8hunters Tour the USA: April 3-4 – Moab, UT and Arches National Park

We took the scenic route from Bryce to Arches – over 300 miles of incredible scenery climbing to an elevation of 10,000 feet where we felt like we were on top of the world looking down at an incredible vista below. We passed through Capitol Reef National Park on the drive and found countless places to pull off along the road and take pictures. It occurs to me that the State of Utah for reasons unknown doesn't choose to spend money on guardrails. We've passed over some unbelievable roads at meaningful elevations the past few days and I don't think I've seen a mile worth of guardrail. There was one stretch of road several miles long today with drops on either side of several thousand feet. I hit this stretch, slowed to about 30 miles/hr, grabbed the wheel with both hands and looked straight ahead. Meanwhile Nancy is in the passenger seat explaining to me how steep it is on both sides of the RV - NOT HELPFUL. I had to apologize for my response later...

We rolled into Moab, UT in the early evening with the white-knuckle driving experience safely behind us. This is cool town – obviously touristy but not in an obnoxious way. It has a nice quaint downtown area with a number of cool shops and restaurants. As we drove through town it struck me that it seemed like every other car on the street was a Jeep Wrangler – some of them really decked out. I knew this town was known for rock crawling but I didn’t expect to see this. Well it turns out that it was Jeep Safari week – this is one of Moab’s two big Jeep oriented events during the year. Needless to say the town was hopping. This also meant no camping spots. After looking at some of the designated camping spots on BLM land and finding them full we retreated back to town and took up residence for the night on a city street. The whole family caught a movie – the Hunger Games – at the small theater in Moab. The next morning, after talking to one of the locals, we made our way out to Potato Salad Hill. This is a well known rock crawling trail. We spent about 2 hours here watching all sorts of jeeps make their way up the hill – some of them taking routes that had them going almost vertical seemingly defying gravity. The kids, of course, where hoping to see them come crashing down the hill. Although there were some very close calls, we didn’t see any carnage.

Arches National Park was on the agenda for the afternoon. We drove about 20 miles into the park seeing sights like Balanced Rock and Delicate Arch. It’s interesting that these national parks in Southern Utah are all relatively close together but the rock formations in each one are really different from one and other largely due to the fact that they were created by different means. Suffice to say that you don’t see the same thing twice here and everything you see is definitely one of a kind.