WeLearnAsWeGo.com

Today in July 26th … Sunday … and we are on day 17 of the big adventure …. we are wearing orange shirts today …

However, the early morning pics will show us still in our electric blue shirts from yesterday … because we drove until about 2:00 AM this morning …. we stopped at a rest area and slept till around 6:30AM … then we were back on the road again …. the rest area was only 1 mile from the exit we needed to take to get to Arches National Park …. we headed there first … The Captain did stop to grab he and I a cup of coffee at a station along the way … must have my morning caffeine … especially with less than 5 hours of sleep ….

When we got the Arches NP, we ate breakfast and got dressed … yep! right there in the camper … we can move so much faster when we don’t have to worry about showers or breaking camp … LOL!!!!

The big man upstairs blessed us BIG again today …. it was cloudy and started raining about the time we made it out of the camper and started heading towards the visitor center … you would think that was bad … but the temperature started dropping dramatically … and the air was soooo much cooler … and after a hot day yesterday and a hot night without A/C …. it was wonderful … I can handle walking in a drizzle … much better than hiking in 104 degree weather …. and when you see the pics of us climbing around at double arches … remember how cool and breezy I said it was … Range Bill told us that the temp in the double arches in normally 104-112 degrees …. I had even considered taking a jacket with me … that’s how cool it was … I love knowing He likes to bless us … even out here on the road .. when we have thought of throwing a few kids from the ship ….

Quick refresher … when we started out …. the odometer read 23802 …. this morning it was at 28405 …. that’s over 4600 miles … wow!!! Burning up some road!!!!

Ok … here is what we were able to accomplish at Arches :
* We drove the scenic route … not all the way but a over half
* We hiked out to and climbed around on Double Arches
* We also hiked out to and explored South Window, North Window, and Turret Arch
* Then we walked around the Wolfe Ranch area
* We also stopped at many view points to take photos (like Balanced Rock and Delicate Arch)

After this, the kids were getting tired, hungry, and everything was starting to look alike … so we ate lunch in the camper at one of the parking lots, and headed back to the visitors center.

EVERYONE completed their Jr Ranger badges and Ranger Bill was great with the kids. He checked all their books and Jikkal was even able to stump him with a question from his book … Jikkal was in a very corporative mood and finished the entire book …. not just his section … way to go !!!!… he also tried to debate “the flood” with the Ranger but …. secretly the ranger was on Jikkal’s side and gave him some great web sites to look into … (I’ll add this later once I have a chance to glance over them)

Dancing Mermaid and Stormy Cloud have completed lots of Jr Ranger programs: Petrified Forest/Painter Desert, Grand Canyon, Sequoia/Kings Cannon, Zion, Arches
Sea Monkey has all these except Zion …. we were running way behind and I didn’t have time to help him complete his book … Jikkal has Petrified Forest/Painter Desert, Grand Canyon, Arches

After Arches … our plan was to make some good time and find a place to camp for the evening… well .. thank goodness we are flexible because things never seem to go the way we are thinking or planning … we got the little guys down for naps and headed out on the road … we had heard that the scenery was beautiful on I-70 and what we saw was very pretty indeed …. mountains … rivers … trains…. farms …etc …. however …. around mile marker 165 … we ran into grid lock … I mean total lock down for over 3 hours … I couldn’t believer this … they were not re-routing traffic … or detouring … nothing … everyone was just stuck … it was terrible … I can’t stand doing nothing … it drives me crazy … I cooked mac and cheese on the stove while we waited …. I also cleaned up a bit …. we watched a movie … but it didn’t help make up for all the lost time on the road … so the Captain drove late into the evening … I’m not even sure what time we stopped … but I do know we left Arches NP that afternoon … and made it close to Veil Colorado before we crashed at a Wal*Mart again!!! We had planned on staying at a campground since we crashed at a rest area the night before … but since it was so late and the kids were already asleep … there was no need to spend the money to just sleep somewhere … The Captain had other plans ….