ARCHES NATIONAL PARK...

We chose Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, for our vacation this year for two reasons:  One, our daughter in Denver suggested it after a weekend there (only 6 hours from Denver).  Two, Momma loves rocks!  Long ago I fell in love with the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and Momma does most of the vacation planning in our family.  :)

Arches has over 2,000 natural rock arches and has the largest concentration of arches in the world.  Some are huge and some small and there's no way to see them all!  There's also many other rock formations, some with names.  Here's just a few we got to see:

 Balanced Rock

 Another angle

 The Three Sisters

 Sheep Rock

 Delicate Arch - there was a long line to get under the arch to snap a picture so we didn't do that. Besides it looked pretty scary!

 Part of the hike to Delicate Arch was across this slick rock and the trail was marked with cairns.

It took about 3 hours roundtrip and had about 1,000 feet elevation gain.  It was hot!

Windows Arch - if you zoom in you can see people there, just to get an idea of how massive this is! This is one arch area where we just drove through due to the amount of cars and no parking spaces available.  We were also pretty hot and tired after the hike to Delicate Arch.  :(

Another day we took the Fiery Furnace Tour with the National Park Service. I had reserved tickets 6months earlier, since they only take a limited amount of people each day.  It was great!  

 The tour was 3 hours long, so we stopped frequently for breaks and some education from the park ranger.  She was excellent!

 Skull Rock (look upside down) in the Fiery Furnace.

 You could easily get lost in here!

One of my favorites of our whole vacation!  

Sorry so long - I told you I loved rocks!!!