Canyonlands National Park

We didn't have cell coverage tonight, so posting this has to wait for tomorrow.

We are just ready to pull out of our campsite this morning.

And on the way out of Arches National Park there are numerous pull offs where the scenery is beautiful.

We drove into Moab a small town just 5 miles down the road, fed Miss Travelaire her breakfast at an Exon station and visited a grocery store for a few items.  Then it was off to Canyonlands National Park, a little over an hour's drive.  Canyonlands is very different from Arches.  It's all about canyons, of course.  This is a photo of a very big hole in the ground.  And it is a lot bigger and deeper than it looks in the picture.

The authorities are not sure how it was formed.  Two thoughts are some sort of salt eruption, or more likely a meteorite strike.

It was about a 1 1/2 mile hike in to this crater.  Here is Miss Travelaire waiting patiently with Doreen, who is not in to hiking up and down and around big borders.

Canyonlands is not without its arches too.  This was my second hike of the day, a much easier hike but not one I could persuade Doreen to take either.

This Arch is situated right on the edge of a tremendous cliff.  It's hard to imagine that there aren't a lot of people fall over the cliff at some of these places.  They are climbing all over the place taking pictures, and one slip and they're over!

Here's the view looking over the cliff at the canyons below.

And Miss Travelaire is again waiting patiently and keeping Doreen company back at the parking lot.  This gives a good idea of the general landscape all through the park other than the canyons.

Down the road there was a pull off where you could see the view without hiking in for a mile.  So Doreen was there to take my picture.  It was a pretty strong railing, so I don't think I was in danger of falling over.

Canyonlands is beautiful in its own way, but it's not up to Arches National Park standards I don't think.

After driving us around all over the place seeing the sights all day, here's Miss Travelaire back at the campsite with the red glow of the sunset.  Notice how nice and shiny she looks still.  Normally, even if Miss Travelaire starts out all trim and beautiful, she gets messed up right away with the winter rains through Washington and Oregon States.  But this trip it's been sunny every day.

We are over 6000 feet elevation here, so it will be well below freezing tonight!  There's no electricity here, so the propane furnace will be working and running our batteries down!  But, in fact, the reason we came down here to Utah on this trip to all these beautiful National Parks is because it is a stretch of sunny weather and above normal temperatures.  We have not been able to visit these parts on other trips because the high elevation means there would normally be snow and freezing temperatures at the times of the year we usually travel.