November 6: Grand Junction, CO to Moab, UT. Starting mileage 35,144.
Back in Denver, we’d gotten advice on places to see and things to do. One strong recommendation was to fill up the gas tank as often as possible once we got out into the more remote areas of the wild west. Like the possibility of snow in Rocky Mountain Novembers, this wasn’t something I’d thought about, but of course, it made sense. So, near the turn-off for Moab, we pulled into Papa Joe’s for gas…and quickly pulled out again. $4.99 a gallon! That was more than $2.00 a gallon higher than anywhere else we’d seen so far. Outrageous!
No worries, we soon found a reasonably-priced filling station and continued on into Moab. We stopped first thing in Arches National Park Guest Center to get familiar with what to see and how to see it. We decided that given the time and our hunger, we’d save the park for tomorrow. But we did whet our appetite by pouring over the postcards, picking up park maps, and watching the introductory video. This place was going to be amazing!
Finding our Brand New Hotel
After dinner at the Moab Grill, we went to check-in at our second Springhill Suites by Marriott Hotel. We had an address for Siri, but she never said a word. We drove out of Moab. Where was the hotel? It was supposed to be the closest hotel to Arches National Park. We drove back in to Moab. Nothing. We turned around and drove more slowly back the other way, out of Moab. And, back in again. What the heck? We pulled in to a parking lot and made a phone call for directions. The lady on the phone described the building, and the turn off just past the river. The hotel had only been open for four days, and they hadn’t put the sign up yet.
A few minutes later, we pulled into the right parking lot and drove around the unmarked building looking for a lobby door. Lucky for us, check-in was easier than finding the place, or the door to get in. The fireplace was lit in the lobby, and we lingered there for a minute before finding a luggage cart to take our bags up. We’ve never stayed in such a new place! Our room had never been slept in. Everything smelled new and clean–from the woodwork, dry wall construction and fresh paint, to the brand new sheets and towels, and spotless carpeting. What a treat!
Doing Laundry on the Road
We had left Chicago and Nashville about 10 days ago and we were running out of clean clothes. Thankfully, the hotel had a coin-operated laundry room for guests. For $10.00, we did two loads of laundry, while catching up on journals and photo downloads. Not a bad way to spend an evening, considering the crazy days of driving we’d had recently.
November 7: Arches National Park. Starting mileage 35,264.
We were up and out early the next morning. Today, we were using our National Park Annual Pass for the first time. Arches would be the first of many national parks we’d see on our road trip.
National Parks
In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill that created our first national park, Yellowstone. The National Park System was established 44 years later by The Organic Act of 1916: “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” Today, the U.S. National Park system contains 60 National Parks and a number of national monuments and historical sites.
Our National Parks are treasures. They are sweeping and majestic scenery preserved for us, and native animals. They are history saved and remembered for us. And as Ken Burns and PBS say, they are America’s Best Idea. An annual pass is just $80 and allows a carful of people to enter any of our national parks. I cannot recommend the parks or the pass enough.
Arches National Park
We proudly showed our National Park Annual Pass to the Park Ranger at the entry gate that morning. I smiled and stared at his Smokey the Bear hat as he handed down a newspaper map with the formations, roads, and trails. And then we began our drive into the park…up, up, up. The road twisted and turned, doubling back on the mountain’s ridge as we climbed into the park and the Ranger’s station got smaller and smaller below us.
Originally named a national monument in 1929, Arches was re-designated a full-on National Park in November 1971. In its 76,000 acres, Arches National Park contains more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches and unique rock formations with descriptive names like Balanced Rock, the 3 Gossips, and Sheep Rock.
On the morning we entered, the sun turned the rocks orange against a blue, blue sky and a full white moon lingered in the horizon just above the rocks. Arches was a complete surprise to us. We hadn’t planned to be here and we were blown away by the place. Just a few minutes into the drive, Mama Lucy asked that we stop to clean the windows for better viewing opportunities.
A Day in Arches National Park
It appeared that we were the first car into the park that morning, because when we pulled over at La Sal Mountains Viewpoint, all we heard was the wind in the desert. The sun warmed us as we looked out at stone formations called the 3 Gossips, Sheep Rock, The Tower of Babel, and The Organ. My-oh-my, what an astonishing view!
We spent the day like this…driving a little way, hopping out to walk a bit and photograph a lot, and gawking and expressing our happiness that our changed plans had allowed us to see this place. The park is easily accessible and you can see a lot from the car, or from short, easy walks. There are longer and more intense hikes for people who can do it. Overall, we were thrilled that Mama Lucy could experience so much without very long or too strenuous walks. Another reminder of what the National Parks System has done to preserve and to share the nation’s great beauty for all of us to see and enjoy.
Walks, Lunch, and Taking Care of the Parks
We took short, easy trails to sit beneath Balanced Rock, to walk on the eyelids of the windows that form the Double Arch, to see the sand dunes arch, and to have a picnic lunch among the scrub jays, crows, and tiny chipmunk-like critters near The Devil’s Garden.
I was glad we’d packed lunch and could sit in the sun to eat. We had left over croissants and fruit from breakfast, plus salty snacks, and fresh water in our own Rubbermaid water vessels filled up at the Park’s visitor center. We were very careful to dispose of trash in the ample trash bins along the park’s main road. The parks are a brilliant reminder of how pristine the land can be when humans take care.
At the end of the day
As the day wore on, we wore out. We crammed in as many of the short trails as we could muster. The temperature warmed up and the light changed so that the formations we’d seen in the morning looked different by afternoon. And of course, we had to stop again for more, different photographs.
Late in the afternoon, we stopped back by the Visitors Center to buy, write, and mail postcards from Arches while we were still in the park. We’d decided on a car wash and dinner at McStiff’s –both seemed an appropriate splurge given our and the car’s busy and physically exhausting day. Alas, neither was available…no car wash to be found in all of Moab, and McStiff’s was closed “for 2 days for Rest and Projects”. We ended up at Moab Diner, and not long afterward, fell into our brand new bedsheets to sleep like babies.
For more information:
Read more about our re-route that got us to this amazing place, and about our reasons to go on this seven-week USA Road Trip.
Interested in visiting the National Parks? Read more about them here.
Select prints are for sale on my Etsy site. You can also email me for more information about photographs not on Etsy.
And finally, thanks for reading!