Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

We spent the majority of our time in South East Utah at our AirBnb. We decided to mix things up quite a bit and stay in a yurt! Part of the reason we chose it was just to see what a yurt would be like – the other part was it really was one of the only options left. We weren’t actually in Moab itself, where we would have liked to be based, because you have to book that way in advance and apparently it was the weekend of the jeep convention.

The town we were in was pretty sleepy and a little sad. There was very little beyond the surprisingly well stocked grocery store. We had a couple of quiet days at the yurt until we worked up the energy to visit another national park.

After the crowd crazy Zion national park and a long string of desert rocks, we’ve gotten a little desensitized to the national parks – how different can all these rocks and canyons really be?! We had read that the crowds at Arches could get really nutty and I just don’t love sharing nature with large groups of people. We seriously considered just giving it a miss, but instead opted to just do a quick drive through, with maybe a couple of stops in the afternoon. And I’m so glad we did. I think I may have a new favourite national park. Up until today I had placed Joshua tree at the top with Sequoia a close second. Arches is now giving both a run for their money.

A late afternoon start suited us just fine. We aren’t exactly morning people so it gave everyone enough time to get their work done before we headed out. We grabbed what was probably the best coffee I have had in months at this adorable little coffee truck. The man working was a true barista who just clearly loves coffee and creating it for people. We will definitely be stopping again on our way to Colorado. We arrived at the park gates around 2:30 with no line in sight. The park isn’t super big and just has the one entrance so we headed to the farthest part of the park and worked our way back.

The first stop was devils garden and a look at landscape arch. We got to go on a nice little walk through the rocks to see the arch. Afterwards we started winding our way back through the park stopping off at a few different sights for either a hike or just a look. We got to see the delicate arch off in the distance and the windows up close and personal. Honestly, these were some super cool rocks.

We also got to make another couples day when they realized we had a PEI license plate. They were playing online licence plate bingo and it turns out PEI is worth a lot of points!

Arches is one of the few parks that I would want to come back to. I think we could have spent a couple more days exploring. Moab also looked like a place worth visiting for more than just the coffee truck.