New and Old

 

New and Old

Our first stop on this latest trip was to Moab, Utah, for a few days.  We love checking out the many backroads in the area.  The first road we ventured down was a new one to us that ended in one of our favorite national parks, Arches National Park.  Take a look….

The road is called Willow Springs Road, and after passing some areas where campers were dry camping, we started to see some really lovely desert landscapes, and some prickly pear cacti as well!  I am always drawn to the vivid colors of the desert – green shrubs, red clay early and beautiful blue skies with white puffy clouds.

At the first stop along the way, Jeff and Max set out in search of something very cool to see….

Dinosaur tracks!!  The tracks are set in a boarded off, somewhat protected area.  The rangers seem to make sure that no shrub growth starts in the boarded off area.  These tracks were made approximately 165 million years ago by a human sized predator.  The dinosaur walked in these areas which were tidelands of an inland sea that lay just to the east of the area where we were standing.  To date, more than 2500 tracks like this have been found in the area.  However, the winds of time will still eventually reclaim these footprints of the past. It was nice to be able to see these before they are gone!!

When Max gets a bit warm, he often will look for shade where he can find it, including behind the Jeep!!

Good thing we have a book that maps the road!  Looking back, it’s a bit tough at times to see the road we just drove down!!  And, up ahead, we can see the La Sal Mountains.

About mid-way through our drive, we passed from BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land into Arches National Park.  You can see it as a bit of an outcropping of rocks in the distance.

As we drove closer and closer, more of the features of Arches National Park became visible, until we finally ended up on the road within Arches at the formation known as Balanced Rock (right, above).

At that point, we simply drove on the paved road out of the park, passing familiar formations such as The Three Gossips (seen in profile on the right) and a view of a lovely easy hike called Park Avenue (on the left).  This was a fun new road with a nicely familiar ending to it!

Enjoy!