Thursday, March 18, 2010

Arches Arches Arches - Day 4

We awoke Thursday morning (30 mins. later than normal!) and proceeded with the daily morning coffee walk down the street. Upon arrival to Plateau Restoration for breakfast, we saw an Iowa girl with an eye patch on. We honestly and worriedly asked what happened to her eye. She immediately replied "Arghh, time to go." As a group we were stunned, and then started cracking up. After eating, we packed our lunches and then hit the road for Arches National Park!

Our first journey was to Delicate Arch. It was a very long hike to get to it, but it was totally worth it. It was just breathtaking. (Yes I am writing this portion from the arch). When we reached the arch, there was a couple getting their wedding pictures taken. They impressed us because she hiked in her wedding dress and boots and he was in his tux. Yes we creeped and took our own wedding pictures of them. We relaxed and ate our packed lunches at the arch, pretty much the best lunch location ever. Christine questioned if the digestion of our meal would be effected by the altitude. As entertainment for our meal, a random guy started doing backflips under the arch. We made him do it again so we could get a video. We could have sat there all day, but there was more of the park to see, so we began our hike back down, which was a lot easier and faster.

Our next trek was to Devil's Garden where Landscape Arch is located. On our hike, Tam and Mike decided to have a snowball fight, which was pretty funny. Tam hit the pirate girl from Iowa mentioned earlier square in the back with a snowball; she also had her sunglasses on crooked all day and at one point awkwardly chased a flying termite and caught it. We arrived at Landscape Arch and took our touristy pictures. As we were hiking back to the front, Tam became really fascinated about something on this huge wall. She picked at it and a piece of rock fell off. She then exclaimed "I just caused a thousand years of erosion." Before exiting the trail, we stopped at Pine Tree Arch (which some random lady told us was her favorite) and Tunnel Arch. These weren't as impressive as the previous two, but still cool nonetheless. To end our excursion we stopped for a few photos at Balanced Rock on our way out of the park. For the rest of our adventure, we have been sworn to secrecy because of it's awesomeness. Ok...we are kidding.

We helped make dinner tonight - burritosssss. A lot of prep went into it and they turned out great. The best meal of the trip, what can we say. Later we went to Maverik's (the gas station down the street) yet again for snacks. We made these soft serve ice cream/candy concoctions and then ate them at this conveniently located picnic table next to the gas station. Katie had this gargantuan bowl of ice cream, of which she ate the whole thing (You rock, Katie!). We got back to the hostel and started packing for home since we leave tomorrow for Grand Junction.

**Update on the Colorado group...
THEY SHOWERED!! And they were jealous that we left to get ice cream.

We look forward to what Moab has to offer on our last day in Utah...

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