Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

For a hot, mostly lifeless desert, southern Utah has some pretty amazing things to see. We went to Arches National Park back in 2006 and it was well worth seeing again. The heat prevented us from taking too many hikes this time, but we did do the iconic Delicate Arch hike and saw some of the other monuments that were a little closer to the road. On a different day, we drove up to Canyonlands National Park, where I'd never been before. We drove around the Island in the Sky and checked out the amazing views of the landscape...

Delicate Arch

Balanced Rock

Just making sure it doesn't fall while we're here...

After I got back to work, the rotating desktop background on my computer came up with a photo of Mesa Arch (as seen here). It made it only slightly more depressing to be back sitting at a desk...

The Heat of Moab

The last time we were in Moab, Utah was 2006, long before the children and all that other stuff between when we left Montana and now. Since then, the expanded family has grown exponentially. If the Millers had come along this time the campground might not have been big enough. I do have to say, Moab is a fantastic place to visit, even if it is 107 degrees in the summer. It was hot. Really hot. Especially if you're camping in a tent at night. So that limited our activities during the day, but we still got out to see the parks and hung out with the Utah Sellers. The landscape is unique in that part of the country, with steep rocky cliffs, red dirt, and beautiful wind-carved rock formations. We hung out in the campground while the kids swam in the pool or played in the creek, then we hiked in the heat, and even did a little Jeep off-roading.

The Green Table

I thought "mesa" meant mountain in Spanish, but I guess I should have known that "Montana" is the Spanish word for mountain. So I learned something after going to Mesa Verde, which I guess looks like a green table. We didn't have a lot of time, and after dealing with a slight fiasco at the campground in Cortez, Becky and I took the boys into Mesa Verde to see a few of the sites. It was a long, long drive to the back of the park, but it was incredibly beautiful. The sweeping valleys and towering sand colored cliffs surrounded us as we curved our way back to the locations the park is known for. It was too late to take a Ranger tour, but we did get to see some of the famous Puebloan cliff dwellings, even though it was raining by the time we got there. We've been to several parks like this, but this one has the most impressive ancient structures.

While we did get rained on, it was nice to actually wear a jacket in July for a change!

The Great Sand Dunes

This place had been on my list for a few years, but even though we'd driven past several times, we'd never been able to get over and see Great Sand Dunes National Park. So this time we reserved a camp site and met Grandpa Jim and Grandma Cindy to check it out. The winds converge at the edge of the Rockies, causing mountains of sand to form in the valley. The tallest sand dune is said to be around 700 feet above the valley floor and is the tallest in North America. It was easy to see where all the sand comes from, as that's pretty much all there was at our campsite.

We took the worst road I've probably ever been on to get to a short hike to Zapata Falls... but unfortunately I was the only one who actually made it back to see the falls, which wasn't really worth the hike. The friendly campground manager told us it never rains there, so of course while we were on the hike, it poured at the campsite and tried to destroy our tent. But after the hurricane winds died down, we were able to make camp on the first night and everything worked out.

The next morning, we got up early and set out to climb the dunes. We quickly discovered that walking in pure sand, especially while walking uphill at 8,000 feet above sea level, is not an easy task. By the time we made it to the top of the dune we set out to climb, Paul was crawling on his hands and knees, I was trying not to die, and Adam was somehow still jogging it. The views were incredible...

The photos don't really show how steep some of these dunes really were. Even Adam had to get down and crawl a little here and there...

Made it to the top! Of this one at least...