Arches National Park

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn again, in order to get to Arches National Park before it got too hot and get a jump on the crowds. This was another sleepless night for me on account of the prednisone and caffeine combination. Continental breakfast was your typical motel fare – we stole several packets of mini peanut butter and jelly packets.

It took much longer than I was expecting to get to Moab, but BOY WAS IT WORTH IT. Arches National Park is impressive. Huge red slabs of rock shaped into thin walls, towers, and rainbow shapes by wind and water erosion. The redness and smoothness of the rocks reminded me of Uluru in Australia. The surrounding scenery was like Arizona's Painted Desert – makes sense because they are in the same geological region. I think.

The huge walls of stone have their surfaces rubbed away in some places, resembling the carvings and bas reliefs of Egyptian temples. You know Ramses' huge temple or Hatshepsut or something like that? I don't know either because i'm driving on a road in the middle of Utah, but I have the picture in my head of huge, majestic, carved stone walls. This was like that, but red. I keep staring at the carvings to discern their design but mother nature doesn't plan like that.

The arches themselves were pretty cool. We spent about two hours driving and walking around and took roughly eight thousand pictures. Everything was stunning. The feeling of awe in the presence of big rocks cannot really be explained in words.

Rock fatigue set in right before noon and we went on our way to Denver.