Our lesson of the day began early this morning, confirming that anywhere there is free food a horde of elderly people will trample you to get to it. The hotel’s free breakfast area was mayhem, and Tom had to fight to get the last few drops of waffle mix for himself. Despite the tour group invasion at breakfast we left around 8:30am for a day in Arches National Park.
The red rock formations were striking from the beginning and in this park the scenic drive takes you up hills with views across scenic panoramas. We stopped first at one of the main viewing areas called Devil’s Garden.
A hiking trail past shear formations led deeper into the park to view some of the famous arches. We were surprised to learn that the park has 2,500 arches. They have to be only 3 feet across to be categorized as an arch. Along the path were really gnarled old trees and pretty flowers.
Landscape arch is one of the more photographed of the arches with its wide, thin structure. Other paths led us into more arches with stunning views like this one with Tom.
Along the way we saw a few little gray lizards that move like lightning and one especially curious little squirrel who posed on a rock just for us. Michele also saw a scrub jay which was a very bright azure blue, but he was too quick to photo.
The park allegedly has a small herd of bighorn sheep. Despite the statues and signs alerting to their road crossings, they were left unseen. The park brochure said it was an exercise in patience usually ending in disappointment, so we kept on moving.
We slowly made our way out of the park, stopping at several more overlooks and arch locations. Panorama Point gave us views of Fiery Furnace.
In the “Windows” area of the park there were several arches in one location.
There are also “petrified dunes” which is a fancy name for brown rocky humps.
We got out of the park and were eating lunch around 2pm at a nearby Mexican restaurant. At 3:30, Rob led us on a scenic ride along Utah Scenic Byway Route 128.
This part of the day was a great highlight and we had the road mostly to ourselves. The road followed the Colorado River and gave us more spectacular views of the red rocks. We were really surprised by the rock debris along the sandstone cliffs and some of the rocks looked like they were just teetering on the edge.
Ride along with us in this pretty video.
We had the bikes parked and covered for the night around 6pm. We headed over to dinner awhile later at Zak’s, which has wood fired pizza and a large menu.
Tomorrow we will visit Canyonlands National Park.
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