Moab

My sweetie woke us all up at 6:15 this morning. By 7:00 most of us were in the van and ready to go. He wanted to hike Delicate Arch.

It was overcast and we had a few drops of rain at the hotel, but we decided to make the trip anyway. Arches National Park is not very far from Moab and within about 20 minutes, we were at the parking lot. It was already half full.

We loaded up a backpack with water bottles and we headed off on the trail. I knew the hike was 3 miles round trip and strenuous, but my sweetie has been excited to try more vigorous trails, so I wasn't surprised. His goal for this summer had been to hike to Timpanogos Cave and after he conquered that one, he has been excited to try others.

Baby Doll was my climbing partner and most of the time she was pretty good about holding my hand and staying away from the edge. The kids all hiked way ahead of us and pretty soon we were mostly alone on the trail, although there were lots of other people coming back down. They must have gone up to see the sunrise, but with the overcast day, they probably didn't see much.

When we finally made it along the ledge for the last 200 yards, we rounded the corner and there was the arch. It was beautiful! Of course I had seen it from a distance and on all kinds of advertising including our license plates, but I had never been so close to it.

We patiently waited our turn and then all of us except my sweetie scaled the rock surface for a picture right under the arch. I will try to post one of them for you after my sweetie gets a chance to download his camera. In the meantime, the ones from my cellphone will have to do.

After we all got back off the mountain, we picked up the others from the hotel, checked out and drove home. We stopped in Green River and bought some melons, but other than that, we mostly made our way straight home.

I've spent the evening restocking the fridge, going through mail, and shopping for birthday gifts for Drama Queen and Curly. I'm supposed to do a Tupperware event tomorrow, but if it rains all day, I'm afraid it won't be worth my time. Even though we made good progress, I still have tons of things to do.