Drive in drive out I’m leaving
Dave Matthews
Drive in drive out
I’ll come back again
What a whirlwind trip to Colorado! We arrived Saturday and we’re gone by Monday. With the amount of snow the West has gotten this year it just didn’t make sense to spend any more time now as anything over 10,000 feet is still thoroughly snowed in. Our absence will only be brief though, we’ll be back next month to explore our new home.
We left Denver after sleeping in just a bit to recover from the late night last night. Molly did most of the driving and I successfully rode along without getting sick from the bumpy, curvy, mountain road. I was even able to finish my blog for yesterday. It really is amazing how quickly the hours fly by in the car even if I’m doing absolutely nothing.
Our first stop in Utah was the Arches Visitor Center where we saw Ranger Mike. We chatted briefly, made plans to meet up again later this week, and picked up the Fiery Furnace permit he was able to get us for tomorrow morning. . The rest of the afternoon was taken up by road trip errands. Fred needed an oil change, I got to use my City Market card to resupply water, we checked into our hotel, and got supplies organized for tonight’s hike.
Ellie and Molly came up with the idea of doing a sunset hike to Delicate Arch. Since we knew that we’d miss the morning window for somewhat cooler hiking this seemed like a great idea to me. The hike in was very similar to what we did a couple days ago at Green Mountain, about a mile and a half long and 600 feet of gain. The difference was the 30 degree increase in temperature. The hike really did go smoothly though.
We spent some time sitting in Frame Arch all on our own watching people take turns snapping pictures of Delicate Arch. A raven briefly stopped by to nonchalantly inquire whether we’d be willing to share any food (we weren’t). Otherwise we just enjoyed the time in the cool and quiet.
Eventually we decided to head up to Delicate Arch itself. There were surprisingly few people there for such a perfect evening. The last time we did this hike we actually decided not to wait in the long line to take a picture near it and settled for a selfie from across the way. Tonight we walked right up and were able to take all the time we wanted checking out the arch up close and snapping pictures.
With sunset still an hour or so away we settled in to a nook in the shade to people watch and enjoy our picnic dinner of sausage, cheese, crackers, hummus, and apple. Molly pointed out that there wasn’t a single color that wasn’t visible somewhere in nature around us. Great job picking the perfect first Arches Hike of the year girls!
We made it back to the car just as the last bit of sunlight disappeared from the sky. I’m anxious to go to bed now. We have another early morning and full day on the schedule tomorrow
