Our Trip to Arches

We flew into Salt Lake City on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning we headed out to Arches National Park, near Moab, UT. The drive was long, but beautiful. Every few minutes Pete would say, "Oh, look at that... wow..." I forgot how incredibly breathtaking the mountains and canyons could be. Caleb was amazingly cooperative and didn't fuss much at all during the five hour drive. We got into Moab, ate lunch and headed into the park. Our plan was to hike out to Delicate Arch and then set up camp. Even though we got to Delicate at about 3 in the afternoon (only the hottest time of day) we decided to stick to the plan and head out on the hike. It was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit during our little adventure, which just added to the craziness of it all. Luckily, we survived the 450 ft elevation change from the trail head to Delicate, as well as the incredible heat and the 5,000 ft altitude (Give us a break... we're from Philly-- the only thing closer to sea level is New Orleans). Despite our realizations of how out of shape we are and the desperate need to breath air that has A) more oxygen in it and B) more water in it we had a great hike. Caleb survived and even learned how to drink from the camelbak.

Caleb is totally asleep in the backpack... He wasn't impressed.
Everyone was commenting, "Well if this little guy can make it, so can I!"
There are people on this rock face... they look like ants-- we had to climb this during the hike.
Resting at the top of the rock face.
It was all worth it when we got there!

After our hike, we drove into our campsite-- it was 18 miles into the Park. Here's a picture of our campsite


We decided to take a walk after setting up camp-- Caleb wasn't having the backpack any more so we took the stroller... Needless to say, that stroller died on vacation.
The walk was so pretty though! The pictures just do not do it justice.

The next morning we broke camp early and hiked to the Windows section of the park. These are pictures of Pete standing in the Window. It helps to show just how huge these rocks are.
After our hike to Windows we headed back to Provo to meet my new niece, Sophie. She was born in March and this was our first chance to meet her! However, due to a missed exit and a small 173 mile detour through Richfield, UT (there's still nothing there... just in case you were wondering) we ended up going straight back to my cousin's place so that we could shower and clean up. We then headed to Salt Lake to have dinner with my brother and his wife and of course, his beautiful little Sophie. Even though she wasn't feeling well that evening, she was (and is) one of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen. Her entire face smiles-- and her eyes are swirls of green and brown. She's absolutely lovely!