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July 6- We left Grand Junction yesterday morning and headed up to Colorado National Monument, on the mesa above the city. You can see the monument from town but it much more spectacular to go up there. The road runs along the top of the mesa and you can look down into the sandstone canyons, which are full of stone monuments. I had never really heard of it, but it was pretty cool.
Then we made a two-hour drive into eastern Utah to get to Arches. 60 miles without so much as a house or a gas station. We didn't even see any cows, though several of the exits were designated as "Ranch Exits."As you get close to Arches, the red rock uplifts start up. We didn't have us much time in Arches as we would have liked, so we had to miss out on one of the hikes that goes pas a number of the arches. Perhaps just as well, in the late afternoon in the desert in July. We did get out to Double Arch, which is an amazingly cool spot; an arch to relax in and not just look at.
The highlight of the trip, though, was a sunset hike up to Delicate Arch (the iconic symbol of the Park, if not Utah.) We thought, "no one will be up there at sunset" - ha! Grand Central Station. But it was kind of neat to be up there, perched in this enormous slickrock bowl, with about 100 watching the evening sun light up the arch. We got back down with the last of the light and then did some stargazing on the way out of the park.
We stayed overnight in Moab and had a leisurely morning—sleeping in late after two very full days, getting a fantastic breakfast at a pizza joint after finding that the famous breakfast place is closed Tuesdays, and doing a little shopping.
We are now back on the road and heading across Utah—next stop is Great Basin National Park. We are leaving most of the other area landmarks (Canyonlands, Bryce/Zion, Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde) for a dedicated Southwest trip sometime in the future when it isn't the middle of summer.
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