#2 Camping Trip of 2014

We took advantage of 4 days off from work and went on a camping trip the first week of June. It's a 7 hour drive out to Moab, Utah and we'd heard it's a great place to visit along with the two national parks there.  Krista & Daniel had just gone a few weeks before us to camp outside Moab. So off we headed to Gunnison to stay overnight with Krista & Daniel to break up our 7 hour drive into two short drives. We enjoyed exploring around Arches National Park our first afternoon in Moab, Utah. Here's some pictures of this unique desert area.

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

This park consisted of a lot of sandstone formations. 

We saw flowers and plants in many different colors. I was surprised since we were in a desert climate. I had forgotten that cactus can have really colorful flowers. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of the bright pink cactus flowers because we decided to stay on the trail like we were supposed too in the national park.

We just had to get a picture of the snow-capped mountains although they were so far off in the distance. Made us feel like we were at home even in the midst of all the desert area around us. 

North & South Window Arches in Arches National Park

another view of the La Sal Mountains in the distance at the Colorado/Utah border

Our view from our campsite. Can you spot the Colorado River in this picture? 

It was nice to listen to the noise of the river while at our campsite. I even saw a River Otter! I had heard some extra bubbling noises by the waters edge and wondered if it was an animal. There was a lot of brush so you couldn't get right up to the river. I was looking and a little otter popped his head up and swam right along the bank and then whipped himself back under the water. Caleb and I brought our chairs down there for the rest of the evening and were reading, but never spotted another otter swimming around although we could hear them.

 CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK

How would you like to drive down this road? It goes down over 1400 feet into one of the canyon areas. We saw a dump truck slowly making his way winding down this road. And I mean slowly like creeping.

Canyonlands National Park (We agreed all of this area was just as incredible as the Grand Canyon and we heard another older guy comment and say the same thing)

After we spent an afternoon at Arches National Park and the next morning at Canyonlands National Park, we made a spontaneous decision to head over to Glenwood Springs, CO to camp there rather than stay another night in the desert of Utah. We did enjoy getting to see the national parks, but we were ready for some cooler weather again (Colorado has spoiled us to nice cooler summers. We're not a fan of temps in the 90s anymore) and we'd been wanting to see Glenwood Springs for many months now so we were excited. I'll write my next post about Glenwood Springs!