Day 4 - Arches National Park
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2008
1
5
13
Trip End
Jul 28, 2008
Moab,
Utah,
United States
Thursday, July 17, 2008
steep 30 mile drive into the town of Moab where we setup a Saturday,
all day rafting trip down the Colorado River, bought lots of bottled
water and Visine and headed to the Arches National Park entrance.
Oddly enough, there we were met with vacationers in rented drive
campers, mini-vans and cars. The park is setup with paved main
roads that gets you within a short hike of the view. We were able
to see all the main road had to offer by about 2PM and decided to take
one of the "4 wheel drive only" jeep roads out. That is where we
left the others behind. For 2 hours, we were all on our own,
crawling down a beautiful dirt path. The path crossed over alot
of dry stream beds and giant petrified sand dunes. About half way
down, there was a small sign set on a hillside. We stopped,
walked over to it and we were standing on fossilized dinosaur
footprints. They were all over that area. It was a treasure
in the middle of nowhere. We will post one of the best pictures
we got of the footprints on this page. Beth pushed me out the way
to take a turn driving. And for a while, she was comfortable
until we came to a steep embankment where she turned the wheel back
over. There were a number of challenging banks, creek beds and
rock hills which made it a great ride. I am not sure without the
lift kit and tires, if we would have made it through without any
vehicle damage. Near the end, there was a nice big mud puddle and
Beth, knowing what was coming, rolled her window up. Little did
we both know, it was deeper than imagined and the wall of water went
over the hood and down from above HAHAHA!!
After the ride, we went into town and did some shopping in the town of
Moab for t-shirts and hats and signed on for "dutch-oven dinner and a
boat tour". This is where we found out about petroglyphs on a
rock face nearby so we went over and checked it out.
The dinner was great and was setup family style. After dinner,
everyone loaded onto a large, flat, open-topped riverboat and went up
river. Along the way, the tour guide spoke about the area and
modern history of Moab. Then coming down the river, they put on a
lightshow on the canyon walls and went through the history of the rock
formations all the way through the Indians of the area which was
wonderful.
Tomorrow we are headed to the Canyonland State Park for more off-roading.
Take care,
Tadd and Beth.
Balanced Rock - Arches National Park
