Graduations & Vacations Part 2

The evening of Day 2 in Moab was spent driving around the area, eating dinner, and walking through the town and visiting some of the tourist souvenir shops.  Such a beautiful part of the country, and as I said before the town is really neat!

A good portion of Day 3 was spent at Arches National Park.  It was pretty warm but the day was fantastic.  Posting a lot of photos!

Moi

Dear Hubby

I thought this kind of looked like the Three Wisemen 

Petrified Sand Dunes

I found this guy with a very long tail

Balancing Rock

All the balancing rocks people have formed

DH balancing rocks

The two windows

These photos are of the double arch

Enjoying some shade

In the middle of nowhere there was an old homestead of the Wolfe Ranch

Ancient Indian Art

Delicate Arch

This is the arch that is printed on Utah License Plates

This was a very cool tree I was sitting in. 

Aren't the rock formations really cool looking?  There are over 2000 arches cataloged in Arches National Park.  Most of them must be pretty rough terrain to get to.

DH and I had such a great time exploring this place.  If we had more time we would have done more of the hikes, but we had to get to Salt Lake by the end of the day to see the family.

Seeing the family was pretty great! It was so nice to see my dad doing so much better than when I was here in January/February.  Also, my sister Alicia's, family were waiting for us to arrive at my mom and dad's house.  Visiting with them and my nieces was so fun!

Day 4 we stayed with my parents not doing much except taking my dad to dialysis, going out to lunch with my mom, and later that night my brother Jay and my sister Alicia brought their families over for a BBQ.  It was so fun catching up with everyone.  However, I am so mad at myself now for not taking pictures of this part of my trip. I can't believe I didn't and now feel so sad!  Thanks for the memories everyone!  At least I have the memories.

In the next post I will write about the graduations that was the reason for making this trip in the first place.  Check back soon!

Graduations & Vacation Part 1

Just got back from a 10-day, 3000+ mile road trip to attend my niece and my daughters graduations in Utah, to visit family and feast upon the beauty of a few National Parks and other sights along the way. It. Was. Amazing!  The entire trip was amazing!

My poor hubby really deserved a break from work.  He has been working between 50 and 70 hours a week every week since we moved here last October.  The funny thing is that the majority of those hours are spent on the road driving for his job with FedEx.  So I guess he really didn't get a break from driving, just from work.  Poor guy!  I planned this vacation not thinking that he may just want to get there by air instead of by motor vehicle.  In my defense, he was the one that suggested our visits to the National Parks as he had never been there.  So I planned our road trip with that in mind. It's all good!  We had a blast!

Day 1 we drove to Albuquerque where we stayed the night after about 11 hours in the car.

Day 2 we left Albuquerque with our sight set on Moab, Utah.  Along the way we entered a town called Aztec, New Mexico where we saw a sign for Aztec Ruins National Monument and because we both love historical places, we knew we had to stop.  I am so glad we did!  Check out these photos....

These are over 900 years old!

He is much taller than the doors into these rooms

Makes me wonder... how small were these people back then?

It is interesting to get a glimpse of how they lived

Kiva - The place for religious ceremonies.  

I wish the photo could have shown all the intricate details

This woman was painting a portrait of the place

So I just had to get a photo

It was a really fun place to visit and learn the history of the Pueblo people and how they lived. 

After our stop here we grabbed some lunch and continued on to Moab, Utah where we stayed the night and for the goal of visiting Arches National Park.  Even though I have lived in Utah most of my life, this is one place I have never visited.  I will share our visit to Arches in Part 2 so look for that coming up.  But let me just say that Moab is such an amazing place to visit.  We could have spent days there if we had time.  There are so many places to visit, things to do, things to see and experience.  Next time, I will plan at least 3 or 4 days just to do a few of the things we would have liked to do.  Next time!