I woke up around 07:00 but just couldn't get out of bed I was so worn out from the past couple days. I sat there in bed, trying to work up the energy to get up and make some coffee, for about an hour. When I finally decided to get going I made a cup of coffee and headed off towards Arches National Park without my camper.
Pulling into the park there was already a line of vehicles and I waited there for about 15 minutes. Surprisingly, I was able to find a parking space at the visitor center and went in to find my sticker and to talk to the rangers. When I had a plan I began the drive along the scenic route and with the advice from the ranger was going to bypass all the scenic stops until I got to the end of the route and would work my way back. The first stop was going to be the Devils Garden but there was no parking due to the amount of people. The 7 mile hike that is at that stop I had already decided I was going to due tomorrow morning while it was cool and there was parking available.
As I worked my way back down the scenic drive thru the park I hiked in total around seven miles. Seeing the arches was amazing and I was interested in learning how they were formed and seeing how the landscape was a variety of reds everywhere one looked. It was a warm day but there was a constant breeze which made it comfortable. The longest continuous hike was three miles and was to the Delicate Arch which is the symbol of the park. Although there were people everywhere the hike was still enjoyable and so was the park itself.
By the end of it all it was going on 16:00 and honestly I was just tired of driving around and looking at everything. So before I left the park for good I stopped at the visitor center to fill up all my water bottles and went in to ask if it was okay for me to fill up my 5 gallon water jug. Fully reloaded on fresh drinking water I drove back to my camper. Along the way I passed by the Moab Giants Museum and really wanted to enter and pretend I was being chased by a T-Rex or another dinosaur for they had greatly detailed statues throughout the park. Alas, it was $22.00 just to enter and I didn't want to see all the other stuff so I drove on wards to camp.
At camp I wrestled my canopy in order to acquire some shade and almost went sailing with it due to the strong winds. I finally got it set up and really wanted and needed to take a shower but there was no way I would be able to get my portable shower tent set up without it blowing away. So I took showering to a new level and placed my boiling solar shower, with some cold water added to it, in my camper on my bed and knelt on the ground below it in my swimsuit to shower. Within a matter of minutes my towel, swimsuit, and hair was dry due to the wind and the heat of the desert.
Once I was feeling clean I updated my journal and wrote a few postcards for my nieces and cleaned up the camper some. When the wind died down I took my canopy apart and then tried to update this blog; however, after over an hour I had only finished one post since the internet was so slow. Once that uploaded I opted for bed.
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