Arches National Park

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Roger

After visiting National Parks on four of the previous five days, we had it down to a science — sort of. We grabbed a raspberry scone at a Moab bakery and were at the park entrance just after dawn. Too early, as it turned out. The booth where we expected to pay our $30 fee wasn’t manned yet. A sign on the window instructed us to pay in the visitor center. But the visitor center wasn’t open yet. A sign on the door told us to fill out a self-pay envelope, put the money inside, and stick it through a slot in a box.

At the entrance station for other parks, we were informed that they preferred payment by card. So we weren’t expecting to have to come up with $30 in cash. My wallet contained several $20s. My wife had a $5. We scoured the change compartment in the car and managed to come up with another $5 in coins — mostly dimes and nickels. We were able to cram all of it into the envelope, but the envelope didn’t fit through the slot in the box.

After trying for a couple minutes, I got to a point where I couldn’t push the envelope in or take it out. Which meant that nobody else would have been able to pay. There were other people gathered around by this time waiting to pay. Fortunately, they all thought it was rather funny. I finally managed to force the envelope through the slot after a kind man stepped up and shook the entire box.

We headed straight to the Windows section of the park. There were two trails there we wanted to hike. The first wound past the North and South Window Arches and the Turret Arch.

North Window Arch

South Window Arch

Both of them from in front of Turret Arch

And both of them through Turret Arch

Turret Arch

We crossed the parking lot and walked to Double Arch, which was maybe half a mile from the others. Here’s the formation.

Other stuff in the area. We thought this row of rocks looked like men or monkeys staring into the distance.

There are 2,000 documented arches in the park, although some of these are described in the park brochure as “cracks.” This one wasn’t named, that I could see.

Part of the Garden of Eden formation.

We passed Balanced Rock several times during the day. Here’s a shot I took as we drove by early in the morning.

We headed further into the park to the Delicate Arch Viewpoint. To actually reach the base of the arch, we would have had to hike three miles on rock. My wife’s heel wasn’t up to that, but we did hike the steep trail to the overlook where we got these views. This is the most famous arch in the park, notable because it’s free-standing.

There were fall colors, even in the desert.

We drove to the end of the road by Devil’s Garden. This part of the park looked to me a lot like Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, only bigger.

Landscape Arch. We didn’t bother getting out of the car.

There was one more trail I wanted to hike, but my wife was done. She stayed in the car while I walked the Devil’s Garden Trail. It wasn’t particularly strenuous, but there were several hills and a lot of loose sand. I soon noticed that I was passing everyone, and that people a lot younger than I am, and who looked like they were in much better shape, were panting and stopping frequently. I was feeling pretty good about the shape I was in. And then I realized I was at 4,500 feet. I live at 6,700 feet. It was the abundance of oxygen that was giving me the energy.

Tunnel Arch

Pine Tree Arch

Landscape Arch — the one with the longest span.

The La Sal mountains in the distance

We were done with the park by early afternoon. But before I end this part of the post, I want to share one more thing. I think the writer of the Arches National Park newsletter used to write devotionals. What do you think?

After dropping my wife at the hotel, I drove north for about 20 miles to see the Moab Museum of Film and Western Heritage at Red Cliffs Lodge. The museum turned out to be a room in a basement with stills from movies shot in the area — and very little other information.

I spent maybe 10 minutes in the “museum,” and then wandered outside. The lodge sits along the Colorado River in a deep canyon, and the view were amazing. I decided that we’d have to travel back and spend a weekend there.

Although the museum wasn’t worth the price of admission (it was free), the drive there and back was well worth paying for (although I didn’t have to). The video below shows views from Arches National Park and from my drive that afternoon.

After stopping in Moab for donuts, we hung out in the hotel the rest of the day.

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Hole N’ the Rock

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Roger

This tourist trap comes complete with a misplaced apostrophe. Hole N’ the Rock is about five miles south of Moab. It advertises itself with huge letters painted in white on a cliff.

We were the only visitors when we arrived early in the afternoon. A few other suckers came in while we were there. We entered the white building beneath the letters and were greeted by an unusual woman. She was probably in her mid-50s, with her head half shaved and half hanging in front of her face. All of it was dyed electric blue and pink. She was also missing about half her teeth.

We paid for the 12-minute tour, and that’s what we got. The woman rushed us through the attraction like she had somewhere to be other than an empty gift shop.

But what is the attraction, you ask? It’s a house carved out of the rock by a guy named Albert Christensen and his wife Gladys. They started out living in front of the rock in the 1920’s. Albert carved out a room for his four sons, and then kept digging. Two rooms were used as a diner in the 40’s and 50’s. Albert died in 1957. Glady’s continued living in the cave until her death in 1974. She began giving tours in her latter years.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures. When attractions have this rule, it’s generally so they can sell postcards. But I found no postcards of the house. But photos are easy to find online.

There are supposedly 14 rooms, but really there are only three or four with different “areas’ serving as rooms. Three front doors and several windows let in quite a bit of light, and except for the rather musty smell and the tacky decorations, it didn’t seem like a terrible place to live.

We were in and out in 12 minutes. We spent about that much time looking at the grounds which were … weird. Here are just a few of the things we saw.

The graves of Albert and Gladys.

The cactus is made of bowling balls.

We were back in Moab with nothing further to do by 2:00 in the afternoon. We wandered through some of the downtown stores, all of which sold exactly the same souvenirs —except for a used bookstore that had some charm.

I went forth in search of birds. I parked along the Colorado River and walked a dirt trail along the cliffs. The view was pleasant, but there weren’t many birds around.

We ate dinner at a place called Pasta Jays. Our meals were rather bland until my wife had the clever idea to put salt on them. Magically, they became enjoyable. We took half home and cooked it in our room microwave the next night.

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Canyonlands National Park

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Roger

Canyonlands National Park is divided into three segments by the Colorado and Green Rivers, and there are no bridges or other means to get from one segment to another without driving a great distance outside the park. We opted to just go the the Island in the Sky section.

The chief feature of this part of the park is Mesa Arch, and we headed there first thing before the crowds arrived. There were people around, including one Asian woman who was walking around taking photos with the aid of a selfie stick — except that she wasn’t taking selfies. She just used it to take forward-facing photos, which made it a challenge to determine which side of her we should pass on.

Scenery-wise, this was the highlight of the park. Those are the La Sal Mountains in the distance.

We dutifully drove all the roads and stopped at all the overlooks. It was scenery like this that prompted me to say, “I can’t tell a canyon from a hole in the ground.” I believe the mountains in this next photo are the Henry Mountains. A sign said they were the last range of mountains in the continental U.S. to be discovered and mapped. Apparently they had run out of good names by that time. That’s the Green River in the ditch.

We stopped along the road to get a view. There was a narrow trail leading toward the cliffs, but it obviously wasn’t an official trail. I was somewhat startled when my usually-law-abiding wife took off for a closer look.

I think these next shots were taken facing east toward the Colorado River section of the canyon.

We did everything there was to do without taking a long hike or driving on rugged dirt roads, and we were done in about two hours. Maybe in different light … It was just to big and bleak to be beautiful or even fully comprehended. Apart from Mesa Arch, the most interesting thing in the park was the sign in the outhouses instructing people to use the toilet, not the floor, and to not stand on the toilet.

We headed back to Moab and stopped for snacks at a grocery store before continuing to our next adventure, which turned out not to be much better.

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Monument Valley

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Roger

It just happened that our route took us through Monument Valley, but we weren’t upset about it. Of course, I was familiar with it from every western movie ever.

Sam, our friendly waitress at Zion National park, told us we had to stop at Goulding’s Lodge to try to Navajo frybread. It turns out she may have been biased. The lodge itself was an unimpressive structure with a dull dining room attached.

The menu said the special was the Navajo taco. This turned out to be an unexceptional hunk of somewhat-greasy bread with canned chili, lettuce, and tomatoes dumped on top. I downed about half of it before stopping to ask myself why.

Next to the modern lodge was the original building built by the Gouldings in the 1920’s. They ran a diner downstairs and lived upstairs. The museum inside was mildly interesting.

Behind the museum was a small structure billed as “John Wayne’s cabin.” In fact, it was a potato shed. The outside was used as the outside of Nathan Brittle’s (John Wayne’s) cabin in the movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. The museum building also had a cameo role in the film. The interior shots were filmed in a studio in California.

Movie director John Ford loved the look of Monument Valley and shot several of his westerns there. His, and other, films that have been shot in the valley include:

  • The Eiger Sanction
  • Cheyenne Autumn
  • The Searchers
  • Stagecoach
  • My Darling Clementine
  • Back to the Future II
  • Vacation
  • Forrest Gump
  • Starman
  • Thelma & Louise
  • and many, many more.

We visited the Goulding Lodge gift shop, which featured a lot of Navajo-crafted items. We spent way too much money.

After we passed the towers, we came upon the spot where Forrest Gump stopped running. I felt compelled to stop and take a photo even though I’m not a big fan of the movie and couldn’t recall the scene until I’d looked it up online the night before.

It got dark before we reached Moab. The hotel where I had reserved a room for the next three nights turned out to be right on the main street. The town caters to off-road enthusiasts, and loud four-wheeled drive vehicles roared past all night. Our hotel seemed to be particularly attractive for enthusiasts — at least 75% of the vehicles in the parking lot were Jeeps, and about half of the rest were pickups. The drivers we came across during the next two days were nice enough, but they had a penchant for standing on the walkway outside our room chatting and drinking beer, which reduced our sense of privacy considerably. We kept the air-conditioning fan on full blast the entire time for white noise.

The room was clean enough, and the beds weren’t bad. They actually had a pillow that was far more comfortable than mine at home.

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Navajo Bridge

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Roger

I kept my eyes on the sky the entire time we were at Zion in case a California Condor flew over. If I’d seen one, we would probably have gone to Bryce Canyon National Park on Wednesday. But I didn’t, so we went to Moab by way of Arizona. We crossed over the Kaibab Plateau just north of the Grand Canyon.

We stopped to see the condors at Vermilion Cliffs, then continued east across the top of Arizona. We stopped at the visitor center at Navajo Bridge and walked across the Colorado River on the old bridge. This section of the river is called Marble Canyon. Lake Powell is about 10 miles north, as the crow flies.

At some times of the year, condors hang out on the girders. Occasionally, one will  even land on the railing where the monitors chase them away so they don’t become too acclimated to humans.

There were no condors there when we visited, but the view was still impressive.

The new highway bridge is on the left. The old one is now restricted to foot traffic.

To get a sense of scale, notice the two boaters in inflatable kayaks at the bottom of the next photo. You may have to enlarge the photo to see them. The river looks placid, but the people in the boats were doing very little paddling, and they were out of sight around the bend long before we left.

We hung around about 20 minutes, made a quick stop in the gift shop, then headed east.

The mountain ranges run north and south in this part of the country, so we had to keep dipping down further into Arizona, then heading back north toward the Utah border, only to dip down again. It wasn’t a quick trip, but it was interesting.  We stopped for snacks in Page and for gas in the middle of nowhere on the Navajo Reservation.

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