Arches National Park

This camping trip was to Arches National Park. Jennifer and I left on Friday morning to get a campsite as the camp ground in Arches only has 25 reservable sites and the rest are first come first serve. Since check in time is noon we were down there by 1 thinking that there might be a site left. Little did I know that they start giving away the sites at 7:30 in the morning at the visitor center and they are all gone with in an hour. But they had a list of campsites around the area which were all first come first serve. It took us about an hour to find a site just south of the Colorado River. It even had a little beach. Arches is going to 100% reserved sites next year due to the high demand. Jenn and I set up camp and then met up with Jess, Melissa and Rome, who is a friend of Jess and Jenn's. We hiked the Park Aveanue trail that night. It isn't an official trail but a "primative" trail marked by carens. It was sometimes a challenge to identify the carens from just other piles of rocks.
Next day we started with Delecate Arch. I didn't like the last 200 yards of the trail but I finished. As any of you who have hiked with me know I don't make happy faces while on the top of the world so sorry for not smiling in the picutres. Also the last one of these is the canyon I never saw, the last 200 yards of the trail.

Then we did lunch where there were some flowers for Mom.

Then more hiking, the Windows trail passes three arches. North Window, where I lost my footing and hit my knees big time ouch.
South Window
and Turret Arch Turret Arch is where you really see why the other two arches are called North and South Window.
Then we went back to camp to rest, play in the water whatever. At this point the group split up again. Jenn, Melissa and Rome went into Moab and did whatever whild Jess and I went hiking again. Devil's Garden trail, we didn't do all of the hike due to my knee and "primative" trail issues but it was nice. We also discovered that that is the trail to do in the heat of the day as it had a lot of canyons and was green. Hiking it at sunset was still great though. Then we did the Sand Dune Arch and Broken Arch Trails. Where the real excitement took place.
Boys if you are easily embarrised by girl stuff stop reading now.
You have to drive in between some of these trails so when I got out of the car at the Sand Dune trial head I suddenly felt this great freedom. And I realized one of two things had happened. One, my bra strap somehow became undone or two, my bra strap broke. So I checked things out and sure enough it had broken. After Jess and I stopped laughing I had to come up with some way to fix the problem, I'm all for being in nature but there are limits specifically when wearing a Camelbak. So I thought for a minute then remembered that I keep a 72 hour kit in my car which includes 3 days of clothing and that included underware so I took out the bra and put it on as discreetly as possible thanks to the help of a lady who was keeping watch for us. After this excitement we continued on with our hiking.
OK boys welcome back.
Sand Dune Arch really did mean sand. The start of the trail was a normal gravel path then we got to this canyon. Jess is sitting on a rock and the path to the right is pure sand.

After this point it was a slot canyon where the ground was nothing but sand. The further in we hiked the more sand got in my shoes. I was wearing my running shoes which are great for air circulation so your feet don't get hot well not so great because sand can get in too. I told Jess this and she said that it couldn't be that bad. We kept going until we got to Sand Dune Arch. I really need to buy a tripod because some of these angles are not so great. Jessica and I didn't see other people on the trails that night. Rocks and sand aren't the best photographers. Back to the story, when we got back to the trail head and out of the sand I showed Jess how much sand really was in my shoes.

Our last arch was Broken Arche. It was pretty cool as the moon was rising right as we got there. I'm the dead body under the arch.

We went back to camp then Sunday morning drove home and I went to my old ward as I had missed my ward. That was really fun as I got to see all of my friends I don't run into very often. Overall a great break from reality and I can cross off another National Park.