Arches.

We went to Arches National Park in Utah from Friday to Saturday last week. Despite a run-in with some locals, we had a great time and saw a lot.

We drove from Bryce Canyon and went through Capitol Reef National Park. The drive was beautiful,although we did get a warning from the Utah Highway Patrol. Let's just say someone whose name starts with an R was driving a bit fast.

We picked up supplies in Moab on Friday night and then got to the park. We found a site and set up our tent. Then we noticed a tag on the campsite post. So we moved our tent over to the next site, which had some stuff on the picnic table; however, it didn’t look occupied and there was not a tag on the post. So we ate dinner, had a couple games of Quiddler, and went to bed.

Then, just as we were falling asleep, we saw headlights pointing into our tent. Apparently, in Utah it is a common practice to claim a site by throwing your stuff on a site, not by actually filing in the tag, posting the tag, and paying for the site. So I got out of the tent to talk it out with the dudes in the big SUV. According to Rhoda, I was civil without backing down, and I did get him to admit he had been lazy and made a mistake. It ended up working out fine for us.

During the day, we did a lot of hiking. We saw some beautiful landscapes, including several dramatic arches. The hiking was challenging at times, especially when we had to climb a bare rock face and go up and over a pool of icy water. We saw the really famous arch, although it was really crowded by Delicate Arch. We even saw petroglyphs for a second time. The first time was in Capitol Reef.

By the end of the day, we were really tired. And we had a mouse living in Geronimo. So we checked in to the Archway Inn and emptied Geronimo. We washed and cleaned Geronimo. We got some beer and pizza. It was a good night.

The next morning, the mouse was gone and we packed up Geronimo and hit the road for the Grand Canyon. Huzzah!