace of the park.
Walking down from the first big arch we could approach from the car. We had to make it an absurdly quick trip up and back, as our animals were back with us, waiting in the car.
Another cool arch visible from the top of the path we ran up and down.
We gave ourselves five minutes to climb the steps, gasp in the sites, and get back to the car before it got too hot. But my aged sandel failed me only a short ways down, so Amie ran ahead while I slowly limped my way down.
Too much excitement for one day, I was beat. The rest of Utah didn't seem like much compared to all we'd seen for the past four days of fun.
