August 20, 2013
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Epic Road Trip, Day 8 part 2
Still at Dead Horse Point (DHP), we went a bit off trail and climbed some rocks for a scenic vista. This wouldn't be possible if we suffered from vertigo, but since we don't, up we went and down, down, down we looked.
The canyon here is about 2,000 feet deep, which, in my mind, justified a shot of my boots overlooking it.
Then one more picture.
Ok, maybe one more.
We peeled ourselves away from DHP and headed to Arches to pick up our tickets for the Fiery Furnace Tour scheduled for 4 pm. We assured the ranger we could squeeze through narrow spaces, climb large rocks and jump over deep holes, and he gave us the tickets and instructions on how to get there.
With time to spare, we went to Moab to do some caching, which didn't pan out too well for us. The kids were hot and irritable and they weren't much interested in looking around or touching anything. Metal outside has a tenancy to burn fingers. On a really, really fun note, you can go through the McDonald's drive-thru and buy a bag of ice. We did this a lot during our stay at DHP, drive into Moab, get a drive-thru bag of ice, dump the water out of the cooler and refill it with ice. We did this a lot. And when I say that, I don't mean a couple times while we stayed here, I mean more or less twice a day. Cause, where else can you get a bag of ice from the drive thru at McDonald's?
Having given up on finding caches, we went to the Museum of Moab, which is free on Mondays. Since it was Monday, we went. The kids loved it there, not so much for the history or fascinating artifacts, but because the staff had hidden 47 tiny plastic lizards throughout the exhibits and the kids got a prize for finding them all. They may have counted some twice, but who cares? They had fun.
After spending several hours at the museum, we shopped for some picnic items, found a great park and had lunch. The kids, forgetting they didn't want to cache because it was too hot out, ran and played in the park and played with metal musical instruments displayed in the sun. Figures! We hung out till it was time to head to Arches. The ranger had said it would take about an hour from the entrance and there was sometimes a wait to get in so we left in plenty of time, despite there having been a small accident at the park and having to go to the store to buy clean underwear for a certain child of mine.
Once we got to Arches and went in, I wondered why we'd spent so much time at the museum and the park when we could have been driving around looking at this.
And this. 
And that. 
Not to mention the other! 
We arrived in time to wait for others before our tour started. Quin was immediately taken with the ranger and most of the time he was following in her footsteps practically before she'd vacated them. She was very sweet to him and the other 3 kids on the tour, often using them for interactive examples of what she was trying to explain about the geology or biology of the place.
However, Xanga is giving me fits about downloading more photos so the tour will have to wait.
