Arches - The trip begins

One week later and I am just now getting around to writing about our trip to Arches. It was a really nice trip. The weather was great, just a tad bit cool in the mornings and evenings but when you start hiking it is just perfect. We drove down Friday night and stayed at a motel then got up real early (5ish) to drive the last 45 min to arches and get in line for a tent site. There were 7 open spots that day and we were the 5th family in line so we made it! I was really nervous we wouldn't get one and would have to waste time finding another place to camp but our early rising paid off By the time we got our tent site ticket it was almost 8am so off we went to start hiking.
Arches is just the type of park I like, it has lots of short hikes. That way I can follow my hike, rest, hike routine without making Craig stop all the time and wait for me. Although he doesn't mind stopping and smelling the roses weird desert flowers every once in a while.

Plus the variety keeps me interested. We went on two or three hikes in the morning, the first of which was called "Park Avenue" because supposedly reminded people of NYC. I could kinda see it but personally, I wouldn't have come up with that name.By the middle of this hike, I could already tell that we were way ahead of schedule so we stopped and had some camera fun.Then we headed to Balanced Rock. This "hike" was so short I feel lame even calling it that. It was more like a nice stroll around a rock. But the rock was big and seemingly precariously perched so it was cool.Oh wait, that picture is boring. Here is one with Craig and the big rock.
Next we hiking "The Windows." It's other name is the spectacles...can you tell why?
I guess I'm in front of a lens in this picture. It was only a little after 11 but we were ready for a break. We are really improving our trip planning and this time instead of pushing through until we couldn't hike any longer, we stopped, set up camp, ate lunch and took naps. That way we rested when it was sunny and hot and we still had energy. We took another short hike and then headed up to the pièce de résistance of Arches - the Delicate Arch hike. For you non-Utahns, it's the arch that is on the Utah license plate.

This one was busy. Hiking early and late lets you avoid the masses most of the time, but this is one of the most popular hikes so even late in the afternoon there were people everywhere. And it killed me how unprepared some of them were. It is only 3 miles but a lot of it is slick rock, there is no shade, and quite a bit of elevation change. And there were people walking it in flip flops! Silly people.
You have already seen our best Delicate shot but we also had some fun up there before heading down again.
This post is already super long so you will have to wait till later to here about the rest of the trip, if you aren't already arched-out, that is.