We had an early start today, drove into Utah and stopped at Arches National Park, which has the greatest concentration of natural stone arches in the world. The park lies on top of a salt bed thousands of feet thick. According to literature I plagiarized, millions of years ago, a sea flowed into the area, and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the residue from floods and winds blanketed the salt bed. The debris was compressed as rock, at one time possibly a mile thick.
The rock formations are like a layer cake of sandstone, shale, limestone, with each layer representing a different environment that existed in the past: Limestone could result from the presence of an inland sea, hundreds of millions of years ago; Sandstone evolved from wind-blown dunes; Shale from a swampy river plain.
The park is spectacular - even surreal. It almost seemed we were transported to another planet. While many of the arches are graceful, some of the other formations are quite intimidating. Many of them are named - the most famous being "Delicate Arch". There are 2,000 arches, ranging in size from a 3 foot opening, to the longest, Landscape Arch, measuring 306 feet base to base. Two years ago this week, a 71 foot span of one of the arches collapsed - shocking, because the arch was in existence when the Pyramids were under construction. The question of "why?" was answered simply: by erosion and gravity. For millions of years, wind, rain and ice ate away at the calcium "cement" holding the arches sand grains together. Eventually, there just wasn't enough of this "cement" to withstand gravity, and the whole structure collapsed. So, as old as the formations are, eventually Mother Nature will change the design, like the ultimate Etch-A-Sketch, clearing the slate for the next masterpiece.
Although I have posted a number of photos, each will never do justice to what we have seen today. Sort of like: "You had to be there".
Here is "Delicate Arch" on the left:
This is "Balanced Rock":
And here are "The Windows":
And some other outstanding real estate:
The SW corner of Utah is very rural - not many towns at all. There are, however, many private cattle ranches, and we saw countless exit signs like this:
This was one of the most spectacular highway drives we've experienced - Take a look:
We visited Zion NP, another one of Mother Nature's gems. We thought Arches NP was incredible, but Zion was like being on another planet. The drive through the park was astounding, but again, the pictures do not do justice:
There were 2 tunnels along the drive, and one was over a mile long. Along the way, there were "windows" on one side, where you could see the adjacent walls of huge towering rock just yards away.
We were glad we made these 2 stops as we passed through Utah, and we agreed this was one of the most memorable states we've seen.
Our campground was called a "resort" - these are becoming very popular lately.
They offer roomy sites with cement slabs, instead of gravel or uneven grass, and have pools and hot tubs. Some of the glitzy ones have "casitas" with private rooms and outdoor kitchens at your parking site! Now, that's what I call camping!
Tomorrow, we're off to Viva Las Vegas!
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