Road trip, Arches

Setting out on a ten-day March road trip around the U.S. Southwest, the first two stops were favorite places I’d been before and had returned several times. I alternated between a day of driving and a day at a destination. As I was entering the breathtaking carved Glenwood Canyon, the Grateful Dead’s Truckin‘ came on my satellite radio. It seemed somehow appropriate. “What a long strange trip it’s been!”

Arriving in Glenwood Springs, Friday afternoon was the perfect time for a soak in the Hot Springs Pool. Although this winter in the Colorado mountains had been a mild one, it always felt like a reward to wade in the warm mineral waters. I wandered through the newly remodeled area of smaller pools and waterfalls. But the next day, the first Saturday of Spring Break for most schools and colleges, the pool was mobbed. Avoiding the larger pool, packed with children, it was hard to maneuver around even the hotter Therapy Pool. It seemed like tattoos-on-parade as I checked out the intensely decorated limbs of a young crowd, some quite artistic. A walk around town in the afternoon filled the rest of the day and, although the pool staff allows visitors to return the same day, I decided to skip an evening dip.

Murals greeted me in the small mountain town of Carbondale on my way to a favorite breakfast café.
(Click the arrows to view)

Turning south through eastern Utah, Moab is a popular spot for red rocks scenery and a jumping off point for National Parks and Monuments. Decades ago, my son and I hiked every trail in Arches National Park. A day hiking some familiar areas was on my list. The window, arch, and sculpted shapes were formed by underground movement, ice, and water over millennia that continue to slowly weather and erode the landforms.

Walking the trail around Balancing Rock, I overheard a man and boy speculating about which way the rock would fall. I couldn’t resist adding “Maybe it will just detach and float back up into space where it came from!” The man smiled; the boy looked up, bewildered.

The line of cars waiting to get into the Delicate Arch trail parking lot reminded me that Sunday of Spring Break was not the best time to be there. I had hiked to that famous arch two or three times in the past. So I continued along the road to the viewpoint. Not as impressive as being up on that ridge, but a good place to see it nonetheless.

Driving back past the trailhead parking lot, the line of cars had grown three or four-fold. I found a probably not legal spot where a few others had pulled over long enough to hike into the petroglyph area, just a little way in, before leaving for the day. These petroglyphs, unlike others I had seen in Colorado and would see later on this trip in New Mexico, were newer Ute markings, showing people on horseback as well as bighorn sheep. Horses were traded from the Spanish as early as the 1580s.