Arches and Canyonland

After three days of tent camping in freezing temperatures, I was more than eager for a shower and a soft bed to sleep in. We drove several hours from Zion up to Moab, Utah where we spent the night in a hotel. I don't remember ever enjoying a shower, a warm bed, and takeout Thai as much as I did that night! The next day, we drove a few miles over to Arches National Park. This park is famous for having over 2000 sandstone arches and many other neat geological features. 

There were some stunning views at Arches. The weather was cold and there was a light rain. However, that didn't stop someone from holding a wedding beneath one of the arches. I felt sorry for everyone. It looked quite miserable, though it is certainly a beautiful place to get married.

There are bumpy, rocky unpaved roads out of Arches. We took one of them and bumped along for miles to get out of the park. 

After Arches, we drove through several miles of open cattle range to Canyonlands National Park. The clouds were so heavy and it began to snow on the drive in so we decided to take the dirt road into the canyon rather than go to the overlooks since we would not be able to see anything. Did I say we decided? I mean Alvin decided to take the dirt road down into the canyon. Did I mention I have had problems with heights ever since I had children? Well the minute we came around the bend and I saw the narrow dirt road (with patches of snow here and there to make it more exciting) winding down into the canyon with a sheer 1000+ foot drop-off and no guard rails, I almost had a full blown panic attack. 

Alvin's assurances of "it's fine! I'll go slow." were of little comfort to me. I know we were probably just fine, but needless to say I hated every moment of the twisting, winding decent into the canyon and probably didn't breathe until we at last reached the bottom. 

I mean, look at that drop off! Tell me I'm not being paranoid. 

And look at that hairpin curve in the road! 

The perspective of the picture doesn't accurately portray the vastness of the canyon we just descended into. We survived and all off roaders who zip up and down canyons every day would probably laugh at me. But, if given the choice, I will gladly never drive on a snowy dirt road with no guard rails into a canyon ever again

We drove along miles and miles of rocky dirt road sometimes with canyons rising above us and other times we were above the canyons below. We drove by the massive potash evaporation ponds outside of the park which was interesting to see, though I didn't get any good pictures of them. 

If I thought the harrowing driving experiences were over for the day, I was wrong. Upon leaving Canyonlands, we began the long journey back to southern Arizona. It had been snowing lightly most of the day but as we drove, the snow only got worse. We soon found ourselves in blizzard conditions with snow coming down thick and fast and the roads covered up completely.

We eventually drove out of the snowstorms in Utah and drove through Navajo Nation territory in the desert of north Arizona. However, as it began to get dark and we neared the higher elevations of Flagstaff, we drove right into another blizzard. We soon found ourselves sitting in miles upon miles of backed up traffic while the roads turned to ice. I couldn't shake the thought of a repeat of the dreadful pileup that happened in Texas recently. However, after many hours, whatever wreck had stopped traffic got cleared and eventually traffic began to slowly move forward. We finally made it back to Yuma around 2 AM. The next morning we awoke to 75 degree weather and bright sunshine. I've got to admit, I'll take winter weather in Yuma any day over all that!