Arches, Arches, Everywhere

Our third park in Utah was Capitol Reef.  They're known for their tall sandstone cliffs with white limestone domes on the top.  Our first hike of the day was about 2 miles through a narrow canyon to limestone tanks.  It hadn't rained recently so we weren't able to find the natural tanks ~80 feet up the canyon.  On the way back, I recognized some graffiti; one of the first non-native settlers carved his name and the year into the sandstone in the 1800's.  After the hike, we drove back into the valley for another famous part of the park: the orchard and fresh apple pie!  We had to get some pie so we could have energy for our next hike to Hickman bridge.  I'm not sure what the difference is between an arch and a bridge, but it was neat.  

It was still early afternoon, so we drove on to Arches National Park.  This is one of the more popular parks; the park fill up before 9am, and the ranger recommended arriving at 6am. We arrived around 3:30pm and enough people had left that we were allowed in.  We were able to drive by and see some of the more famous rock formations such as Park Street, Three Gossips, and Balancing Rock, but the Delicate Arch was still too busy to park.  We went into Moab for dinner and planned on hiking to Delicate Arch the next day.  On our way to the campsite, we had the idea to do the 3 mile hike as the sun was setting to avoid the crowds and having to get up early.  Well, there were still many people hiking to and from the arch, but we made it to the arch right before sunset and got some pictures with the wind whipping around.  

The next morning, we were able to sleep in a little before heading to Canyonlands just down the road from Arches.  After hiking 7 miles and nearly 1000 ft in elevation yesterday, we were ready for a rest day from the hikes.  We were able to see so much from the viewpoints and one short hike to Upheaval Dome, a circular crater with jagged green mountains in the middle.  A sign at a viewpoint explained that we don't know for sure how it was formed which is interesting.

Now we're on our way to Mesa Verde in Colorado.  The McDonald's wifi is too slow to upload the pictures, so I'll add those soon.

Update 6/29: I've added pictures and now we've gone to Mesa Verde.  Most of the ancient houses are only accessible on a ranger-guided tour, and all of the tickets were sold out weeks ago.  We were able to visit the Step House and learned about pit houses at a roadside stop.  We could see the Cliff Palace (the famous one) across the canyon.