Day 6: Mesa Verde to Green River, Utah...

Star wanted to go see "Hole in the Rock", but
we ultimately decided on Arches National
Park instead :-)















West slopes of the Rockies across the road from where we are staying tonight

Turret Arch (I'm somewhere in the pic)

We didn't cover many miles today (240 or so), but it wasn't too bad considering we left Mesa Verde later than planned. Before breakfast, we went back to take some more pictures of the dwellings. We pulled out around 10:30am and drove straight through Cortex, Colorado and Moab, Utah on Highway 191 to Arches National Park. Our only stop was at a rest area several miles before Moab, where we ate subway sandwiches we had packed away.

Once again, the landscape was ever changing. Utah is certainly beautiful, but we often felt we were no longer on this planet. We hiked to several of the arches, and it rained on us for the first time since our trip began. Imagine that, it took a hike in the desert to bring us rain.

I've posted a short clip from yesterday at Mesa Verde. If you can't tell, I was highly impressed with the park. We were nearing the completion of a canyon hike in this one.

Our goal tommorrow is to get going early and make it well up into Idaho...Ben

The next part of the trip is another big drive, after several days of being tourists. One of the most touristy things we do is announce that we're moving from SC to WA. It usually gets people to tell us all the fabulous Southern places they've been, usually Myrtle Beach, or to explain how much it rains in Washington State. Another one of Ben's favorite ploys is to ask the locals what they do "for fun." Some people mention clubs, others admit that there's nothing to do, and our host for the night recommended the National Parks in Utah. Speaking of which, we've become National Park members because we figure we'll use our pass along the way and in Olympic NP. We're expecting some advice on great places to hike there. Anybody know a great NP in Idaho or Oregon that's not too far out of the way? We've considered camping so we don't feel like we wasted our valuable car space bringing along our camping gear...Star