Friday, June 18, 2010
Arches National Park
Since we've had quite a few long days on this trip, today we decided to take it a little more leisurely. We got out to Arches National Park by 10:30 and began with the visitor's center. We didn't stay long but it really is a very nice center. Their display on local birds helped us to finally find out the name of the birds that buzzed us in Mesa Verde. They are not swallows, but White Throated Swifts - and they are absolutely made for speed. They rarely seem to land, which is why we don't have a picture of one!
We did the short trails to several arches, which were beautiful. Our favorite was landscape arch,which is the longest arch span in the world. In 1991, tourists were there filming when a huge chunk of the arch fell, leaving the narrowest portion of the span just 6 feet thick. They have now closed the trail beneath the arch.
Landscape Arch - widest span in the world.
30% Enthusiastically greeted me with a hello
20% Mumbled hello with a quick glance
18% Studiously avoided all eye contact
15% Did not smile, but their mouths twitched upwards
10% Frowned
6% Said hello and offered some other small conversation, ("the view is worth it!")
1% asked me if I thought her shoes were pretty (okay, she was three).
And then there was this guy: I was trying to take a picture with my new camera, and when I pressed the shutter, it began to beep and I had no idea why. I knew it wasn't my battery, and I was baffled! As I began to say "what is wrong with this thing?!!?" A total stranger passing by (carrying his own Canon Rebel) said, "it's in timer mode" and came over to help. I would have felt like a total idiot if it weren't so funny. I knew how to set the stupid timer but hadn't used it, and so had never heard the beep feature. The very nice guy smiled and went on his way, leaving us laughing.
Delicate Arch is so named because the 'fins' which usually stand on either side of the arch are gone and it stands alone. The phrase "it won't be here forever" was very common today.
As we toured Arches today, we had our own personal guide, Dobbs' style: Mark had purchased an Arches National Park Guide app for his iphone. Each arch or area of the park was narrated with lots of references to things like "bifurcation, ex-foliated, expansion, strata, deformation bands, and porous." But we enjoyed her narration in spite of her heavy use of vocabulary words. They also sell an audio CD in the visitor's center which might be worth it if you're the geologically curious type.
I think this must be where the Easter Island folks got their decor.
In true National Park style, there were the usual headaches. There were just a few picnic areas, and when we decided to eat at 1:15 the few tables available were all taken, along with all the parking spots. In fact, most stops had no available parking spots, so you ended up feeling like you were fighting a traffic jam all the time. There are some out of the way drives we will be taking in the next few days, which we understand are stunningly beautiful.
This one is for Carolyn: This rock is called "Lost Sheep"
One word of advice if you come out this way: Bring water! It was in the mid 90's today, and once you get past the visitor's center there's not much out here. We went through a LOT of water today, and the people I saw who were most bothered by the heat were not carrying any water. It's supposed to be 97 degrees tomorrow in Canyonlands National Park, where we'll be. 97 in Utah isn't as bad as 97 in Indiana, but still . . . we'll have to stock up on water. We're all out, again.
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