Traveling the USA Part II

We get up early, pack up the trailer, and head out to Arches National Park. We have tickets to take the ranger-led Fiery Furnace Hike, which is a 3-hour hike through the "fins" area of the park. They require tickets or permits to limit the number of hikers in this area of the park. From what I understand, several years ago they found that this area of the park was being spoiled from too many hikers, plus it is easy to get lost in the fins.

It's a beautiful sunny morning. We drop off the trailer at the visitors center and head out to the park. The park looks wonderful with the blue skies (versus the gray skies of Wednesday when we were here).

We get to the Fiery Furnace area of the park, where we'll hike between the fins:

The hike last 3 hours and is fun and interesting. They offer this hike twice/day and take 25 people on each hike.

The hike is listed as Moderately Strenuous. It really isn't that strenuous; however, I was glad that I wasn't any wider :-) Some narrow passages on the hike!

After the hike we go over to Delicate Arch viewpoint, eat our packed lunch and hike up to the viewpoint. We enjoy the occasional wildflower on the hike to the viewpoint. There aren't a lot of flowers in bloom, but I appreciate the ones that are in bloom.

We drive out of the park to pick up the trailer and find a note on our trailer door. A friend of mine is at Arches today, recognized our trailer and left us a note. They just arrived at Arches today, but we are leaving. Very frustrating to be this close, but not see each other. Sometimes timing is everything.

We drive around two hours to Green Valley KOA and call it a day.

Busy day today. We visit two parks. First we drive out to Dead Horse Point State Park. On the way there we stop at a scenic overlook:

We stop at the visitors center, check out the exhibits and then head out to the point.

We have lunch on the edge of the canyon and enjoy the scenery. Then head over to Canyonlands National Park (the Islands in the Sky section, which is a few miles from Dead Horse Point State Park). On the way we drive through open range and stop for cattle crossing the road.

We stop at the Visitors Center, check out their exhibits (sound familiar?) and then head out to Grandview Point.

We walk the rim trail with it's incredible scenery of the canyon. Joe has fun as we walk:

We make several more stops around the park and take a few short hikes. We enjoy Canyonlands more than Dead Horse Point State Park, probably because it has more trails.

This RV park is full tonight so we need to pack up and go to a different park for the next two nights on the other side of Moab, Utah. Since check-in is not til later today, we head over to the Visitors Center at Arches National Park to watch their film, look through the museum, and buy our tickets for the Fiery Furnace Ranger-led tour (for Friday morning). Then we head to the RV park to set up, eat lunch and head back to Arches NP.

We drive through the park and take several short hikes to see lots and lots of arches.

There are flowers blooming in the desert, though not many cactus. Here is a pic of one small blooming cactus:

The morning is beautiful blue skies but by late afternoon we get some rain, so we head back to the RV park for dinner and relaxation.

We wake up to a beautiful morning and eat our breakfast with views of Mesa Verde National Park through the window.

Then we pack up and take off for Canyonlands National Park. On the way we stop at Newspaper Rock State Park to have a lunch and look at the petroglyphs.

This park is back in the 'boonies'. The 50 mile road back to the park has sections where cattle roam free; that is, no fences between the cattle and the road.

We drive through the park, stopping frequently and take a few short hikes.

We leave Canyonlands and head to Moab, Utah.

On the way we pass Wilson's Arch. Joe insists that we climb up to the arch, so he and Jere climb to the top while I stop 2/3 of the way up to take pics. I use the 'I need stay down here to take pictures' whenever I feel lazy :-)

We find a campground for the night, but they can only give us one night since they're booked full for tomorrow night. We are surprised to find that the Moab campgrounds are all fairly full. The campground owner says she's also baffled as to why the Moab campgrounds are so full.

Did you ever have one of those mornings when you wake up in a bad mood? Unfortunately that was me today. Not sure if it's all the traveling, my allergies, being with my husband 24/7 for the last 6 weeks, hormones, or whatever, BUT it did not make for an enjoyable morning for our day. Despite my crankiness in the morning, the day did turn out well.

We drive up to the Visitors Center at Mesa Verde National Park and buy tickets for two ranger-led tours of the cliff dwellings. Our first tour is of the Palace Cliff Dwelling, the largest of the cliff dwellings in the park.

We eat our picnic lunch between tours and do our second ranger-led tour, Balcony House. This is more interesting and fun than the first tour. I highly recommend this tour if anyone goes to Mesa Verde NP. Lots of ladders to climb to get to and from the cliff dwelling, narrow paths and a very narrow tunnel to crawl through. The ranger we had for the tour was excellent.

Ladder that everyone climbs up to enter Balcony House:

We drive around and stop to look at several other smaller cliff dwellings along the canyon. The park isn't very pretty except for the cliff dwellings--they had several fires in 2002 and 2003 so most of the trees along the drive have burned. The ranger said it will take 200 years for the trees to grow back.

Our last stop is at Spruce House with it's self-guided tour.

We drive into Cortez for dinner and to pick up some groceries, and head back to the RV park.