Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Rainbow Over the Rockies

Today was another long day.  We stayed in Beaver, Utah last night.  Just a little town on I-15 with beautiful scenery all around - very refreshing.  This morning we left at about 7 and headed for Arches National Park.


We zoomed across central Utah at our usual 80 MPH since the speed limit here is 75.  In Nevada yesterday we even had some stretches of road with 80 MPH speed limits.  

We turned down the highway to Arches and started seeing amazing red rock formations even before we entered the park.



This enormous wall of red rock looks as though it were carved into figures many millennia ago and then eroded to the shape it's in now - even though it is all a natural formation.


Finally we entered the park.  The formations are just amazing!



This one reminded me of an Easter Island stone head,

This section is called Park Avenue

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Incredible!


Here is one of many balancing rocks.


The formation on the left is called the three gossips


This one is called sheep rock.


Another balancing rock


And finally - an arch!  This is the most photographed one called delicate arch.  To get closer we needed to do a hike and it was hot - so we settled for the distant view - actually kind of disappointing.  This arch is on the Utah license plate and the park claims it is probably the most famous arch in the world.  Hmm I'm not convinced - but it is beautiful.


We left Arches and headed east for Colorado.  Here we are traveling beside the Colorado River.


This is the beginning of the Rocky Mountains!


Just look at that red hillside.  It's very clear how Colorado got its name - from the Spanish word for red.


We passed through Vail.  By this time we were wishing we had made reservations in Vail and not Silverthorne.  We were nearing 500 miles for the second day in a row.  That's a lot of sitting.  I told George tonight that my legs were going to atrophy!


It started to shower in the mountains - and we were fortunate enough to see a lovely rainbow! A magical ending to another magical day on the road!



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