October 16: From New Mexico to Utah

It was travel day today! With about a 6 hour drive ahead of us, we slept in a little, packed up the rug, and headed back on the road a little after 9am. No one but Mom knew where we were going until it went in the map this morning - we were off to Moab! We headed north and west up New Mexico. As we traveled we watched the flat landscape begin to be dotted with rock formations and far away mesas. We decided to do a scenic lunch instead of the usual lunch on the run. We stopped off the road near Ship Rock, a giant rock formation that used to be the inner column of a volcano.

As we kept moving north, sneaking through the corner of Colorful Colorado over to Utah, the landscape continued to evolve. We could see rain clouds in the distance and were lucky enough to catch a rainbow along with a beautiful rock formation. 

We made it to our campsite in Moab a little after 4pm and unhooked as quickly as possible to try and make it to the Delicate Arch (or as the locals call it: License Plate Arch!). We got into Arches National Park

and to the trailhead for the 1.6 miles uphill hike in about an hour before sunset. Both kids were awesome and made it all the way to the top without even asking to be carried! We got there about 10 minutes before sunset and marveled at what nature had created.

We are also making sure we get our Christmas card photos on this trip!

We were fortunate enough to see a moonrise as well, almost full. We stay a little past sunset and then began the hike back down in the moonlight. John spotted a deer and we had fun with moon shadows and moon photos.

Then it was off to bed before more surprises tomorrow!