Arches National Park

 Arches was my favorite park of the 3 that we visited!  Since we're early risers, we cooked in our suite and were at the park by 7:30!  I had heard that this park is so popular that if you don't get there early, they will shut the gates till people leave and then let a few cars in at a time!  We were there so early that the pass booth wasn't even open yet so you had to stop at the visitor center to pay - but we have our national park pass (purchased for $10 a few years ago - what a bargain!!) so we could just drive right in!

I had mapped out in advance everything we wanted to see and the length of the hikes to see some of the arches.  Our first stop was Park Avenue which was our longest hike of the day at 2 miles.  At the top you could see the panoramic view of what you were hiking to.

The hike immediately went DOWN - there were some man made steps and a lot of just rock steps - I was glad I had my walking stick with me.  Because I have short legs, some of those stretches to get to the next step seemed to put a strain on my knee later on!

Because we were in the park so early, it was COLD!  I believe it was 38 degrees when we started our hike and Glenn and I both decided to just wear flannels over our tshirts - but the majority of the hike was in the shade so I was really cold by the time we FINALLY hit the sunshine!

Where the sun was shining, definitely made it more difficult to get pictures because of all the shadows!

The hike back up was definitely a lot harder than coming down!!

We drove to Balanced Rock next and walked the trail to get up close!  Hard to imagine the size of that rock!

Next on the list was the "Windows" section where we hiked to North Window and South Window arches - they were really cool and one of my favorites!

Behind this arch is a severe drop-off!

We also hiked over to Turret Arch (which somehow I didn't get a picture of) and then to Double Arch.

It was amazing driving to these different arches - the red rocks were absolutely breathtaking to look at and I can't tell you how many times I told Glenn to stop so I could take pictures!  By this time the park was starting to get a little busier - we ate a picnic lunch and then continued on our drive through Arches.  TO BE CONT'D.