Moab, Chicken Corner 4x4 Trail

If I have not already mentioned this, we will be in Moab till November 3rd.....at least.  Maybe longer, we'll see.  But we still will be back visiting Las Vegas Nov 20 for a few weeks before heading south for the winter.

Saturday we had another fun day out in the jeep exploring the Chicken Corner Trail which follows the Colorado River along the edge of a bluff quite a bit of the way.  We were accompanied by new friends we had met the day before,  Peggy and Mark from Park City, UT.  Fun stuff!

That is not mist, it is dust and we were all covered with it by end of day!

There were some fun caves in these formations

Nice to see a little touch of fall here and there

New friends, Peggy and Mark

Moab, Tower Arch and Eye of the Whale Arch

Arches has some dirt roads in the park which are 4 wheel drive only and Tower Arch is on one of those roads,  so today we went to see Tower Arch.  We were told the road was pretty easy except for a sandy area.....but it turned out to be a lot more exciting than that.  We thought we might not make it up one steep area with lots of boulders and dips and actually had another guy who was out there and who was a lot more experienced than us guide us up it.  Turns out it was actually a "moderate" ranked trail after all.  It was a lot of fun and Mike had quite a work out.

Tower Arch

View out from under Tower Arch

Should have taken a picture in a rougher stretch but I was a little preoccupied then!

First view of Eye of the Whale, thought this arch was really cool!

From under the Eye of the Whale Arch

Another view from the front....the sun reflecting off the roof of the arch looks so cool!

Another view from under the arch looking out back.

Balance Rock, taken on the way out of the park.

Moab, Gemini Bridges

Today we went back to the Gemini Bridges.......but this time we drove off the plateau down through Bull Canyon to do a hike to the bottom of the bridges.  Once again, it was a lovely day, great for a hike and some off road driving.

Gemini Bridges.  

For perspective look for Mike in this one!

Cool huh?  See the half jaw bone sitting on the tree,  maybe coyote?

Upper left corner you can see a person standing.

Moab, Canyonlands Nat'l Park

We ventured out about 35 miles yesterday to Canyonlands National Park.....a whole different kind of beauty.

Kinda cool huh?  It is called the "Inverted Dome"

This was a bonus,  the ancients built these usually high up in cliff like areas and are granaries to store corn, etc, 

Another view showing how they took advantage of overhangs.

Checking out tourists at the overlook

Green River overlook.

OK, I gave him just a tiny piece of my apple.

White Rim Overlook

Here we are descending below the plateau rim on a 4x4 road that will take us back to Moab.

We've reached the bottom and will now follow this nicely placed sign!

Colorado River 

Nice horseshoe bend in the Colorado

Lots of pretty color!

Sunset on the Colorado River