We woke up on Friday and went to the airport for our 9:00 am flight. Snow was in the forecast for Kansas City and luckily, we took off 15 minutes before the snow started. We flew into Salt Lake City and got a rental car and started our four hour drive to Moab. Since I had just worked four shifts in a row, I naturally fell asleep on the drive. I have no idea why, but I cannot keep my eyes open in the car anymore. This started on our Norway trip and seems to have continued.
We saw some beautiful scenery on the drive and we finally arrived in Moab. We checked into our VRBO and went out for a walk in downtown Moab. Moab is pretty sleepy this time of year, but we did find the local brewery. We enjoyed some drinks and ended up calling it an early evening since we were both pretty tired.
We woke up on Saturday and started our drive to Canyonlands National Park. It had snowed overnight and the ground was covered with snow. The roads were fine, so we continued on with our plans. We made the turn onto the road that would ultimately take us into to Canyonlands and it was completely covered. We debated about turning around, but decided to continue on and we were glad that we did.
The road leading to Canyonlands
So much snow.
Sure, most people would turn around, but not us. Side note: my drivers license fell out of my pocket when I got out of the car to get take this picture. Obviously, I did not realize until later. My poor license is alone and scared on some random road in Utah.
The drive was a little sketchy for a bit, but after getting to the other side of the canyon the snow cleared and it was beautiful. I really had no idea how beautiful Utah would be.
The red rocks against the snow made for a beautiful contrast of color.
Almost to Canyonlands
The pair of monuments were my favorite
We really felt like fortunate to get to see snow in the high desert.
Once we arrived to Canyonlands, we found the trail head for the hike we were doing in the needles to Chesler Park. We parted and hit the trail.
The needles
We saw some pretty amazing scenery. I will let the pictures do most of the talking. It was beautiful!
We went back and forth from being cold and then hot and then cold again!
The trail went between two these two steep walls
We reached a section of trail that was completely covered with ice on an uphill with a steep drop off. We both barely made it up the section, only to find another section that was even steeper. I tried to get up it, but there was no way we would be able to make it. We decided to turn around as neither of us felt like sliding off to our deaths. There may have been a little drama with us getting back down the first steep section. We were bummed about having to turn around, but it was kind of out of our hands.
So much snow and hidden ice
Keri Arch
We left Canyolands and drove back to Moab. We decided to go ahead and stop at Arches National Park for a bit since we still had a little daylight. Arches was different than I was expecting. I was kind of expecting arches to be everywhere, kind of like palm trees. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.
Balanced Rock
Balanced Rock selfie
I loved the mountains behind the red rocks
Double Arch
The windows
We hiked the primitive trail to get to the windows and had the entire back side to ourselves.
The moon through one of the windows
The three gossips
We left Arches and went to the brewery for dinner. We sat in the bar area and invited another couple to sit with us since the place was packed and we had a table for four. We chatted with them the whole time, which was nice since Ken and I had been together all day.
We walked home in the snow, excited about the next time. So far, Moab had captured our hearts.
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