Day 1 Arches National Park

We left around 8 am. . about an hour later than planned. Tim and I had about 4 hours of sleep the night before so we began our trip a little sleep deprived. Thankfully we had a short distance to travel this first day.

We made our first stop of our journey at Arches National Park.

The weather was a little overcast the greater part of our day and we had a few rain showers while there. We had two umbrellas which helped a little. Because of the rain we didn't take the longer hike to Delicate Arch that we had hoped to do. We didn't want to get stuck in a storm when it takes about an hour to get there and another to get back.

We did see "Sand Dune Arch" by suggestion of our friends and it was really cool. The kids enjoyed the sand there but we didn't enjoy the sand in our car the rest of the trip. White Sands is partly to blame for that as well though so it can't take all the blame.

We saw Balanced Rock, and the upper and lower viewpoints of Delicate Arch. This arch was dubbed "Cowboy pants" by the kids because it looks like cowboy stirrups.

At this point the clouds broke away and it started to be beautiful and warm.

We walked to Double Arch which was a quick hike to and into the arches. This was my favorite because you got to do a little rock climbing too.





The North and South Windows and Turet Arch path were easy to walk to and had some beautiful panoramic views.



After that we stopped at the museum and went to find a campsite. We found one on BLM land along a stretch of BLM campsites on highway 128. We had one of those overfriendly neighbors, in an RV. He didn't deserve it, but because I was going on 4 hours of sleep and you expect your neighbors in a campsite to remain politely to themselves I was thinking paranoid thoughts all evening. He had a wife and a cute little boy and even offered to lend us his air mattress. Thanks Richard! You were a great neighbor! Even if your first greeting was standing in your door yelling to us with no shirt on and a can of beer in your hand. Sorry for mistrusting you.

The stinky outhouse right next door wasn't so kind. We had to climb down a hill to our tent. I wasn't thrilled by the tricky climb up and down it(especially when we had to brave it in the dark with wind and rain)but it was right next to a river so we heard it gurgling by which was very nice.