Wanderlust: Grand Junction & Arches National Park

As you may recall from last year's adventuring, each Service Adventure unit goes on an end-of-year trip toward the end of the time together. Kind of a last hurrah. This year, we planned a trip to western Colorado and eastern Utah, including 4 national parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, & Great Sand Dunes.

On Monday, we drove from the Springs to Grand Junction, making a quick stop at a quaint little park along the way to eat our packed lunches. I was driving, so I don't have any pictures of the incredible scenery along the way, but it was all the likes of this.

Van + housemates for scale.

Quick romp around the playground before getting back in the car.

We made it to Grand Junction, just east of the Utah border, and walked down the street to check out the Colorado River.

We camped overnight and spent the next morning exploring the city a bit. Some of us visited the Museum of the West, which in my opinion is well worth the time. It's an homage to the quintessential Wild West (saloons, gunslingers, mining, outlaws), but it also delves into the cultures of oft-overlooked native people groups (the Aztecs, Utes, Pueblo, Navajo, & Anasazi). The museum also had a tower with a great view of the whole city and the surrounding mountains.

After lunch, we loaded up and drove to Utah. 

Thus ensues a long stretch of me trying and failing to capture the beauty of the changing scenery around me through a car window.

This whole trip was so visually striking that I spent a lot of the car time just staring out the window. 

I got like zero reading done.

In general, for everything I share from this week's trip, it would be best for you to just operate under the assumption that everything was 20 times more beautiful than it looks from any of the pictures.

Anyway, we made it to Arches National Park and spent parts of the next two days exploring. By night we camped in Moab, and by day we tried our hardest to adjust to the grueling heat of the desert.

Temperatures were in the mid-90s each day and in case you are unaware, shade is hard to come by in this type of situation.

 

It was almost ludicrously gorgeous though, so I'm not complaining.

The top center rock formation in this photo is Delicate Arch, arguably Utah's most famous arch. It's on the state license plate, anyway. This is as close as we got because the hike to get there was 2-3 hours long, and did I mention it was HOT.

But we did do a bunch of shorter hikes and overlooks.

To us, Arches felt a lot like Colorado Springs' Garden of the Gods, but just...more. More space, longer hikes, more of a desert, more interesting rock formations.

This is an area of Arches called the Fiery Furnace. Entering it is prohibited unless accompanied by a ranger (I believe this is intended to prevent guests from becoming lost and wandering to their death). 

I would have loved to see it up close, but they weren't offering any tours this week.

After our Arches adventures, we moved on to exploring Canyonlands. Stay tuned for Part 2!