Road Trip 2025: Day 15

I was up this morning before the alarm rang. Not wanting to wake anyone else, I sat outside and read. I enjoyed the quiet alone time.

After breakfast at Moab Diner, we drove the short distance to Arches National Park. Since Delicate Arch is THE arch to see, we began our tour there. However, seeing it up close requires a three mile hike. By the time we stopped in at the visitors center and looked at the souvenirs—I got G3 his patch and we got a Christmas ornament—it was 10:30 when we reached the trailhead. Ten thirty and ninety-four degrees. The trail is not shaded. Kati opted to stay in the car. Heat does to Kati what water does to the witch in the Wizard of Oz. G3 and I both wanted to see the arch so we packed water and set out. It was a relatively easy hike with not much more than 400 feet of elevation gain. Much of the trail was on desert sand, but some was also on rock. I enjoyed walking with G3 and I am glad we did the hike. It was very much worth it to see the arch which is definitely impressive. However, it is easy to understand why it’s called Delicate Arch since one side does look cracked. The same process of erosion that formed the arches will eventually destroy them. When all the arches are broken, will the national park change its name? At the arch, I was impressed by the way all the tourists patiently lined up and waited to take pictures of and have their pictures taken with the arch. G3 and I waited in line and asked someone to take our picture, even though we look teeny tiny standing beneath the arch. On the way back to the car, I detoured to see petroglyphs, but G3 did not. He does not share my excitement over etches done by Native Americans hundreds of years ago. The petroglyphs here show men on horseback, which means they were scratched into the rock sometime after the Spanish arrived in the Americas with their horses.

Next we followed the scenic drive to the end, periodically getting out of the car to take pictures or short hikes to some of the arches. Kati stayed in the car, happy to keep  cool and observe the arches from a distance. Delicate Arch was by far the most amazing, but I also really liked Double Arch. Kati was most intrigued by the science behind how the arches formed, especially since we have seen many rock formations this summer. Arches, despite being similar in some ways to other parks, is unique.

Arches National Park has more than 2000 arches. It’s the largest collection of naturally formed arches in the world. Millions of years ago, the land here was under ocean water. Overtime, the water evaporated and salt got trapped underground. The trapped salt started to move westward until it hit the Moab fault and got stuck. Its momentum shifted and started to push upwards. This eventually cracked the sandstone, forming fins. Rainwater then slowly dissolved the salt allowing the ground to collapse. Over time, the fins started to erode, especially where there were weakened spots within the fins. These weak spots formed holes that wind and rain continued to erode. This process formed the arches we see today.

I don’t know if it was the heat making me hallucinate, or if my brain was simply acting a bit wonky, but what I most enjoyed in the park was looking at the rock formations and allowing my imagination to see various designs, sort of like looking at clouds and watching them shift into different shapes. For instance, entering the park, the tall fins rising up looked like ruins of a once large, ancient, and prosperous city. One of the window arches resembled someone giving the okay sign. A couple of formations looked like a hand giving the middle finger. And one formation looked like a fat headless soldier with his hand on a sword. Lastly, one looked like the face of a grumpy old man.

When we left Arches, G3 and I were hot and sweaty and in need of a cold treat. We returned to Moab and got frozen yogurt at Moyo’s. It was good and exactly what we needed to feel a bit refreshed.

Since it was too early to call it a day—especially since we don’t have a real campsite to return to—we went to Dead Horse Point State Park. Legend has it that, once upon a time, cowboys would corral wild horses in the point of the canyon. The horses they liked, the kept. Those they didn’t, they left trapped at the point where they died. Hence, Dead Horse Point. However, when excavations were done at the point, allegedly, no bones were found.

The park is a canyon, and from certain vantage points, you can see the Colorado River snaking its way through the bottom. Dead Horse point, the way the river curves around the canyon, resembles Horseshoe Bend, which we saw a couple of days ago. I suspect, on a clear, smokeless day, that the canyon is beautiful. Unfortunately, a thick smokey haze, caused by local wildfires—with zero percent containment, as of a day or two ago—obscured our view. We could see the canyon, but the contours and colors did not pop.

Neither G3 nor Kati seemed to have much interest in the canyon until we read an interpretive sign stating that the final iconic scene in Thelma and Louise and the opening scene in Mission Impossible II were filmed at Dead Horse Point. While I walked a portion of the rim trail, climbing over rocks and peering over the edge, G3 ran around searching for the exact location that Mission Impossible was filmed. When he was confident he found it, he asked us to take his picture standing where Tom Cruise stood. Kati, after sitting in the shade for a while, decided to brave the heat to find the exact spot Thelma and Louse drove off the cliff. She narrowed it down to two possibilities, both of which left us wondering how erosion may have altered the landscape over a thirty-five year period or how the process of editing might have affected the appearance of the scenery.

We ate dinner at Trailhead Public House and Eatery in Moab. On their website, they boast about having been on America’s Best Restaurants, a series that airs on YouTube. The food was good. I especially liked the cream of tomato and jalapeño soup.

Since Canyonlands—our destination for tomorrow—is not far from Arches,

we returned to the same dispersed camping area we slept in last night. I really love this free camping. We need this on the East Coast. This morning, as we were breaking camp, we saw a scorpion, so now Kati is being extra vigilant. Hopefully, none of us get stung. When we pulled up to where we planned to camp, G3 asked Kati if he could try driving. I was surprised she said yes since she doesn’t even like me driving her car. Before you criticize, know that if G3 lived in Utah, he’d be old enough to get a driver’s permit. Plus, it’s a deserted desert gravel road with no telephone poles or anything to crash into. It was perfectly safe, if not legal. It totally made his night. He might have enjoyed that more than he enjoyed finding the spot in Dead Horse Point where Tom Cruise stood.