I had a much easier drive this morning, only two hours to Arches National Park, a place I’ve been looking forward to experiencing in person after seeing so many cool images online. On the way to Arches is a place called Hole in the Rock, a little tourist trap/rest stop along the scenic highway. It was amusing. Apparently, it’s been a popular rest stop even before the invention of cars, back when cowboys rode in on horses or covered wagons in the early 1900s. It became more popular in the 1950s when the Christensens opened up a diner in a small shack in the space between two large rocks. Eventually, they got the crazy idea to move the diner into the actual rock behind the shack by blasting out small caves in the rock and carving out rooms for the dining room, kitchen, and gift shop. And once they’d accomplished that, they decided they might as well live in the rock too, so they blasted out more of the rock for their new home, Hole in the Rock. I took the cheesy tour as well and was actually pretty impressed with the construction and engineering skills needed to create such a unique home. I was equally amazed that the couple did most of the work themselves. Even though it was a pretty cheesy-looking tourist trap, I think I might have some proof now that not all tourist traps are bad things and you can actually learn a thing or two from them. It definitely beat stopping at another McDonald’s or even worse, an actual rest stop, to use the restroom!
Not much further down the road, I found Arches National Park. Like all the national parks, it was a bit of a drive into the actual park’s sites, but thankfully it was full of spectacular scenery!
The main sites in the park are amazing and awe-inspiring, almost beyond words, to say the least I stood there looking at these cool rock formations and thought there’s no way these are natural, they must be man-made, and yet at the same time I know that they are completely a result of the beauty and mystery of nature. It’s almost too tough to believe, but to be honest I’d rather believe they were natural, makes them even more amazing, if that’s possible. Since I can’t seem to articulate tonight, I’ll once again let the images speak for themselves.
Wilson Arch
Balanced Rock
Park Avenue
North and South Windows
Turret Arch
Delicate Arch
I think I did pretty well with the tripod today and was fortunate that the attractions always had other tourists around to snap a shot or two of me as well. However, this was one location where I wish I had had a companion so that we could have taken pictures of each other. The really cool thing about Arches that for me makes it even better than the awesome Grand Canyon was that not only could you get shots of the many arches from a distance, but you could also hike right up to them and touch them and sit on the rocks under them and climb on them. It was really cool, but there aren’t really pictures of me doing most of those things because it’s impossible to set the self-timer on the camera and climb up on the rocks and pose all in under the 10 second window my camera allows. And it’s awkward to ask a total stranger to wait a few minutes while I go climb the rocks and get into position for a picture. Most are with their families and are busy taking pictures of each other and I didn’t want to impose to that extent. Luckily, Arches was a definite favorite from the trip so far and I would love to go back someday with someone so I can take those pictures I didn’t get to take this time around. In fact, I didn’t even see the entire park today because it was over 100 degrees and 4 hours in that kind of heat was enough for me! Until next time…
I would love to say that today ended with another rainbow, but there wasn’t any rain, well not literally anyway. You could say there was some figurative rain right at the end of my day, just two miles from my hotel, and it came in the form of a speeding ticket. Yes, that’s right, I got a speeding ticket just 2 miles from my hotel! I’ve never gotten a ticket before for anything and I suppose on this kind of road trip with speed limits constantly changing from highway to highway and state to state, it was bound to happen eventually. It has put a real damper on my great day as you can imagine. I mean I wanted to see some red, white, and blue this weekend, but police lights in my rearview mirror weren’t quite what I had in mind! So Price, Utah is definitely not on my list of places to revisit in the future, or ever again for that matter! On a more serious note, I hope everyone takes my little speeding ticket to heart and drives safely this holiday weekend!
My dad arrives in Salt Lake City tomorrow and I’ll meet him around lunchtime, or later, depending on how slow I decide to drive to avoid another speeding ticket. It’s been fun road tripping alone. I think I’ve learned a lot about myself, what I am capable of, what I can handle, and I’ve been places most people would never go alone and I’m proud of myself for that. But I’m really looking forward to having a travel companion for a little while to help with the driving and to talk to and take pictures with at more cool places like Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, and Chicago.
Well, it’s been a long day and it’s time to hit the hay…
And Happy Early 4th of July!!
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