Today we went back to Arches to see a couple of the arches we had missed before. We hiked to landscape arch (longest in world), the Windows, Turret, and Double Arch. On the way out, we saw Pothole Arch. We had missed this one earlier in the dark. It is harder to see because it is a horizontal arch (like a pothole) instead of a vertical arch.
Landscape Arch is in Devil’s Garden, which is at the end of the park road. You don’t hike the whole Devil’s Garden trail (which is good because it is long), but you do get to see some of it’s towering sandstone. There was also a smaller arch to the right of Landscape. We saw a few lizards along the trail and a small herd of female and baby deer right near Landscape Arch. We all just stood there for a minute starting at each other. Their ears are so much bigger than the deer’s back home!
Next, we headed down to the Windows and Turret Arches. These were pretty busy. North Arch definitely had the most people, as it as the first arch. South Arch was pretty empty. It’s not much further, but you do hike around a turn, so I guess a lot of people skipped it. The Turret Arch is across the way and on the same loop.
The final (planned) arch for the day was Double Arch. It has two arches out of the same base. It is across from the Windows and you can see it partly from the parking lot. You can see the arches, but will get a better view if you move closer. It was a nice sunny day, so you could really see the Double Arch really well from the lower parking lot. We did walk to it and it was neat to see.
Because we got such an early start to the day, we headed back to town for brunch. It’s been much harder to make pancakes in the RV and everyone was craving some fluffy pancakes.
The day ended with a Nerf battle between Ben and the boys and a dip in the pool. We had the pool to ourselves and it was amazing!
We had not heard of Canyonlands National Park until getting ready for this trip. It’s not too far from Arches, maybe 30 minutes, so we left early in the morning to go see it.
It was crazy to see these deep canyons. It must have been shocking for people coming through to have mountains, then flat land, and then bam! suddenly huge holes in the ground. Apparently they also tried to mine for uranium in Canyonlands during the 1950’s.
Our first hike in the park was to the Mesa Arch. The trail is pretty easy and is only about a mile. It was a warm day, but we had a nice breeze for most of it. It made hiking much easier.
We then drove on to Upheaval Dome. The dome overlook was quite the hike with several areas close to the edge. I think it was about 1.5 miles. The beginning of the trail is marked pretty well, but then you get onto solid rock surfaces and the trail is only marked by cairns. The views were amazing. Upheaval Dome was pretty neat, with all kinds of colors and jagged edges.
We saw a few small lizards and a couple of chipmunks. As Will was sitting on a rock, a small lizard came right up to him and almost climbed on his boot!
After Upheaval Dome, we took a few minutes to chill at the picnic area at the trailhead. We all enjoyed cold waters from the cooler and a few snacks. We drove along the road and stopped at several pull-outs and overlooks. Several areas were hazy, so we didn’t get as clear of a view as I would have liked. As we were reading about the dryness of the area and how it only gets about 10” of rain a year, it started raining on us!
Top picture, right side: Rain in the dessert
NOTE: I would use bathrooms along trails in the park, not at the visitor center. The visitor center had squat toilets!
Our first adventures in Moab were in Arches National Park. We missed the beginning of the sun rise because we were all lagging and dragging, but at least caught the tail end.
We brought lots of water and sunscreen with us in our day bags and in the truck. We wore our boots since Utah has several varieties of rattlesnakes.
The colors are amazing! When I think of dessert, I picture brown. However, there are reds, browns, whites, and greens here. The minerals in the earth make a lovely canvas across the land.
Our first hike in the park was to Delicate Arch. This is the arch you see on the license plates. It was listed as a moderate hike, about 3.5 miles (there and back). There is a trail in the beginning, and then you hike up a large slab of slickrock and follow a few signs and other people around a ledge to finally see the arch.
The views are amazing once you get there. It was a little crowded, and so far the people in the parks in Utah are not as good at wearing masks in outdoor crowds as in Montana or even Colorado.
You are not allowed to climb on the arches (you would think this is obvious, but we have seen people climb them despite the signs), but there are other rocky areas to climb. The boys love stretching their legs and testing their climbing skills. Of course, the “look where you put your hands and feet” is cautioned before they attempt anything. Within minutes, they came running back yelling about a snake. Will almost ran into a snake…again. Luckily Nick saw it and they ran away.
Ben and I walked over to see what they saw, and it was a small snake curled up on the rocks. It looked like it could have fit (while curled up) in the palm of your hand. I had my zoom lens with me, so I zoomed in for a picture and Will asked a Ranger later. She seemed very surprised and said it looked like one of their smaller rattlesnakes that live in the park. We think it may have been a midget faded rattler. Luckily they are usually nocturnal and he didn’t wake up from the boys climbing right near him. So…the boys were done climbing. We also saw a small lizard and a blister beetle.
After that excitement, we walked back along the trail to stop at Wolfe Ranch. It is a small pioneering type of cabin from the late 1800’s. Mr. Wolfe was originally from Ohio! There were also petroglyphs in the area that we walked to see.
As part of the boys’ online school, we are allowed supplemental hours. We wanted to incorporate learning into a lot our daily fun/activities. When we got home, they researched what kind of snake we saw, blister beetles, and petroglyphs vs pictographs. We learned that if you see lizards out, the snakes are probably going to be active as well. Some adult snakes can control how much venom they inject during a bite. Petroglyphs are etchings/carvings in rocks, while pictographs are paintings.
After the boys were done with their research, they went with Ben to the pool while I worked on the laundry.
In the evening, we went into town and explored. Moab is a cute town! Lots of things to see. They have a Food Truck Park, which is super cool. Unfortunately, there have only been a few of the trucks open each time we have gone. We got a shaved ice to share and then went to The Spoke for dinner. It is a cute building with interior brick walls and it looks like original wood floors. We were on the second floor by a window, which is always nice. They have really good burgers and Brussels Sprouts.
It was a pretty good day, although I think we were all ready for bed by the end.
The boys needed to stretch their legs. By that I mean I needed to wear them out a little bit. They had too much pent up energy, which is never good in 400 SF.
I found a walking/hiking area not too far from our campsite, the Red Rock Canyon Open Space. There are a few different trails in the park. It had two parking lots, one with a portalet.
It was 91 degrees F when we went hiking. We wore our sunscreen and hats, plus brought our water bottles. AllTrails app didn’t pick up on the trails until we were at the park, although I’m not sure why. The app at least still showed our GPS on the trails so we didn’t get too far off track.
There were several rock formations that were interesting to see. Even though it was hot in the sun, the trail did have several spots for shade from the trees and/or rocks, which made it really nice. We saw a few birds around, but no other animals. I did get to see a woodpecker looking for food in a tree, which was fun to watch. The trail was frequently lined with small flowers and cacti along the edges. There were both bikers and hikers on the trails.
At the beginning of the trail, we also saw the rare moody teenage boy. He was in the beginning stages of what we affectionately call “Trail Rage”. It doesn’t happen on every trail, but it does often come out when video games are interrupted to go on a walk/hike. There are several stages of Trail Rage: grumpiness (“Ugh, really?” is often heard.), pouting (“Why do I have to come? It’s just another dumb trail.”, or something similar.), angry face, storming off ahead and ignoring that he is with anyone else, extreme angry face, and eventually we calm back into acceptance and if we are lucky happiness.
We eventually headed back and took a shorter way to see the pond. It was beautiful! The rocks looked white towards the water and turned to red. There were a few trees and shrubbery around the edges. We didn’t get down to the water to dip our toes in, as there were people on the paths down and the boys were tired.
It was a pretty nice trail and a great walk for the day.
We worked on laundry in the morning. There is a breakfast food stand/truck in the campground, so once we got the washers going, we walked over and enjoyed pancakes and breakfast burritos. Nick ran a burrito back to Ben so he could enjoy it while he was working.
We spent a little time playing in the arcade after folding the laundry.
We decided to drive to Garden of the Gods. We decided to take a hike around the park. After 2.5 miles, the kids were done. It was hot and very, very sunny, not a lot of shade. We took a shortcut back and ended up with a 2.8 mile hike.
Family picture and Kissing Camels (the rocks, not us)
We were all dehydrated by the end, even with the water we brought.
We drove to Manitou springs and walked around. It was about 5:30pm when we got there, and the summer hours posted showed most of the town closed at 6:00.
We found a couple of the spring fountains that Manitou is known for. Each spring is supposed to have a slightly different flavor. We only tried one today, and it tasted just like fizzy (carbonated) water! The fountains are located throughout town and are free for use. There were people walking around filling up their water bottles to try the different waters.
We ordered a pizza from Hell’s Kitchen to bring back to the RV for dinner. It was a long wait for the pizza, but the taste was pretty good! It had a nice crust, not heavy on the sauce.
Manitou Springs had several more large objects for Will as well, so those pictures will be coming soon! 🙂
Today the boys and I took a hike in Cherry Creek State Park. I found a new trail on AllTrails: the Wetland And Cherry Creek Loop. It looks like it was a combination of a couple of trails. The beginning was easy to follow, but it did get confusing at times, so I was glad we had the GPS on the app.
It was a 5.3 mile trail, and we did 5.1 miles of it. We ended up taking a short cut at the end because we were tired and it was all sun at that point, so we cut back through the wetlands trail where there was more shade.
We saw two deer back in the woods, 2 hummingbirds (My favorite part! I love hummingbirds.), some butterflies (including some Monarchs, I think), several ducks, and some herons or cranes.
We wore our boots and long socks, which was definitely needed. The trail went from gravel/paved to a tiny path through weeds/grasses/stickler bushes.
It definitely wore the kids out for a least a few minutes!
I had some neat pictures of the wildlife, but my memory card died at the end of the hike. It is now saying it is corrupted, so I can’t get the pictures off of it. I did get some on my phone though!
After working all day, Ben wanted to unwind and explore a little bit. We didn’t want a huge drive, so after some Google searching, we settled on Idaho Springs. I think during non-Covid times, this would be a really cute town to walk around in. They had a pizza place that looked amazing (unfortunately we had already eaten), several cute stores, and some brewery type restaurants. Unfortunately, a lot of the stores were closed even on a Friday evening.
We (I may have pushed it a little bit since we were so close) decided to drive to Saint Mary’s Glacier. (Thank you Allison for the idea!) I found the path on my trail app, put in the directions, and we were off. The road goes up the mountain (as you might expect) and ends in a private drive. The road gets pretty twisty and turny in some spots. There were two parking lots off the side of the road (on the left when going up). The lots were $5 to park (cash only and you paid via envelope in a box). There were a few port-a-lets there, and while they were not full, they hadn’t been serviced in a while. The air was cooler, but not too bad even in shorts.
Now, this was spur of the moment and we were rushing to hike before we lost daylight. The trail app said it was a 1.9 mile trail and that the “trail up is mostly rocks but not terribly difficult”, so I figured it was on the harder side of easy to an easy-ish moderate trail. We didn’t have our hiking boots, although we did thankfully have our walking sticks/hiking poles (thanks Dad!). I also did not bring a water or our spray with us on the hike. Yeah, not my best moment.
The hike was not easy. Nope. Not even a little bit easy in the beginning.
The trail up is steeper and definitely covered in various sizes of rocks. Our lungs are also not quite used to the altitude here yet, so that may have made it harder as well. It also could be I am in worse shape than I thought. Trails out here are not the same as back home! The path branches off in several spots, some going towards a private property, so I was glad I had the trail app to stay on course.
I had to stop several times to let my lungs acclimate and calm down. Luckily I didn’t need my inhaler this time. The hiking poles helped a lot on the rocky areas.
There were a few other groups there, but it definitely wasn’t crowded. We saw what looked like a small wedding finishing up when we got to the lake. Someone else had a snowboard on his backpack.
It was beautiful. The lake has a small beach and we saw a few people with swim suits in their bags, so I’m not sure if they went swimming or not. I would think it would have been very cold water, as the air was quite a bit chillier than down in town.
You can hike right up to the glacier. It was amazing. I haven’t been that close to a glacier before…well I haven’t seen a glacier before either.
It was a great experience, although I do need to plan these out a little better!
We ended up rushing back down because the sun was starting to set and we didn’t want to still be on the trail when it got dark. Although we were stressed at the end to get back to the truck before dark and get down the mountain once the sun set, it was still an amazing experience. How many people can say they touched a glacier?
The boys and I went on a walk/hike today. I chose an easy one since my back has been giving me some problems the last couple of days.
The trail was nicely paved for parts and gravel for others, but all of it was nice and flat. There was not a lot of shade on the trail, so I am glad everyone put on sunscreen and wore their wide brim hats.
The trail wove across a few bridges, went near the lake, and through several prairie dog locations. We loved seeing them run around and call out to each other. They are so squeaky! (No wonder dogs loves squeaky toys.) I have a quick video up on the YouTube channel of them calling out to each other. The beginning of the path had a lot of bikers (bicycles not motorcycles) and even had a repair station with an air pump and some tools.
After hiking, we ran into Target to get Nick some new shoes. (This kid is rough on shoes!) We bought a few other things as well and headed to drop off some postcards. Once back in the campground, we did another load of laundry.
Ben wanted to run into Ikea when he was done with work, so off we went looking for couches. The couch in the RV is actually loveseat sized and not that comfortable long term. You can’t really lay down, the arm rests are too low to really give support but at the same time too high to use as a seat. Since we are going to be in here for a year, we thought we could replace the couch. It seemed fine when we bought the RV, but like anything you use daily, you quickly discover if it works well for you or not.
We found a couple of possibilities, but none that worked really well in the space. We’ll just keep looking.
I think the kids’ favorite part was when we were leaving. This store had an escalator ramp!
Ben wanted to go on a fairly easy hike, mostly flat, under 5 miles.
I found one on AllTrails that looked like it could work. It was 5 miles and listed as moderate, which most of the ones around here were. The only easy listed trails nearby were ones we had already one near attractions in the park. The reviews made it seem like the hill in the beginning is what made it moderate, so I thought it would be fine if it evened out later. Nope! I should not be allowed to pick the trails we do in the parks. At home I did ok, but I clearly haven’t adjusted to here yet. 3 hours and 39 minutes later we make it back to overlook the parking lot.
It was a bit more strenuous than I had been expecting. There were several flat areas, some next to a large drop down. A few small bridges. No wildlife other than some feather remains and butterflies. At one of the ponds, we did see what may have been a dam, but no beavers. It was a bit of a let down in terms of hikes.
By the end, everyone was exhausted and a little cranky. The best part was that by pure circumstance, the trail dumped us pretty close to where we had parked the truck!
We were all so tired and sore when we got back to the truck. We stopped at the creek to dip our feet in and the numbing cold water felt amazing. Driving back into town, we stopped at Scoop! There It Is ice cream trailer and got some huckleberry ice cream.
Later that night we drove to the park and stopped to look at the stars! There were so many more than what we get to see at home!
The boys and I woke up early, planning on going to see Old Faithful.
Well, we made it to Yellowstone, got 40 minutes into the 2+hour drive, and I made a wrong turn. Of course, many of you know I stink at directions and I had a 13 & 11 year old help read a map while I drove. I veered left instead of going straight. Whoops!
We realized we were going the wrong way too late in the day to start over, so we turned around and started back home.
Now, it wasn’t a wasted trip! (Although I was plenty angry with myself for not double checking the NPS Yellowstone app. I downloaded the app, but you have to also then download the map inside the app for it work offline! Not a lot of cell service in the park, so make sure you do it before you head to the park.)
We saw several more bison by the rivers, Soda Butte, a Petrified Tree, and got the customary picture next to the Yellowstone National Park sign. We saw the Roosevelt Arch as well. It was pretty neat, and there were also birds nesting in the rocks of the walls.
The boys and I chilled for a little bit and I watched some elk wander in the river. I also saw a hawk carrying a fish in it’s talons!
I got a bunch of pictures of them separately, but this is the only one I managed to get with both the elk and the hawk/fish in the picture.
When Ben was done with work for the day, we headed back into the Park. This time we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs and walked along the boardwalks. We saw several hot springs, the Liberty Cap, a landscape filled with white, oranges, browns, and a few greens and blues. Dead trees popped up here and there creating a unique look to the landscape. Some of the formations were like stalactites, some were more rounded, some formed pools and steps, some were holes in the ground. Some trickled, some flowed, and some steamed. It was beautiful in an almost stark kind of way.
I would definitely recommend doing this in the morning or on a cooler day. There are several sets of stairs along the way, no shade, and a fair amount of walking. It is totally worth it, but on a super hot day, it may not be as enjoyable.
SOAP BOX ALERT: At the petrified tree, we read the information plaque. There used to be 3 trees, but people started chipping pieces away for “souvenirs” and now only 1 is left and is fenced off. The park has numerous signs stating stay away/do not approach wildlife, and even their in-park radio station says the same message. At the Hot Springs, there are signs that say “Fragile. Stay On Path.” I saw footprints in the crust and even one lady was bending under the railing to touch it and try to get pieces of it. Seriously! What is wrong with people? As I tell my kids, “if it’s not yours, don’t touch it.” Or even “look with your eyes, not with your hands”. Ok. I’m done ranting. I’ll get off my box and get back to the post.
Next we parked to take Lava Creek Trail. Only problem was, there were several paths beaten out, of varying sizes. Looking back, we did take a wrong path. It ended up being quite the hike down to the river. I definitely don’t want to do that one again. It was hot, a little humid, and the pollen was up. Going down the steep hill was ok, slowing going due to loose rocks, but not horrible (Ben thinks it was about 40 degrees). The river was really neat to see. (Yes Mom, we did bring the bear spray!) We saw something swimming in the river that looked too small and didn’t have the right tail to be a beaver, but I’m not sure if could have been a river otter or a weasel. It was too fast to get a good look at.
The way back up was hard. Not going to lie, the I thought about just sitting down and staying there kind of hard. Had a hard time catching my breath and ended up having to use my inhaler once we got back to the truck. I haven’t had to use it for daily activities in years, normally just when I’m sick! The lady parked next to us gave me a nod and a wave when she saw my inhaler and held hers up. Asthmatics unite!
On our drive back home, we saw some more bison and a few sheep as well!
There was a fence around the bottom half of this bush. I guess he grew! The bush must be really taste for the mule deer.
We were all sweaty and exhausted when we finally arrived back home. I looked at my phone’s Health app and it claimed only 10, 545 steps for the day. However, when I looked at the Flights Climbed, it showed 34 flights! No wonder we were all so tired.
I think we may just explore the town a little bit tomorrow. There is a bookstore/coffee shop I want to check out and the boys need something new to read for rainy days/travel days.
