The haze that kept our photos from Monday from truly catching the deep red hues of the rock formations Monday was gone when dawn arrived early Tuesday morning, leaving us a deep blue, cloudless sky. After checking out, we headed up the highway 163 and then on191 traveling further into Utah passing through such little towns as Mexican Hat and Monticello before arriving at our next national park, just north of Moab, obviously a tourist town, Arches National Park.
We met an extremely helpful worker at the Visitor's Center who gave us a rundown on the must see spots on the driving tour. Again, we were amazed at the rock formations and the wonders of nature we saw we took the over two hour drive. The colors were quite different from Monument Valley. The predominant color of the arches was more of an orange red. Some of the other areas had grey and white intermingled.
Although the park is most famous for its spectacular arches, we were equally intrigued with the stone formations which have been given names. I think our favorite was a towering group known as the three gossips which actually did look like three women decked out in long dresses having a good talk. We also like the long elephant parade that we saw on one of the roads off the main road. By the time we finished our drive, we were naming the ones which did not have a name on the map. We stayed out of the Devil's Garden....we didn't want to tempt fate!
We have decided that Moab is a lot like Gatlinburg. If it weren't for the tourists, there would be no town. It looks like it is about three or four blocks across and about a mile long before the six miles of motels and tourist stuff spread down the highway. We found a little Italian restaurant named Pasta Jays for dinner where we enjoyed a good bowl of pasta. We will head to Canyonlands National Park tomorrow.
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