Day Three

We got up (what all 3 boys would characterize as) VERY EARLY this morning, about 5:30.  My family of sleepers was even more excited than yesterday. :). We were headed out to Arches National Park and it was supposed to be a high of 107 degrees, so I wanted to get an early start. The moon was unreal this morning, so I had to take a picture. This was from the front of our condo. 

Let me just say, Arches National Park is my favorite park we've been to so far. That place is absolutely beautiful and a photographer's paradise.  I didn't bring my laptop on the trip, so the uploaded pictures are a lower resolution, but I'm not sure even a better resolution would do this place justice. It was AMAZING. 

Another moon picture. 

We got to the park at a great time.  It was about 6 am and the sun was just coming up. Hardly anyone was there so with a little maneuvering, I could get pictures of most of the formations and arches without people all over them.  I took a LOT of pictures.

Check out the ears on this sucker!!

Courtesy of the self timer. I almost bit the dust running to get in the picture before it clicked which Reed thought was hilarious. :)

These are the North and South Windows. As a silhouette, I think it looks like a man leaned over with his head down and outstretched arms. For some reason it made me think of Samson pushing down the pillars in the temple. 

Another self timer shot. 

My boys. Love this one. ❤️

 

We went to a little arch called the Sand Dune Arch.  You had to walk back between these "fins" (tall, skinny rocks) to get to it.

It was really sandy back in there with these squatty green trees.  It seemed like the trees didn't belong in the sand and the bright pop of green in all the brown-  it had this otherworldly kind of feeling.  It was also quite a good workout for the legs trudging through that sand- I may be missing bootcamp this week, but I'm still getting plenty of a workout in. Yowza. 

Sand Dune Arch

We left Sand Dune Arch and there was a trail for another arch called Broken Arch.  We decided to walk it because why the heck not? :) The trail was longer than we thought and it was starting to warm up outside (it was about 9am at this point).  Thank goodness we all had our water bottles. We made it to Broken Arch and I took some pictures. 

And ladies and gentlemen, this is about the time the wheels fell off. :)

There was a sign that stated that the trail continued through the arch, so we went.  It took some minor scrambling to get up and through, but we did. It felt like the trail went on and on. I was beginning to think it wasn't a loop and I was afraid we were on some 7 mile hiking trail meant for backpacker much more fit and prepared than a family with a whiny kid and a few half drank bottles of water. Much to Hudson's chagrin, we trudged on.  It ended up being a 1.3 mile trail (which Brian and I both guessed was more like 2) that came out at a campground, NOT the parking lot where our car was.  We looked at the map and realized we had to backtrack up the road to walk back down to get the car. We were hot, disappointed and ready to be done.  But Hudson was about to have a full on breakdown, so Btian volunteered to walk to the car and come back to pick us up. The boys and I ended up sitting in the shade of a campground bathroom while Brian walked the extra 1 1/2 miles to the car.  This whole ordeal ended up taking a while, so after Brian came and got us, we sat down to eat lunch.  We were pretty beat at this point, so we made a stop at the visitors center and headed back to the condo to rest.  We snacked and rested and slept. We had planned to head back to the park in the evening, but the boys weren't into that. So we drove a few minutes into town and ate at the #5 restaraunt on Trip Advisor, Milt's Stop & Eat.  

It was pretty hot outside, but that's where their main seating was, so we braved it.  The boys all for burgers and I got a BLT with avocado.  Pretty yummy.  After dinner we headed back to the condo for a quiet night- another early morning tomorrow!