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mistressofmuses) wrote2022-07-18 05:16 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-07-18 05:16 pm
Thursday, July 14: Utah (mostly Arches National Park)
Only a few days late! The laptop battery seems so far to be good, so that's pretty cool.
Thursday was our main day of vacation, when we went into Utah and visited Arches.
The Double Arch, one of my favorites. With a rando for scale.
And a nice shot of some of the canyons, looking toward the mountains. And a dramatically posing raven on a dead bush.
Welcome to Utah.
There's a rest stop not far over the border once you're in Utah, and it has a pretty nice view, so we often stop for a quick leg-stretch.
A lizard! Roaming around eating bugs.
And the landscape view.
Down in the canyon we spotted a jackrabbit, and a pretty big dramatic raven taking flight. Plus a few other birds, including some green-tailed towhees.
We also got to see this extremely fat squirrel. I love its fur - it looks like a pinecone!
The squirrel definitely hoped we were going to feed it, but was not impressed that Alex just had his keys with him, ha.
With the new "timed entry" reservations, we had to kill a little bit of time before we could actually go into Arches. I don't *mind* the timed entry thing, I guess - it's supposed to decrease congestion within the park and "improve the visitor experience". I DO find it just kind of... conceptually annoying, because I dislike the idea that you have to potentially know *months* in advance exactly what day and time you're going to be there, because that's how far in advance the times open up. I also rolled my eyes at the "it's free to reserve a time, however there is a non-refundable $2 processing fee."
1:00 was the earliest time we could get when I discovered the reservation system a couple weeks ago. But it turned out to be fairly good timing - we only had about a half hour to kill. We drove on to Moab and hit a souvenir shop for kitschy stickers.
Some rocks! Nice dramatic shapes, though.
The Delicate Arch, the most iconic of the arches...
...from a distance (the lower viewpoint.) It was SO hot, and we wanted to see several other spots, so trying to go on the 3 mile no-shade hike out to see it up close seemed like a bad plan. I DO hope we get to go back and actually do that one at some point, though.
I deeply hope that whoever got to write the first paragraph of this description (about the Delicate Arch) wrote that with a straight face. :)
We stopped over near the trailhead that does take you to the Delicate Arch. It's also where the Wolfe Ranch homestead is. There was a really nice running stream that had a bunch of fish in it. They were maybe some kind of minnow, at 2 or 3 inches long, or they may have just been young fish. (There was one maybe 6-inch one that was too big for the stream, ha, but looked about the same, so I suspect they may just have not been grown up yet.)
Also a bullfrog, seen splashing and then heard.
That's also the trail that leads to these petroglyphs, which I love.
Though after that, we turned around.
Another nice arch that you can get a good view of with a very short walk: the skyline arch.
Then we went over to my favorite: the double arch (picture above the cuts). It's a pretty easy walk, but I LOVE how dramatic they are!
Looking up at the double arches.
Standing under the double arches and looking toward the "windows" arches. Kinda weird how the cloud shapes match some of the rock shapes.
And an extremely tiny lizard. (In the middle, on the bigger stick.) It was SO SMALL. Maybe the length of my thumb, including tail.
Baby Cazadore Tarantula hawk wasp. We got to watch her hunting for quite a while.
We picked the right time to leave, though. Some very annoying people showed up right after.
Raven (same as above the cuts) and dramatic, classic-looking rock.
The same raven and some very stormy mountains.
After this we headed back, since we didn't want to wind up driving in the dark. Not that we had to worry too much about that, but we were pretty damn tired.
Though on the way back, we did see some lightning in some of the small storms that had popped up.
And uh... then suddenly there was smoke. (And a rainbow right next to the smoke from the lightning-strike fire.)
There was pretty shoddy service at that point, so we hope that someone noticed said fire or the rain put it out. I haven't heard about eastern Utah burning down, so hopefully so!
It was a very nice trip, and I was glad we got to go! Kind of a bummer that it was as hot as it was, but not utterly unexpected for the timing.
Thursday was our main day of vacation, when we went into Utah and visited Arches.
The Double Arch, one of my favorites. With a rando for scale.
And a nice shot of some of the canyons, looking toward the mountains. And a dramatically posing raven on a dead bush.
Welcome to Utah.
There's a rest stop not far over the border once you're in Utah, and it has a pretty nice view, so we often stop for a quick leg-stretch.
A lizard! Roaming around eating bugs.
And the landscape view.
Down in the canyon we spotted a jackrabbit, and a pretty big dramatic raven taking flight. Plus a few other birds, including some green-tailed towhees.
We also got to see this extremely fat squirrel. I love its fur - it looks like a pinecone!
The squirrel definitely hoped we were going to feed it, but was not impressed that Alex just had his keys with him, ha.
With the new "timed entry" reservations, we had to kill a little bit of time before we could actually go into Arches. I don't *mind* the timed entry thing, I guess - it's supposed to decrease congestion within the park and "improve the visitor experience". I DO find it just kind of... conceptually annoying, because I dislike the idea that you have to potentially know *months* in advance exactly what day and time you're going to be there, because that's how far in advance the times open up. I also rolled my eyes at the "it's free to reserve a time, however there is a non-refundable $2 processing fee."
1:00 was the earliest time we could get when I discovered the reservation system a couple weeks ago. But it turned out to be fairly good timing - we only had about a half hour to kill. We drove on to Moab and hit a souvenir shop for kitschy stickers.
Some rocks! Nice dramatic shapes, though.
The Delicate Arch, the most iconic of the arches...
...from a distance (the lower viewpoint.) It was SO hot, and we wanted to see several other spots, so trying to go on the 3 mile no-shade hike out to see it up close seemed like a bad plan. I DO hope we get to go back and actually do that one at some point, though.
I deeply hope that whoever got to write the first paragraph of this description (about the Delicate Arch) wrote that with a straight face. :)
We stopped over near the trailhead that does take you to the Delicate Arch. It's also where the Wolfe Ranch homestead is. There was a really nice running stream that had a bunch of fish in it. They were maybe some kind of minnow, at 2 or 3 inches long, or they may have just been young fish. (There was one maybe 6-inch one that was too big for the stream, ha, but looked about the same, so I suspect they may just have not been grown up yet.)
Also a bullfrog, seen splashing and then heard.
That's also the trail that leads to these petroglyphs, which I love.
Though after that, we turned around.
Another nice arch that you can get a good view of with a very short walk: the skyline arch.
Then we went over to my favorite: the double arch (picture above the cuts). It's a pretty easy walk, but I LOVE how dramatic they are!
Looking up at the double arches.
Standing under the double arches and looking toward the "windows" arches. Kinda weird how the cloud shapes match some of the rock shapes.
And an extremely tiny lizard. (In the middle, on the bigger stick.) It was SO SMALL. Maybe the length of my thumb, including tail.
We picked the right time to leave, though. Some very annoying people showed up right after.
Raven (same as above the cuts) and dramatic, classic-looking rock.
The same raven and some very stormy mountains.
After this we headed back, since we didn't want to wind up driving in the dark. Not that we had to worry too much about that, but we were pretty damn tired.
Though on the way back, we did see some lightning in some of the small storms that had popped up.
And uh... then suddenly there was smoke. (And a rainbow right next to the smoke from the lightning-strike fire.)
There was pretty shoddy service at that point, so we hope that someone noticed said fire or the rain put it out. I haven't heard about eastern Utah burning down, so hopefully so!
It was a very nice trip, and I was glad we got to go! Kind of a bummer that it was as hot as it was, but not utterly unexpected for the timing.
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