Here we have more red sandstone rock formations, mostly within a traveler-friendly setting.  You can see much of the park from its paved roads, and now that summer is coming on with a vengeance, that’s a real good thing.  We’ve had a string of 88 to 94 degree days in the shade (of which Utah has very little) in Moab.  That’s too hot for Pink.  She could ride with us in the truck, but she’s not allowed on trails nor to be left, even momentarily, unattended in our truck.  We dropped $80 on three nights in a pretty good RV park just so we could sleep cool and let Pinky guard the trailer in 75 degree comfort.

Suffice it to say, we’ve seen enough desert.  We haven’t had an inch of rain, in total, since early April.  Low humidity is nice and all that, but people from Louisiana and dogs with webbed feet (Springers have them) possess an in-the-DNA need to smell rain, hear thunder, and see lightning now and then.   The time has come for us to move on to Colorado.  Bring on the July monsoon!

Meanwhile, Arches is crazily scenic despite its lack of a canyon.  There’s no river.  The park is just the product of millions of years of differential rates of rock erosion.   Check out Kat’s pictures: I won’t waste 10,000 words trying to describe those ten pix.

Arches is a mile north of Moab, a town built for tourists, that inexplicably has a very nice grocery store called City Market.  It’s part of the Kroger family, but is a couple of notches more upscale than old K-Roger.  Besides the Market, there are funicular car rides up the mountain, but we didn’t see anyone take them.  There are lots of cafes, bars, ATV rental places, and outdoor outfitters.  None were crowded.   The helicopter base for tourists is 20 miles north of town, but we didn’t see or hear any choppers buzzing around in our three days here.   This park has a very short season consisting of April and May.  Here it is, June 6, and the bloom is well off the prickly pear.  It gets much hotter in the summer; if you’re considering a visit to Arches in July, plan on seeing it all from your car.  It’s going to get nasty hot, and soon.

But damn, it’s so lovely.

P. S.  Some of the titles of these pictures are bogus.  Can you tell us which ones are real?