Dear Utah, I Love You (aka Arches National Park)

Arches National Park is one of those places that can be easily overlooked as a "driving tour" type of park.  The views from the main road which winds through the park are stunning enough to satisfy most outdoors enthusiasts.  Gonzalo and I were greeted by the friendly camp host, an aging redneck of sorts with passion for his job and a personal vendetta against "foreigners" (... mostly Europeans, he clarified, when he found out Gonzalo was from Mexico) trying to circumvent the U.S. National Park system to avoid paying.  He was very excited that we had booked three nights since most folks are in and out in a day or two.  It wasn't until we started hiking that we understood why it's worth taking a few extra days to enjoy this park.

The roads have not been kind to my rental car, but the view from the campsite is spectacular (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Exploring the base of one of a bazillion arches.  This is clearly hard work.

Sometimes its worth looking back to see where you've been. 

Sunset from the campsite.

Somewhere along the way, something happened to my rear hub.  My first reaction was to take the bike into Moab to the first bike shop I saw.  Bollocks.  I would not have a bike shop for much of my trip, so I pulled out my bible of bike repair, the Park Tool School blue book of bike repair, set up shop at the picnic table, and successfully did my first hub adjustment.  Thanks to Bill at Capitol Hill Bikes for having the foresight to include the appropriate wrenches for this task!

Best bike repair shop ever.

Success!  We rode our bikes to the trailhead later that day.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the Devils Garden trail, where we traversed ledges, climbed everything in sight, and otherwise made the most of the perfect weather we were blessed with for this portion of our trip.  Maybe this was Mother Nature's apology for the two winter storms I had to drive through.

I never get sick of this view (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Fun with shadows!

We made sure to take our time and not rush (photo credit: Gonzalo).

One of many exploratory climbs (photo credit: Gonzalo).

One of the last hikes later in the day... (photo credit: Gonzalo).

The one downside to the day was the possible sacrifice of my 17mm wide angle lens when I was descending onto a ledge.  The lens no longer allows me to take pictures, but luckily, I had different lens packed away in one of the boxes in my trunk.

RIP.

Even though we are staying in Arches National Park one more night, we needed to go to Moab to get provisions for Canyonlands and figured we could hit up some of the hikes that are closer to the entrance of the park since we've explored mostly the area near our campgrounds.  We decided to try out Love Muffin Cafe (from which I write this post), which Lauren told us was the best breakfast in town.  And holy crap was she right.  We had intended to stop just for coffee, and stayed for poutine and banh mi.  Now I'm off for groceries and more hiking.