When we decided to do this vacation as a road trip, I had zeroed in on seeing Arches National Park in southern Utah. It’s similar, in a way, to the area around Drumheller, with incredible rock formations. The unique thing in Utah is the brilliant red color of the rocks. This picture of Pam and I is in front of the iconic rock formation known as Park Avenue. I’m sure you’ve seen this used in commercial and westerns!

Layers upon layers of different kinds of rock, with different hardness have been manipulated with water and wind to create strange and unique shapes. Some of the rocks look like they have melted; some look the have been sheered off with a huge knife or axe; some look like the rocks were in motion like the ocean… it’s a crazy wonderful stretch of the world!

Rocks balance precariously on top of cliffs, on top of spires of rock shooting into the sky, on sloping cliff faces -it’s hard to describe everything you see.

We spent a lot of hours driving around this park, and we didn’t even see half of it. This is definitely something that needs more than half a day.

Here is a short movie taken by Pam of the Dual Arches. It is right opposite the formation called “The Windows” (there used to be a second window, but it collapsed some years ago.)

Here is a little shot of Pam with some of the wildlife in the park! The Visitor’s Center has several of the bronze statues depicting the various creatures who inhabit the park.

I’ve also created a separate gallery for the shots of the park – way too many to include in one post. I’ve added a slideshow here at the bottom. I’m going to add more shots – I was totally fascinated by the place.