Days 36 to 39 - Arches and Canyonland

We had a two-day drive, 690 miles, from Cody to Moab, UT to visit Arches and Canyonland National Parks. Mostly back roads through quaint small towns and beautiful valleys and gorges. A different story on I-70, fast traffic, 80 mph speed limit and they were flying by us. There was a long stretch of road construction, which they only slowed traffic to 70! We had to play dodgem with the traffic barrels that were tipped over and blowen into the open lane. On top of that, remints of Hurricane Hillary was passing by us and made the driving tough, lot of strong crosswinds but we made it to Moab safely. Well mostly, about 6 miles out my Malfunction Indicator Lamp, Check Engine light came on.

We got to the park, checked in and settled before I turned off the engine. Tiffin has a good diagnostic system, I could go in, get the malfunction code

and called Tiffin Support Monday morning. Based on the code, it was an accelerator problem, the peddle communicates electronically with the diesel engine in the rear. Their advice, drive back to Grand Junction, Colorado for service, he couldn’t guarantee that the problem would not prevent the accelerator pedal from working while we were driving. I chose not to drive to Grand Junction and found a very good mobile repair person at Transwest in Grand Junction who agreed to come to us. Ethan, drove the two and half hours from Grand Junction on Tuesday, confirmed that the connection plug on the pedal was faulty, improperly installed, bent pin, but also found the wires under the RV have been chaffed and were grounding. He was able to get the pin repositioned and the wiring replaced, he assured us it was safe to drive until we met him on Sunday at Transwest in Grand Junction to have the replacement pedal installed. It just goes to show you there are still good, kind hearted helping folks out there today. Ethan took time away from his family on his day off to help ensure our trip back home was safe.

Back to Arches, what a striking place, dry desert air, colorful red rock and arid plateau. There are over 2,000 arches in the national park that sits atop the Colorado Plateau, some only 3’

opening to the largest, Landscape Arch at over 306’ at the base. There are also towering spires, pinnacles, monoliths and balanced rocks. These have been formed over millions of years by erosion of the salt bed deposited 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region. Like other national parks we have visited, there is a strong history and connection with Native American who lived and hunted this area for thousands of years, some of their pictographs and petroglyph panels remain today. We got a late start Monday due to diagnosing the accelerator problem but spent the afternoon visiting the park, first stop the visitor center to get my Passport Book stamped. When you enter Arches, you start a very steep drive with switch backs to get you up to the plateau, after an hour we had only gone a short distance as each view was more spectacular than the prior. We hiked to Delicate Arch viewpoint, which may have only been .5 miles but it felt like straight up. The sun was just starting to drop and we were able to get some great pictures. We were going to do the long hike Wednesday morning where you can actually get to the arch for

sunrise, but we had morning thunder storms. We moved onto various overlooks including Fiery Furnace, which as the name implies gets very hot on ranger led hikes over sandstone obstacles, we skipped the hike, Balancing Rock which was interesting, Sand Dune Arch and finally made it to the Devils Garden trailhead. A 3-mile hike to see Navajo Arch, Partition Arch and Landscape Arch, a word of advice, see Landscape Arch in the morning, in the evening we almost walk by as you need to view with the sunlight on it with the blue sky behind to appreciate the breadth of the arch. A beautiful drive out as night descended on the park.

Our next park was Canyonlands, while Arches was spectacular, Canyonland blew us away. The sheer size of the park, 338,000 acers compared to Arches 77,000 acers and the canyons we would visit. Like Arches, years of erosion revealed the colorful layers of rock and formed the buttes and mases that rise high above the Colorado and Green rivers. The park is so vast there are two separate areas, Island in the Sky and Needles, we visited Island in the Sky. Before we even entered the park, we stopped to visit two buttes that looked like Monitor and Merrimack, named after the civil war ironside ships, this gave us an idea of what we would see, boy, did we

underestimated the beauty we were about to see. After a visit to the visitor center, we walked to the Shafer Canyon Overlook. I cannot describe the vastness of what we were seeing, from the depth, over 1,000 feet and width of the canyon to the views of the mountains in the distance. Each direction you looked you saw something new. One thing I noticed was the 4x4 road you could take around and down into canyon and along the rim by the Colorado river, I was game, but overruled by someone! We drove to the furthest point in the park and worked our way back through various stops, first, Grand View Point, where Shafer Canyon overlook gave you a 180-degree view, Grand View gave you a 270-degree view. I hope the pictures do it justice. We stopped at a few overlooks, awe inspiring, it was funny a family of 6 (3 generations) from North Carolina we met at the Grand View, were making the same stops, good opportunity to assist each other with getting pictures vs. selfies. Next was the Green River overlook, as you might imagine, we were looking down the canyon to the Green River, it gives you a true understanding of how water shapes our world and what

it can do by creating these canyons of such magnitude. Our last stop was Mesa Arch, Pat had seen enough Arches, so I did the 1.5 mile hike to see the arch. While not the largest arch we saw, it was worth the walk as it framed the peaks in the distance.

On our drive out of Canyonlands, we stopped at Dead Horsepoint State Park, recommended by the ranger at the NP visitor center, to get a good look at the goose neck in the Colorado River. Nice state park with a visitor center on the canyon rim and well-built viewing platforms and areas to get a good look and appreciation of the horseshoe bend in the river.

We finished our visit to Moab with a nice dinner at the Sunset Grill, (I can vouch for the Wild Mushrooms Vol au Vent), former home of Uranium King Charlie Steen who built his mansion on the top of the mountain. During the 1950’s the Atomic Energy Commission was offering a $10,000 reward for finding domestic uranium. While others looked for small amounts on the surface, Charlie used his knowledge and skills as a geologist and prospector to look deeper. At his whit’s end and last dollar, he hit the motherload of a $60M find, that would be

$770M today. Charlie put Moab on the map. While we didn’t get to sit outside overlooking the valley like we planned, we were treated to a double rainbow as the storms moved on. Here is the link if you would like to know more, The Story | Sunset Grill Moab Utah (moabsunsetgrill.com). Off to Monument Valley and Mesa Verde.
Stats: 690 miles, 82 gal split between two stops
Weather: Highs upper 80’s, lows mid 60’s at night, mostly sunny with 2 mornings with thunderstorms
Photos: Our drive to Moab; Arches in the park, pinnicles, balancing rock; Canyons in Canyonland, rivers