We left our campground in Fruita, CO around 8 am this morning and started west to Utah. We arrived in Moab at the rental car place and picked up our car. Hubby drove the RV while I followed in the car. We drove to our campground at Dead Horse State Park to see if our site was ready – it was, and it was an awesome site! Each site there has a covered shelter building with lights, a charcoal grill and a cabinet that you can lock. The picnic table under the roof of the shelter building was huge – it could probably seat 20 people at the table. There is also a large tent pad and a long, paved driveway for vehicles. The sites are huge and very private. Ours overlooks a desert area and faced west and we played cards in our shelter while we watched the most beautiful sunset.
After we hooked up the motorhome and grabbed a quick lunch, we drove to Canyonlands National Park. We stopped at the visitor center to see how late they were open and to stamp our passports, then went to Mesa Arch (1-mile round trip – pretty easy, but a little bit of a climb). We hiked up to the arch and took lots of pictures. Then we went to a place called Upheaval Dome and hiked up to it. It was .8 miles round trip but it climbed 100 ft in that short of a distance (lots of stairs). The view was worth it! The kids were waiting for us at the top, sitting together under the shade of a sign. We joined them and sat overlooking the canyon. We were the only ones there and I said, “Listen.” It was absolutely silent – the most silence I’ve ever experienced – not even the sound of a breeze or wind – just absolute silence and stillness. We all took a long pause and sat there looking and experiencing the silence. I don’t think anyone wanted to be the first one to make a sound or speak, but eventually we heard other visitors coming up behind us, so we got up to leave. As we left the overlook, I told the next person to sit and enjoy the silence. He said, “Awesome, thank you, I will.”
Our final hike at Canyonlands was to Grand View Point. After spending some time wandering on the trails at Grand View Point, we went back to the Visitor Center to watch the orientation video and fill up our water bottles.
After finishing up at Canyonlands, we drove back to Dead Horse Point and stopped at the Visitor Center. We watched the orientation video there and looked at some beautiful photography in the small gallery. We went outside and explored the rim trail behind the visitor center before we decided to go back to the RV to grab a snack. To finish off our hiking for the day, we drove up to the Dead Horse Point trail head and hiked the trail along the rim of the canyon and climbed up on some of the rocks there. We have a lot of pictures to share from our full day. We ended up hiking 5 miles, some of them pretty tough.
With our hiking complete for the day, we went back to the RV to cook dinner. We decided on steaks and baked potatoes on the grill and a huge fresh peach we split for dessert. After dinner we played cards in the shelter while listening to music and watching the sunset. We took a quick walk around the campground and saw a Kit Fox at one of the empty sites. Back in the RV, we watched the rest of the movie we started last night, and now we’re getting ready for bed. Tomorrow, we head to Arches National Park!
