June 18th and 19th 2017

Although we have both been fighting off a nasty cold brought on by hay allergies, we are plodding on. Leighton seems to be improving much faster than I am. Yesterday, June 18th, we went to Arches National park. It is just plan hot here. We past Perry and Steve several times during the day. We meet up for dinner and had a wonderful time. Beautiful scenery but a lack of wildlife.

Today we drove to Canyonlands national park. Perry and Steve went to Potash and then to Canyonlands. Again we both had great days and met again for dinner. This park is not big but was loads of fun. Leighton and I  started hiking up whale rock. Not feeling my best I suggested he go ahead. Within minutes I saw Leighton running across the top of whale rock. Before I was half way their he had run back down. He loved being up there alone. I was coughing a lot and drugged. For those of you who know me well, you know that coughing and my bladder don’t get along. We were on a canyon cliff and I had to go after a long coughing spell. I had to find some privacy so I climbed a few terraces closer to the edge and found a ledge. On the ledge above there were a couple of trees. I had just finished when I heard a great noise and felt wings on my head. A Raven didn’t think much of what I was doing and dived bombed me. I almost fell down another ledge. It got my heart racing. We then left the park and drove down mineral bottom road. This is a dirt road described by the park service as 4 wheel drivable but a bit scary down to the river. On the way out we came across 2 wild horses. Leighton when out to take pictures and the horses kept getting closer and closer. They slowly made their way to Leighton and let him pet them. I couldn’t believe it. I had to take a picture. I suggested we drive to the top of the cliff and look at the road down that all the crazy people drive. We got there and Leighton didn’t stop. I didn’t want to be crazy, just to look at the road. I prayed loudly all the way down and up. I thought our lives were over. It is by far the worse road I have ever traveled my entire life. Leighton loved it. The hair pin turns were so tight you could see the your own tail lights before you got out of the turn. We got to the river; we were totally shocked to see a sigh pointing to a boat ramp. There is no way someone could take a boat down there. We survived and Leighton had a blast. We enjoyed dinner with Perry and Steve again. We are all exhausted. Steve was so tired he spent a fair amount of time trying to turn off the skylight in his bathroom. Tomorrow we head to Mesa Verde while Perry and Steve head to Blanding.

This morning we had a visitor to greet us as we prepared to leave.

As we entered Arches National Park we were treated to some fascinating rock formations after we had a lesson in how to dress to go to a park.  I love the white heels.

Soon we received another lesson on taking pictures in the park – no need to worry about oncoming traffic.

We finally got around to finding and photographing some arches for your enjoyment.

The next day we headed to Canyonlands National Park.

Cool curves in the rock.

Alligator rock?

Balancing rock.

Whale rock size perspective (see the person in the center of the picture).

View from the top of Whale Rock.

Whale Rock.

After we left the park we went down a dirt road leading toward Mineral Bottom.  Along the way we saw these two horses and of course I had to have some pictures.

Donna was concerned about me getting to close to the horses but since they came to me I got to pet them.

We left the horses and went on down the road to where it started down into the valley.  We looked over the edge and decided to see what it was like. It was sooo much fun listening to Donna say interesting phrases as we went down I had to continue.  We were surprised at the bottom when the road split and to the right was to the boat ramp and to the left the rim road around Canyonlands.  The rim road requires 4 wheel drive and 3 or 4 days to go around.

This is the view from the top.

Here you can see a portion of the road into the canyon.  It doesn’t really do it justice.

Just so you wouldn’t be disappointed, I included the lizard of the day picture.