Day # 52 - Arches N. P.

Tony was feeling better today and AJ’s asthma has quieted down so we are up for adventure today. Our first stop is looking for dinosaur tracks.



Abby has been on Tony’s case about the fact that he promised to take the kids to find dinosaur tracks. She was very excited to get going today. We headed north up State Route 191 from the campground to Copper Ridge Fossil Bed. The pamphlet Tony picked up at the Moab Visitors Center was very specific about the directions: Turn right just past the microwave tower that is ¾ of a mile beyond the mile marker and cross the rail road tracks. Why didn’t they just tell us to look for the church tower and the three-legged dog?



Anyway, we did manage to find the right road and were pleased to see a very small wooden sign with an arrow pointing the way. There was a small parking area and an information sign. The sign said that there were fossilized tracks of a few different dinosaurs including what were thought to be those of an Allosaurus (meat eater) and a large sauropod (veggie eater). We headed uphill a few hundred feet to a small ridge. We weren’t exactly sure what we were looking for, then we spotted the cairns. Cairns are rock piles used to mark trails. In this case, they were used to mark fossilized dinosaur tracks. At first some of them were a little difficult to see. There was another informational sign off to the side that discussed the tracks and types of dinosaurs and once you orientated yourself, you could begin to pick out the tracks without the use of the cairns. They were freakin’ cool! I just couldn’t get over the fact that I was standing in actual footprints made by dinosaurs millions of years ago. These weren’t molds or objects in a museum, they were actual tracks. Pretty impressive! (Yeah, I know that I am a dork!). We all had a good time tramping around for a bit and looking for more tracks.

After we had our fill of tracks we headed back to the car. Sarah and Tony stopped back by the information board. There was a large map on it displaying the Dinosaur Diamond pre-historic By-Way. The Dinosaur Diamond is a 512 mile loop through Colorado and Utah that contains several sites/museums of pre-historic and archeological significance. Check out the website: http://www.dinosaurdiamond.org/ We found a couple of places that looked like they might be worth a look on our way to Colorado Springs.

Next, we headed for Arches National Park. We were really anxious to get out in the rocks again. We started at the very modern visitor’s center so we could stamp the family “National Parks “passport. There was a nice gift shop and some very neat displays. Next, we headed for the windows section and chose to take the North and South windows trail. It was a moderate climb, but very doable for the family. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery all around us. It truly is impressive just how many arches there are in this park. They are a wonder to behold. We made it to the first arch (North Window) and actually climbed up inside the arch. Lying on your back looking up from below gives you an entirely different and amazing perspective of the arch. We continued down the trail and opted to skip the South Window in favor of the nearby Turret Arch. As we approached Turret, we turned around and had an awesome view of North and South Window together. This park is relatively small and some of the arches are large and easily seen from a distance. This gives you many different angles from which to view the arches. It is pretty cool. We met a nice family from Bakersfield, CA who offered to take a few photos of the whole family. After a short while scrambling around on the rocks we were all getting pretty hot, tired and hungry so we headed back to the car for lunch. I had packed in a lunch. There are absolutely no restaurant/snack bar facilities in the park. I think it kind of adds to its charm.

A few words about Arches National Park – it is pretty incredible. Because it is relatively small in size, it is easy to navigate. You may think it would make it unbearably crowded, but we didn’t find that to be true. The landscape is almost surreal. The rocks are strikingly red – more so than the red rocks of Sedona. The smooth surface of the rocks (slick rock it is called) gives the arches and rock formations a totally different look. The vast number of arches in such a small radius is impressive. The petrified sand dunes were also very neat. The thing we liked most about the park was its accessibility. The trails took you out into the thick of it without the pavement and handrails and a “Disneyesque” quality that some of the other National Parks have. Here, actually walking under and through the formations really let you feel like you were part of the experience, rather than watching it from afar. This is definitely a place I would like to visit again.
We left the park and headed into town to a local drug store. Tony had called home to our doctor and filled him in on how he was feeling and the lack of competent care in town, so he called Tony in an anti-biotic just in case. We headed back for the camper for a quick rest and to clean up for dinner. We felt like a steak and were directed to Buck’s Grill House in Moab. Dinner was very good, even though it was a bit pricey. The steaks were tender and the kids well behaved so we were all good. After dinner we headed into town to walk off dinner and to buy the kids dessert. We had put in a full day so it was off to the camper and to bed.