From the moment we arrived in Moab it seemed we were always busy. We did spend a good part of our first day catching up on some relaxation but late that afternoon we headed out to get together with some friends we met while we were at Bryce Canyon. We enjoyed dinner out, drinks at a local pub and then went to watch some good old cowboy music at a park in Moab. We enjoyed getting together and hope to meet up with them again sometime. On the following day, a Sunday, we decided to avoid the National Parks and took a ride over to the Moab Motion Picture Museum to see some of the memorabilia from many of the movies that have been filmed there. Hundreds of old westerns as well as some new movies have been filmed there and the tour was interesting. In order to get to the museum, we traveled through the Colorado Riverway Recreation Area where we saw some beautiful scenery. Many of the areas we traveled through were used in some of those old westerns we learned about. Finally, on Monday we decided to begin our visit to Arches National Park. And what a beautiful park it was. Over the next few days we hiked over a dozen miles and viewed a hundred or so arches. The most famous arches, Landscape Arch, the Window Arches, the Turret Arch and Delicate Arch, just to name a few, required some serious hiking if we wanted to get close. Because of this we’ve hiked to some pretty remote areas of the park. One of our hikes took us through an area of the park called Park Avenue, not necessary famous for its arches but for its beautiful sculptures of towering rock. On our final day at Arches National Park we waited until midafternoon to begin our visit. We traveled the entire scenic drive one last time, stopping at many of the overlooks for photo ops and a look at the landscape with the afternoon sun setting. We also took one last hike that evening in order to see Broken Arch and Sand Dune Arch which we hadn’t seen yet. Even late in the afternoon the temps were near 100 degrees so this final 2 mile hike was quite exhausting but totally worth it. Finally, as we were making our way out of the park, the drive was quite beautiful as the sun began to set. We’ll be left with great memories of a beautiful park. The next day it was time to see something new so off we went to Canyonlands National Park about an hour away. As I mentioned to Claudia along the way, we had to rein in our expectations. After all, Arches would be a hard act to follow for any place. The fact is Canyonlands was nothing at all like Arches. This place was beautiful in its own way. Canyonlands is a huge, expansive area where you can look across open areas for miles and miles and see nothing but wilderness. You’re sitting on top of everything and looking across vast areas of canyons, rivers and desert. We took several hikes while we were there even though the temps were near 100 degrees. The first took us to an area known as Upheaval Dome which looks down into a mysterious area that may have been created by a meteorite impact but no one knows for sure. After this hike we traveled along the scenic drive overlooking some of those vast areas I mentioned. Our second hike was our big hike for the day. It was about 4 miles round trip and took us out along the top of a mesa to an area named Murphy Point. From this point we could look out for what seemed like hundreds of miles in almost every direction. The views were breathtaking. We were pretty much exhausted following this hike and the weather remained hot so the rest of our day was spent mostly just stopping at overlooks and taking a couple of short hikes. This was definitely a one stop park for us but we’re very glad we took the time to see it. With the temperatures topping 100 degrees we decided to end our visit to the Moab area by taking care of some housekeeping in the air conditioned motor home although we did head to downtown Moab a couple of times to enjoy some shopping as well a couple of meals out. We also didn’t completely waste our days away since we ended up giving the motor home a complete wash and wax, something that was overdue. With our final day in Moab being the hottest and most oppressive day of all at 105 degrees, we stuck to doing some grocery shopping and preparing for our trip to Colorado. We loved it here in Moab and we’ll be back someday. We’ve decided that when we do return, we’ll have a 4 wheel drive vehicle in order to explore some of the more remote areas.
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