Friday - Arches to Mesa Verde

Friday - Arches National Park here we come. We woke up ready to do some easy hiking and see some more arches. The morning light is the best time for pictures in the park according to my reading but it seemed like it depended on which feature you were looking at. We took one "longer" hike, about 2 miles and several shorter hikes, less than 1/2 mile. Here are the highlights... (Can you see me in the second picture...look hard.)

These are my absolute favorite pictures of the trip to date...this is Sand Dune Arch and it was literally climbing up a sand dune to get there. It seemed small and unimpressive until I saw the pictures...

The last picture of Arches...
After Arches, we decided to pass on Canyonlands National Park (in the same area) for fear that we would be seeing too many canyons on our trip. Instead, I got to see Native American things like Newspaper Rock,
Edge of the Cedars Ruins and Kiva

and Hovenweep National Monument.

After Hovenweep, we traveled back into Colorado, yes, we know it's backtracking but that's where Mesa Verde was and I wanted to see the ruins. We camped in the national park at Mesa Verde.