Have you had your 8 miles today?

Happy Sunday Bloggers! We haven’t gotten many comments on our entries this weekend admit it all of you read our entries when you are bored at work :)

Day 2 in Moab, UT arrived with the alarm going off at 5:50 a.m., we were up and out the door by 6:30 a.m. Our destination was Arches National Park, just about 5 miles down the road from the Sleep Inn we are staying at. The sun was just finishing rising and there was hardly another soul in the park. Nature – just the way we like it! To get to the arches you have to first go up a very steep incline with a lot of switchbacks (for those of you in the Midwest unaware of what these are…. You wind this way and then you wind that way…over and over again) It wasn’t so bad, dare I say that I’m getting used to my new western terrain.??? We saw many great red rock formations: arches, fins, spires, etc. In total we took 67 pictures so we have placed some of them here but to really check out the whole day. Click on the snapfish link: www1.snapfish.com/share/p=194231153695597429/l=112377464/g=56682322/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Our first stop was a great viewpoint of “The Organ” pictured here. It was next to one of my favorite formations called “Three Gossips” which looked exactly like three ladies heads huddled together talking. From there we made our way to “Balanced Rock” and “Delicate Arch” (which is the unofficial state symbol of Utah)





We meandered on to where our hiking trail lay in Devils Garden. This is the part of the park with the most visible arches. Jeff and I decided to get extremely adventurous and hike all the way around this area. In what is appropriately titled a “primitive trail, we started at about 8am and completed our 8 mile trek at about 12:15 p.m. Along the way we met a couple from London, they were geologists on holiday and planned to spend 6 days in Moab, UT alone. They took this great picture of Jeff and I at “Landscape Arch”, one of the longest and oldest arches in the world.


We went off the beaten path to get to “Double O Arch” and "Black Angel"










According to the guide this strenuous trail should take an average of 3-5 hours so I think we did alright completing it in 4 hours, although I was worried about us on the “back 9” when there was little shade cover and the afternoon heat was coming on strong!
Don’t worry moms, we wore lots of sunscreen and drank more than 4 liters of water to stay hydrated!

On the primitive trail, the only markers that you are going the right direction are little piles of rock leading you the right way and a few people that you see can always reassure you that you are not lost. For instance, after scrambling down a sharp rock and jumping across a crevice we ran into a young family approaching from the opposite direction: 3 kids, a husband and his wife that must have been at least 5 months pregnant! At that point, I said “if she can do this so can I!”

Back at the visitor center, I even made a friend with one of the birds! Okay so it was fake, but funny and i just had to include it since most of you know my feelings about birds and i keep getting my picture taken with animals



All in all, it was a fantastic day, and can you believe that we did all that before lunch time! It was the highlight of the trip to date! Thanks Dylan for urging us to go, it was just as fantastic as you promised! We are beat from the sun and exercise and plan on chilling out for the rest of the night! Tomorrow morning we head through Nevada and will arrive in Reno for the night (an 11 hour drive)

Have a great Monday at work everyone and we’ll talk to you soon! Jamie