Channel Mike

We took a ton of pictures today. Rather than driving all day, we put off the three hour drive until evening and played during the day. We woke up in Moab and planned to explore Arches until lunch, then go to Dead Horse Point, then spend the afternoon in Canyonlands. Oh how ambition fades. I still want to come back and do it all, but it took us until mid-afternoon to finish our first hike to Delicate Arch in Arches. We made it to Dead Horse Point after a late lunch, but that was it. All we had left after that was a short trip home.

Our first stop this morning was the overlook to see Delicate Arch without hiking much.

After that brief stop, we went to the actual trail to Delicate Arch. It was a little more than a mile and a half each way. We thought it might take an hour, but it ended up being more like three or four hours of herding the kids through. Jak had to climb every rock and explore every crevice. And Emma had to follow him to each place, which took about three times longer than it took Jak to get there in the first place. Audrey had the camera most of the time and took hundreds of pictures. By the time we got to the arch, it was lunch time. There was a rock fin that we had to climb around to see the arch, and the wind went from nothing behind the fin to about a hundred miles per hour once we went beyond the protection of the fin. It's no wonder these rocks are all so bluntly curved and sandblasted. Emma rolled under the nearest stone overhang to escape the wind. Audrey stepped back behind the fin. The rest of us leaned into the wind and got a few pictures. It was really pretty cool. The entire landscape was beautiful and the arch was striking, seemingly out of place. This was well worth the hike.

The hike back was quite a bit quicker than the hike in. All of us stayed on the trail and stayed on course back to the car. We had enough adults that we doubled up on the smaller kids and both swung and carried them to keep them interested. Audrey ended up walking for quite a bit of the hike back as well. After cleaning up and getting drinks, we headed for lunch.

On the way out of the park, we decided to see a few more things, but without hiking the kids any further. We drove by balancing rock. We stopped at double arch for some quick pictures, too. The scenery with the rocks and arches was similar to that of the hike before, but was still so beautiful. It was just otherworldly, even with other people around.

After lunch, we drove out to Dead Horse Point. I'd never seen it but I originally planned to camp near the park so that we could see the sun come up there. We didn't actually do any camping at all. But the short trip to Dead Horse Point was really very fun. There were more rocks to climb, and more deadly cliffs. But the scenery was breathtaking. One of the things I miss about Utah and the West is the ability to change elevation and see for miles. That doesn't really exist in Mississippi and doesn't exist at all in Florida. There's just not enough elevation change down there. But the view from the cliffs above the Colorado River was amazing. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon. Not quite as big, but definitely more colorful and vibrant.

We left Dead Horse Point for Salt Lake City that afternoon. There wasn't much to report about the drive home. And we didn't get any more pictures after leaving the park. The next installment will have to be from our destination itself.