Rocks! {Arches National Park Trip, Days 1 & 2}

Growing up next door to my cousins was one of the greatest gifts in my life. My brothers, Matt, Caleb, and I loved to play with Chelsi, Ian, Sasha, & Demri. We filled our summers with all sorts of adventures and made many memories!

When we were all together last summer for Ian's wedding, we girls were sitting in the hotel hot tub dreaming up the idea of getting together in March 2015 to hike Arches National Park! I love having something adventurous to look forward to in the "Oregon rainy season", and this was a trip I was REALLY looking forward to! I hadn't spent hours of uninterrupted time with these three girls in probably 12 years or more!! It was long overdue and I was counting the days. :)

Chelsi & I flew into Salt Lake City, where Sasha picked us up. The moment we all saw each other I just felt giddy! Sasha drove us to her house where we got to see her husband James, and two cute little boys, Elijah & Ezra. Then we all went out to dinner and met up with Demri and her husband Eric, and my Aunt Tena. It was so great to be with them all again and have dinner together.

That night Sasha, Chelsi & I stayed up late catching up and talking about years past. It was a sweet time.
The next morning we packed up and drove over to pick up Demri and headed out for Arches National Park.

The view from Sasha's backyard!

Her boys scooting in the sunshine in their pj's. :) Such sweet boys!!

The scenery on the drive over was beautiful.

We chatted for what felt like the fastest 3 hours, and then pulled into the park. Oh, I was so excited. It was so beautiful seeing that orange rock against the blue sky! 

(You can thank me later for posting this pic.) ;)

Chelsi was an expert guide since she had hiked there before with her husband, Eric. She suggested we do our first hike to Delicate Arch, which was 3 miles round trip. I just couldn't get over the beauty and knew instantly that my pictures weren't going to do it justice. And they definitely don't. If you EVER have a chance to go experience Arches, do it! It's breathtaking in person!

The first thing we saw on our hike was John Wesley Wolfe's home, from the early 1900's. It was so cool to look inside and get a glimpse of the past. I'm so fascinated by this era of history and bought a little booklet about this man's life/story that the girls found in the visitor center.

Their root cellar.

Then we saw the petroglyphs.

Then onto the great hill of rock! :) See my arrow in the pic below? Yep, those are people I'm pointing to on that big rock that we walked up. You can see people on the path halfway down the pic too. Delicate Arch was still quite a distance beyond the top of that hill.

Halfway up...

It felt so good to reach the top!

We walked and talked and came into some shade. As the cool breeze hit my skin, I took a deep breath and said in my heart, "Lord, thank you so much for this. For this trip. For these girls. For this beauty that you created!" My soul was overflowing with joy.

Then we came around the bend and there it was, Delicate Arch! It sat so gracefully with the snowy mountains behind it, & it was much larger than I expected. I left people in several photos below to give perspective (rather than photoshop them out). The light was rough that time of day and I did my best to capture it, but it pales in comparison to real life.

Here's a photo of us girls standing under it!

I felt like this the whole time... :)

We spent a good amount of time in this spot, just soaking it in! And soaking in the sun. 

Thank you Demri for this pic & for the cutie oranges we enjoyed here!

Sasha and I had both just received fun phone calls from our husbands with some good news (what a fun coincidence, and yes, there's cell service there!), so we did a little happy dance together there at Delicate Arch. ;)

With full hearts and hungry tummies for dinner, we hiked back to the car, so that we could make our way to our condo that we rented for the weekend. It was so cute! We stayed at the Moab Flats and here are some pics from their website of the place we stayed in:

We walked to dinner, then soaked in the hot tub at our place. It had the cutest backyard.

We put on pj's and 80's music (thanks Demri for the great station!), got snacks and played Cornelius Canasta! Sasha and Demri beat Chelsi and I, but it was close. ;) We stayed up late talking and slept deeply.

Day 3 will have to be saved for my next post! But if you're curious how these arches are formed, here's some info. ;)