After a restful night we woke to the prospect of seeing the wonder of Arches National Park. It’s about a 40-mile trip from our RV park but it was a nice drive. We even got rained on part of the way. That was refreshing for us wandering Oregonians. It didn’t last long, though.

When we got to the Arches entrance, we were confronted with a dilemma we hadn’t anticipated, nor had we been forewarned. It turns out that Arches is one of 6 or 7 national parks in the USA that requires folks to get a reservation for a specific entry time. We there were vague instructions about how to obtain one. It included a phone number but I went to work on the proffered web site thinking I could figure it out. Turns out I couldn’t and missed the 2 pm entry slot. Then I called the number and got permission to enter at 3 pm. So, having time on our hands, we went to Moab for lunch. We were with Cliff and Susie because they missed the 2 pm slot, also. Carolann and Terry got in at 2 pm so we had to split up. It worked out OK in the end.

Lunch was a cheeseburger for me and dead fish for Diane. Hers looked really good but I refrained from begging for a bite. She finally offered a bit to me but I opted out and just ate my cheeseburger. It was good, too. We ate outside so Max could sit with us and not have to stay in the truck. He got a lot of attention in many different languages from people who live all over the planet. Moab is a busy, busy place. You should all visit this place at least once. I didn’t take many photos in town because I was enthralled by the scenery that surrounds the town. They do have some interesting street signs and apparently there are wires inlaid in their roads that allow everyone to drive hands free. Diane tried it out and it worked great until we got to a corner.

I have a photo of the street sign on my phone and it will be made accessible at a later date. Just trust me.

After lunch we returned to Arches and spent 2.5 hours driving through awe inspiring rock formations. I only took 193 photos, some of which I will add shortly. First, however, since pretty much everyone in the world has seen the sculptured arches at some point in their lives, I won’t dwell on them. We didn’t even get very close to the real thing, but we got within a mile or so and took a pretty good photo, if I do say so myself. I’ll just toss a few of them out here for you to ponder. After finishing Arches, we returned to our RV, had supper with our friends, then called it a day.

On the way to Arches the landscape started changing from flat to lumpy . . .

By the time we entered the park at 3 pm the threat of rain had passed, and we enjoyed beautiful weather . . . Max didn’t care . . .

Then things got interesting . . .

Many of the formations looked as though they were frozen beings from a Star Wars movie . . .

We named this one “Peeps” after the little yellow marshmallow things Diane loves.

I think you get my drift. It was all quite amazing seeing all these rocks carved by the weather. Stunning. Then we finally ran across the one everyone’s seen. It takes a hike to get close to this one, but we were OK just viewing from a distance. We’re all old, you know.