Arches National Park – July 18th & 19th

Arches National Park was next, after a 5 or so hour drive… We drove to the awesome town of Moab, where we sorted out hire of mountain bikes for the next day, and then we headed to Arches National Park for the rest of the afternoon. It was HOT, once again! But really awesome J

We saw some of the famous landmarks like Balanced Rock, The Windows (massive rock arches that you can climb up and look through), and Landscape Arch (skinny looking arch that spans over a football field in length), and we did quite a few short little walks between the different spots.

The famous 'Balanced Rock' - a little bigger than I've always thought!

Because it had to be done...

Looking strange from a different angle

One of the two 'Windows' - massive rock arches

Mini people under the North Window

Tiny Lawrie underneath the South Window

Daggy me in the HOT sun in front of Turret Arch

What I at first thought was snow on the nearby La Sal mountains - just slate

Landscape Arch - spans over an American football field in length, and is rather skinny compared to the rest of them!

We were planning on hiking to the famous Delicate Arch for sunset, but we soon changed our mind after the rather large thunderstorms that were heading towards the park, and were pretty glad for that when the rain hit! So we settled for running about 100m to a viewpoint of the arch, and planning on heading back for sunset the next day…

And the storms roll in...

Amazing sky at sunset

Full rainbow in a purple sky

Then we discovered Denny’s 24 hour diner – we’d seen them everywhere, but the one we walked into ages before looked kinda run down and dodgy, so we’d bypassed it up until now – it was delicious, and awesome! So we may have tried it out twice more while in Moab… (Breakfast any time of the day, or whichever cheap but delicious meal you prefer!)

After a fantastic sleep (thank you thunderstorms for cooling down the night!) and an awesome but exhausting day the next day mountain biking in Moab, we headed back to Arches National Park and walked as fast as we could to Delicate Arch (didn’t want to miss the sunset there like Megan and Justin did!) – quite a walk when it’s still 37ºC through most of the night, but wow! When we got to the top after a few km and saw the awesome arch on the edge of the big rock bowl it’s on, we also saw over 100 other people there for the sunset too! So it was pretty funny watching all the people take turns lining up under the arch to have their photo taken, and getting in each other’s way and photos! Pretty nice spot though, and great sunset back the other way too J

Some American boys posing under Delicate Arch, with a clueless lady sitting in the middle of the photo

Crowd gathered for sunset at Delicate Arch

Lawrie under Delicate Arch

Then we headed back to Moab for a rather warm night before heading to Canyonlands National Park (also very nearby) in the morning.