GORGEOUS place to camp: Arches National Park, Moab, UT

That is one spectacular arch. Hey, we're Mel and Jay. Together with our cat Benny, we're traveling from Hope, BC all the way to South Padre Island, Texas, y'all, with lots of stops along the way. We've just arrived here at Arches National Park, and it is just absolutely beautiful. A special thanks to our friends, the Aviators Overland, Dave and Teresa. They actually got here first and scouted out the campground and found us the last site that was actually long enough for our truck and trailer. So thanks, guys. Really looking forward to our stay here. Wow, it is wet here in the desert. We had some unexpected desert rain in the night. It was actually pretty heavy. So yeah, everything is just soaking. Well, it's looking a little nicer now. Should be a great day. Our first day in Arches, we did an amazing all-day bucket list hike called the Fiery Furnace. We've put together a whole separate video all about it. All right, we're going to check out the Sand Dune Arch. I don't think we're going that way. This is the end. And maybe belly crawling for a three-year-old. Well, now we're at the Skyline Arch. Mel wants to climb the Skyline Arch. I don't think that's going to be possible. I saw a picture of someone in it. I feel like we might be able to. I don't think so. There's got to be a way up. Yeah, with climbing gear. It's taken over a hundred million years of erosion, water, ice, and underground salt movement to sculpt the landscape here. Bit by bit, Mother Nature forms new features every day while old ones are being destroyed. The weathering is slow but relentless and is constantly changing this dramatic landscape. On our second day at Arches, we did the Devil's Garden hike. Another amazing full-day hike that we made a whole video about too. Be sure to check it out. So today we're doing a little bit more low-key kind of stuff. We don't have all our crazy hiking gear. We're just doing some walks and viewpoints. This morning we're going to check out the Delicate Arch. Here's the viewpoint trail. It is one of the most popular arches here. It's also very accessible for a lot of people. They have three different options. There's the lower viewpoint, which is wheelchair accessible. There's the upper viewpoint, which requires a little bit of a walk but nothing too bad. And then there is the hike, which round trip is almost five kilometers and has some exposure to heights and stuff. They call it a fairly relatively difficult trail. So wherever we see the green rock, which is a little bit around here, that's actually a different layer of the earth's crust. And that's from the time when the dinosaurs walked here. I could see it being very delicate actually. It's like freestanding. It might be worth actually doing the harder trail to go up and look at. Yeah, maybe. Let's start with the viewpoint. Suddenly I'm really glad we didn't take the big trail. We've already had two very full days of hiking. A little over 10 kilometers the first day, 14 kilometers yesterday. This little slightly uphill easy trail is a little killer right now. Yeah, today is our rest and recovery day. Tomorrow will be major rest and recovery because we'll be driving. So this is the delicate arch trail, but we're not actually going to do it this morning. We're going to change into better shoes and do it this afternoon, I think. So this is the Wolf Ranch. Looks like they had a little cold cellar too. Wine cellar maybe? It's pretty simple and I can't believe it's still standing. We've been sitting here debating footwear. We didn't bring any kind of hiking shoes and Mel's got these boots that sometimes hurt her feet. But you know what? We're here. We've decided we're just going to do it. We're going to go as far as we can and if it gets sketchy we'll just turn back. How crazy can it be? It's only 5k. It's not too bad. Like you could do this and well you are doing it in basic sneakers. Yeah. I'm that tourist. I'm like dressed up for the day expecting to be able to do a difficult hike. Oh a bit of a climb. I wonder how much further this goes up. Oh well that was a decent hill. Nice and warm now. Getting warm huh? Oh the wool sweater. It just felt so cold this morning that I went for wool. Well you can just strip that off right? Hopefully we're still on the trail. Wait I see a sign. There's a trail sign over there. I guess we should have been more down that way. Oh look at that. A little window. Look there's more arches over here. Oh wow quite the view. Yeah. Oh there it is. A little drink. I went in the arch. I spoiled everyone's view for a moment. Apologies to everyone. But that was cool. Well this was hashtag worth it. Well that was pretty cool. That was definitely worth the walk. Oh yeah it's really neat. It's so pretty. Time to head back. Well this is definitely a busy trail even in mid to late November like now. But it's so worth it. Oh yeah. And it would make a fabulous trail running trail I think. All right you excited to see the petroglyphs? Yes. No you're not. Just off camera you were like eh we could. I say men because I know that we later on another video we will be going to the petroglyph national monument where there is lots of petroglyphs. So this is just a small little example of petroglyphs around here. But it's still an opportunity to see some. All right this must be mine. The elk burger. And you got blue cheese rodeo. Oh look at the bacon. Cheese fries. And the best part onion rings. There we go. Okay I've got an onion ring and jalapenos and bake. Try a bite. There's like there's so much cheese they're like stuck together. Well that really hit the spot. Very much so. Definitely try it out. Burgers are quite tasty and they have lots of different options which is kind of fun. And lots of different milkshakes. We got thin mint. All right time to check out Balanced Rock. Looks pretty balanced. All right we're off on what seems like one of the most popular trails because it's very short. The windows trail. There it is right there. No that's... Well the windows is two side by side north and south. What the heck is that? There and this. No the windows are right there. Where? Oh wait. I had it wrong. Are you wrong? I had it wrong. Yeah this says north window and south window this way. So what do you think of the two windows? Oh now it's more obvious. Way more obvious facing this way. But this looks super cool from the back side here. It looks kind of like an evil mask. Here's the tip. If you're coming in the afternoon when the sun is on that side going west, come to this the east side of these arches and you get like this cool shadowed look. If you're here first thing in the morning then the other side will be better. Oh now the sun's poking through the one. That's cool. Yeah. All right we're going to check out the double arch now. So many arches. Did you know that there's over 2,000 arches in this park? We haven't even scratched the surface. This might be the coolest one yet. That is one spectacular arch. Well this was a pretty good finale I would say. This was super super cool. And so accessible. Well that was a lot of walking again today. We didn't intend it to be but I'm over 13 or 17,000 steps. Yeah got 17,386 steps. That's uh that's a fair bit of walking. Substantial. All right back to the campsite. All right let's look at what $25 a night gets you for camping here at Arches. You get your camping pad which is what we are on. And I will tell you they are not all created equally. Some are very short that could maybe fit a small van. But there are some there are a few that are big enough. We did see a class A get into one. So there are a few big ones but not all of them are big. On your site you get a fire pit and a picnic table. And that's all she wrote. There's no hookups here. There's no dumping station here. There's no water fill station here. There is drinking water at the visitor center that you can fill some jugs with but it's not something that you could fill your whole RV with. So we're here on site number 14 and it fits our 25 foot travel trailer pretty well. You might be able to fit something slightly longer. So you can see there are 40 no 54 sites here. We have a few garbage bins for disposal. And then also here at the bathrooms they have a big sink for washing your dishes or filling up water. So there is drinking water here down at the bathroom as well. And then just men and women's bathrooms on either side. To pay you pick up a little gold envelope at the entrance. You can put your money in the slot with your information or put your credit card details on there too and pay for it that way which is what we did. This van right behind me, they're in my ultimate favorite site. Site number 11. It backs right up to some beautiful red rock. It's nestled right in there. Such a pretty pretty little site. Well we did pretty good today. Yeah. We did seven minutes quicker than our average. It's 6 52. The alarm went off at six. We're on the road. See you next week. So today we're doing a little less... no wait. This morning we're going to check out the delicate arch. And that's all I know so far about it. Are those something straight ahead? I don't think so. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing and turning on notifications. Oh and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.