The parks, part 2

This wasn't our longest day of driving, but it certainly had the most stops. This was also the day we finally steered into the rainstorm. The scenic route was lovely and we found ourselves wondering how certain places became demarcated as more beautiful than others...

Our endpoint for the evening was the entry point to Arches. Not for the last time on this trip would we find that hotel rooms were a hot commodity. I think we may have found the last place with vacancy as we rolled in that night.

After securing a room we had a look at the brewery in town. The alcohol laws in UT are about the most difficult to wrap your mind around of just about anywhere else in the US. We sampled some draft local brew to the tune of 3.2% I think (which wasn't a bad thing), but then were able to purchase bottles of different beer brewed by the same brewery and have them with dinner that were higher ABV. Funny stuff and unfortunately, nothing worth writing home about...

This was right after we almost drove into lightening. It was drizzly, but much like many afternoon storms, passed quickly. The rain served to change the color of the rock somewhat and we really enjoyed trying to take photos that made the bridges look closer to an illusion than a proper land form.

see if you can spot the natural bridge...

 

So, it was early the next morning that we set out into the park--hoping to avoid the worst of the crowds (insert laughter here). The arches are truly beautiful and I was excited that we could walk right up to them and climb around instead of having them roped off. It was a stunning environment, but we had to pick and choose where and how to spend our time, so after a glance at the more than full parking lot for the hike to the most famous arch, we opted for a viewpoint hike instead. We spent more time down in the 'windows' area, which I absolutely fell in love with.

After a few pictures Joe said I blended in with my summer tanned skin tone--this is my glamor shot...

Chameleon

see the speck? It's Joe.

We drove from here all the way through the Rocky Mtn park in one day--I can't say how glad I am that we arrived at the park entrance just before dusk. There was a ton of activity and even though it was overcast, we saw some absolutely beautiful rays as the sun was eclipsed by the mountains.

Blogs were too new (with the exception of the longstanding presence of Rooftop) for me to have one on our last cross country trip, but if I had, I would have posted pictures from our trip to Yellowstone and expressed the disappointment that we felt at hours and miles of biking the back country and not seeing much activity from the parks residents (I know, right, put on a show for the tourists...sigh... sorry).

It was quite another bit to go from 90 degrees and full sun type weather to 50 degrees or so in an alpine tundra environment.