On July 30th we drove to Salt Lake to Jeanna's (Lorin's daughter) baby's blessing. Since the temple was closed for cleaning for 2 weeks we decided to go to Southern Utah and spend some time there in the "back country". The first day we went to Panquiutch to spend the night and then ride ATV's the next day
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ATV Riding
We rented an ATV for a 3 hour ride. Here we are
in anticipation of the fun time. The owner
gave us a map of the trail to follow,
took us one and a half miles to our starting
point, took our picture, then left.
He said he would see us in three hours,
but he would be ok if we were a little late.
We rode along what were pretty easy trails that a
beginner could have driven on. I opted to let
Lorin do the driving, although he asked a
couple times if I wanted to trade.
We made it to the top of the mountain that we had
been climbing, and the view was beautiful.
Stylin' with our helmets
The trees behind me are called bristlecone trees.
They look like they are dead except for
a little bit of green bristly clumps
at the ends. Not the prettiest trees, but different.
Fun times !!!!!!
I said we rented the ATV's for 3 hours. It
took us 4 hours to finish the ride and by the time we got
back the owner was out looking for us thinking
we were lost. In all fairness he did take about
one half hour helping other customers before he took
us to our starting point, and we did take our time
and enjoy the journey. He only charged us for 3 1/2 hour
instead of 4. We were sorry we made him worry.
We made a decision after this experience that we want an ATV !!!!!
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Drive to Moab
After we left Panquiutch we headed for Moab for our next adventure. The scenery was beautiful as we travelled.
Mean looking storm in the sky, but we outran it.
This is the top of the mountain pass. The wind was so
strong that it almost blew me over a few
times. Literally I lost my balance and had to catch myself.
Even so there were Indians selling
jewelry along the side of the road. They held down
the blankets that they had the jewelry on with
big rocks. They painted them red so they would
be pretty though.
We drove down a bit farther, then got out to look around.
We found this little guy trying to hide from us?!?!?!
It is hard to see him I guess.
There were numerous mountains shaped like this. It
was so interesting. To me they look like big ships
side-by-side out in the sand. Sand-rock ships.
(see that storm we out ran)
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MOAB
We made it to Moab, found a room, and started to look for a place to rent a jeep that didn't cost too much. We had made reservations at a motel and had a jeep rental with a package deal. Turns out we cancelled it because we thought we would come home early, then changed our mind. It turned out we saved money by getting a seperate motel and jeep rental. We got up and to the jeep rental place by 8:00 the next morning, looking forward to having a good time.
Ready for fun
It's a beautiful day, but the forcast called for afternoon showers
The beginning of trail riding in the jeep.
Notice where the Colorado river is.
Lorin is the driver and I'm keeping track
of where to go on the trail map.
Driver
Navigator
Doesn't this look just like a huge Idaho Potato?
They grow them big in Southern Utah and then they fossilize them!!!!
We saw on the map that we could drive to an
arch (Muscle Man Arch). We were able to drive
to within close walking distance. It wasn't
what I was expecting, but it was
pretty cool and we were right on the top.
Lorin standing on the arch.
Me on of the arch
Climbing the mountains.
Notice where the Colorado River is now.
You can see the trail below that we were winding around on.
Our awesome Jeep for the day
While driving we were seeing green rocks in the
mountainsides. They were clearly being mined
and our curiosity was peaked as to what
the mineral was. We didn't find out. Lorin just
googled it while I was posting this and found
out it is Uranium.
You can't see it very well, but it is
green where the ledge is on the side of the mountain.
Up the trail a ways we came to the main part
of the mine, and they had built a relatively
big lake of water that they obviously use in the
mining process. How they got the water
up that high on the mountain in unknown.
Maybe there is a spring here.
Remember we had been climbing for at least 1/2 of a day
so the lake was high in the mountains. It was very pretty.
It was such a beautiful drive and such a diversity of
things to see. Below is a few pictures of rock formations
that are are pretty interesting.
So beautiful
The last part of the trail was straight up the mountainside
via switch-backs. I hadn't been on switch-backs
since they fixed the pass to Jackson Hole-a long long
long long time ago. It was pretty fun.
This is about the last picture as we were climbing to the top.
When we reached the highway we had just enough time to take another trail on our way back to town. It was supposed to take 1 1/2 hours. We found the trail head and decided to give it a try even though there were black rain clouds all around us. We rode for about Fourty-five minutes and totally lost the trail. We came to a rocky area and couldn't see the trail anywhere. We looked for a while and then decided to go back. We made our way back to the highway and started to town and it started to down pour. We were glad we didn't find the trail and get stranded in the mud somewhere. We reached town just in time to gas up the jeep, get it washed, and get back to the rental place.
We had a ton of fun and it was well worth the money we spent.
Back at the motel we decided-we want a jeep!!!!!
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The Arches
After we got back from the jeep ride we started contemplating the next day and heading back to Salt Lake to stay with Jeanna again before we left for home the next day. We said to ourselves "have we had enough fun yet"? We answerded "no not yet." Since our motel room was not very expensive, and neither of us had been through the Arches, we decided to stay another night and spend the next day at Arches National Park.
The beginning of the Park
There were so many big beautiful rocks.
This rock is called the Three Gossips.
This is an interesting group of archways.
I thought this double arch was awesome.
This was a very busy place. The walk was fairly
long and had a lot of stairways made out of
wood and rocks. It took us quite a while but we made it
to this arch and we walked around in a sort of circle
then back to the car. We spent quite a lot of time here.
If you look really close I am standing there in the clouds.
I took a picture of Lorin a little closer up.
We left the big arch and walked to the right
to see this one. It is called the Window Arch.
This was directly in back of the window arch. As we
are standing in the picture above we were looking at them.
This is pretty cool. These are petrified sand dunes.
I had never heard of such a thing. When I
think of sand I think of movement.
We came around a corner and saw this old, lazy,
wrinkled, skinny elephant laying on the rock.
Hence the name-Elephant Rock.
Aptly named the balancing rock.
We came in this narrow opening in between very tall rocks,
I loved the sandy ground. Since I was wearing
flip-flops I got to take them off and walk around in
the cool sand.
Inside was this way awesome arch-the Sand Dune Arch.
This is a very close-up picture of an arch. It was actually
a long way away from where we were.
I love how the rocks are different colors as the sun
hits at different times of the day.
We took all day to go through the park even though the
lady that rented us the motel room said it would take
2-3 hours. Well I guess retirement lets us slow down and
take our time as we enjoy each others company
and explore the beauty that Heavenly Father has created for us.
This is the last picture at the end of the park.
I love how the setting sun is shining on the rocks behind Lorin.
We would have loved to hike to the delicate arch, but it was far too
long for Lorin to make, plus the day was fading pretty fast by the time we got to it.
