May 17: After a leisurely drive to Moab, Utah, we spent a little time getting to know the town. We walked the downtown strip, in and out of numerous shops that sold pretty much the same things . . . lots of T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, jewelry, pottery, artwork, goofy gifts and the usual tourist trinkets. We stopped for ice cream cones and stocked up on groceries at the local market.
About 10 miles south of Moab is "Hole in the Rock", a famous oddity that we had to see for ourselves. Albert and Gladys Christensen began hollowing out this enormous rock in the early 1940s. After 20 years of hard work, they had created a very livable 14-room home. Albert was a big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt, so he carved a likeness of FDR into the front wall of his house. The home, like a cave, maintained a fairly constant temperature, so they didn't need heat in the winter nor air conditioning in the summer. Pretty cool.
May 18: The next day we drove up on the nearby mesa to Arches National Park. The park is only a few miles north of Moab and has the largest concentration of natural sandstone arches in the world. There are more than 2,500 arches in the park, but only a fraction are visible to the typical tourist. Most visitors stay close to the paved scenic drives, trails and viewpoints. That’s what we did, and we found that most of the largest and most dramatic arches were easily accessible and very photogenic.
The Windows Arches were very popular and close to several others.
Turret Arch . . .
Although arches and red rock are the main features of this park, there are many geological formations that are just as impressive, including high sandstone fins and towering pinnacles. The Three Gossips look somewhat like three people talking . . .
and we wondered how long Balanced Rock will continue to balance before the forces of nature erode its pedestal out from under it.
No comments:
Post a Comment