National Park Dash

As I said in my last post, my friend, Dawn came out to Vegas to do some traveling with me. We began by seeing the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, "Love," on Thursday night. I have said plenty of times how much I love cirque shows and this one was no different.

We struck out on Friday after I got off of work for Utah. On Saturday, we went on a quick tour of Zion and Bryce.

That evening we stopped at a campground that was in the middle of nowhere. On our way we passed by some beautiful farm land and some very curious cows.

Every time that I have been to Utah it has been very hot, but apparently I missed the one week of fall and it went from summer to winter without me noticing because this time around it was freezing...literally. We spent a cold night in the tent and were happy to carry on the next day to Moab where we had a hotel waiting for us.

 Sunday, when we finished driving to Moab we looked around town and did some relaxing and window shopping. Moab is a small town built up around Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. There are lots of nice restaurants and shops.
Monday and Tuesday were spent discovering all there is to see at Arches and Canyonlands, respectively.
Arches is, of course, known for all the rock arches that have formed there.

It contains the greatest density of natural arches in the world! The arches are beautiful and when you see them you think they are strong and fixed since they are made of stone, but in fact they are ever-changing and eroding. The Landscape Arch had a huge piece fall off in 1991. It is strange to think that in a few years the Landscape Arch may not be there any more. At its thinnest point it is only 6 feet wide.

 My favorite arch was the Delicate Arch. It is the symbol of Utah (if you ever see a Utah license plate take a look at the picture on it.) We had to go on a 3 mile hike up hill the whole way to get there, but it was totally worth it. The view of the arch from there was spectacular. What you can't really see from the pictures is the drop off on both sides of the arch. It is defiantly nerve racking.

click to enlarge!

Canyonlands had one arch as well, the Mesa Arch. This was another one with a huge drop off on one side.

 Its kinda fun to see just how close you can will yourself to go. (I know my mom is cringing at this right now.) :) Canyonlands has three districts separated by the Colorado and Green rivers: Island in the Sky, the Maze district and the Needles district. There are no paved roads in to the Maze, but Dawn and I did manage to make it to the other two districts.

The sky was cloudy for most of the day which was unfortunate for most of our pictures, but made for the perfect sunset with a rainbow in the back ground. 
Surprisingly, my favorite moment of the day was not all the sightseeing, but the spontaneous stop on a no-name dirt road to watch the sunset in a field of long grass with a rainbow in the background. Those are the moments that make life wonderful!

Definitely a trip to remember!