Arches National Park

The Pregnant One is tired today – more than normal. It’s understandable since we’ve done lots of walking and her belly is definitely bigger than a few days ago. Hey Peach, what’s going on in there?

We had another busy day. After another big breakfast of leftovers (peach pie and enchiladas – yeah, strange but that’s what she wanted) we drove on to Arches National Park.

We drove into Arches National Park and saw a couple of the viewpoints when I suddenly noticed that my digital camera was showing a horrendous amount of dust on the sensor. No amount of blowing would dislodge it, so after several frustrating attempts at cleaning I finally decided that we needed to head back to Moab to find a photo shop. I got a sensor cleaning kit which helped reduce it dramatically and then we hit the park again. Ms. Pregnant was not impressed.

We continued driving through Arches to see the Courthouse and the Gossips formations – beautifully-sculpted out of the orange-brown rock. Then we went on to walk around the Balanced Rock and have lunch at the picnic area before moving on. We went to see the Cove of Caves and the Double Arch, and walked the North and South Window trail through the Turret Arch.

It’s much hotter here at Arches National Park than the other places. We’re lower in elevation and the sun feels more powerful. There’s not a lot of breezes to keep the heat off and nowhere to shelter from the sun. We went through at least 4 litres (quarts) of water between noon and 5 pm.

We drove on to see the famous Delicate Arch (from a distance, neither of us had the energy to walk up that steep and unsheltered path) then drove all the way to the Devils Garden Trailhead. We hied out to see Landscape Arch then decided to call it a day. We’ve been doing about 4-5 hours of hiking per day so far and it’s catching up to us.

We went back to Moab for dinner before driving on to Monticello for the night. I’ve noticed that her belly is definitely getting bigger as I watch. She’s larger in the evenings but in the morning her belly seems to shrink a bit. In the last 3 days there has definitely been an increase in her belly size – I keep saying that but it’s true! I wonder what baby Peach thinks of all the activity we’ve been doing?