Thankfully it was in a good location for changing ... wasn't blazin hot ... just needed to get another spare ... but where oh where to find another spare ... there's no Walmart in Navajo country.
God is Good! - We found a NEW Napa Store in downtown Kayenta. The guy was really nice - knew what he was talking about ... what am I talking about ... I waited in the truck!
Anyway, Tom liked him so much ... we went back the next day and bought two more ... so now the "RV has four new sneakers."
OKAY - Back to Arches!
This is an Evening Primrose - it opens in the evening and closes up during the day.
Landscape Arch - 306 foot span.
In 1991 the right side of the arch fell 60 feet long, 11 feet wide, 4 feet thick - 180 tons of fresh rock lay on the ground. Now the trail is closed to underneath this arch. There are signs posted that if you hear popping sounds, run!!! There were hikers at the arch at the time it fell - with pictures - that must have been crazy. There had been unusually heavy rain a few days before the collapse. The theory is that the water filled the pore spaces in the sandstone adding weight to the delicate arch, which gave way to gravity.
Portal Arch
Navajo Arch
Double O Arch
Tom is standing in the bottom arch.
Tom standing on a fin.
The other side of the fin was part of the trail - kind of freaky to walk on. I had to concentrate on looking down at my feet ... not to the left or the right ... and then there was a crack you could see down and I had to kind of jump across - didn't like that very much.
How am I ever going to do Angels Landing in Zion?????
Jenny will have to hold my hand!
Check out the green hills - its like Seuss land.
Doesn't this cow look a little green too??
This is the trail to Delicate Arch
The people look like ants walking on the rock.
Its a 1.5 mile trail designed to hide the arch from view until your very last step. The final 1/3 mile hugs a sandstone fin edging along a steep bowl. The last few steps require some nerve, but you are rewarded when you step around the corner and finally view the arch.
The arch is 45 feet tall. The other side drops off into a deep canyon. In front of the arch is a bowl. You have to walk kind of sideways to get around it. I stayed on solid ground ... someone had to take pictures!
Tom is in the yellow shirt.
A lot of the land is Open Range. There are fences up to the road and then cattle guards across the road to separate areas ... but the road is in the middle of the fields. It is really neat to see the cattle roaming freely and the little ones scampering around. At night it is a little hard to see them. This particular night they seemed to be gathered along the road.
So far Utah is Tom's favorite place, we've really only seen Moab. It is a really neat area. Activities are endless: mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, off-roading trails for jeeps and dirt bikes. The Bureau of Land Management maintains large sections of land and there are places to camp (no facilities, you have to be self-contained) all over the place ... very remote, beautiful spots in the canyons, on the mesas ... all over. You can be in the middle of nowhere and all of the sudden there are campers set up with jeeps and dirt bikes.
Tomorrow .... Mesa Verde, Colorado
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