Wow, what a day!

First of all, we didn't even definitively decide to come to Arches until the day before. That added an extra 8 hours of driving (4 hours there, 4 hours back). Did not seem so bad compared to the 8 hours straight of driving on Wednesday. Of course we had to drive that back home the following day, but we weren't concerned about that.

So our crazy road trip within our road trip starts out very interesting....

I drove to and from Arches. I really enjoy driving the Jeep. It feels like a bus compared to my little Honda Fit, but it is so fun to drive. We had a little more than half a tank of gas. The Jeep holds a lot of gas. We wanted to hit the road (after our free breakfast of course!) And figured along the main freeway of the I-70 that our GPS told us we would be driving we would have PLENTY of gas stations to stop and fill up at. Well...

Our first part of the drive took us on a lot of windy back roads. May not have been the most direct, but as we are not familiar with the area, we went with it. We passed tons of cows, horses, farms, ranches, but no gas stations. Once we connected to the I-70, we figured we would see gas in no time. Well, our tank was getting lower and lower and there were NO signs along the freeway letting us know of gas stations at exits. In fact, there were not even any exits! No towns. No rest stops. NO GAS STATIONS. Jaime checked the GPS, and it said we were about 50 miles from the next gas station, and the Jeep tells us how many miles until empty. 70 miles until empty. Ok, great. Well, there were a lot of inclines and hills to climb, which eats up the gas even more, and slowly but surely the miles until empty kept getting smaller and smaller.

The gas light came on. But it still said about 30 miles to empty. We were only about 20 miles away from the service station. We were a little anxious, but still felt ok. BUT THEN...the Jeep beeped and the screen gave us notification: LOW FUEL. It no longer told us the miles to empty. Jaime said it had never done that before. Now we were stressed. Only 10 miles to the gas station. As we got closer and closer, we were talking to each other. Ok, as long as we can make to to 3 miles from the gas station, one of us can run that distance, we can go get gas and come back. We were planning for worst case scenario in case the Jeep pooped out and couldn't make it.

BUT...

We pulled into the gas station and were able to fill up. As we headed back to the I-70, the on ramp to the freeway the direction we came gave a warning: No services for 106 miles. Well, that was nice to know. I guess since we connected from a smaller state road we were not lucky enough to receive that notification. Let me just say, PHEW! To be EXTRA cautious, even though we barely used any gas at all to make it the rest of the way to Arches (about 20 more miles) as soon as we left Arches we filled the tank up again (like $12 worth of gas) and then about an hour later filled up again when we stopped for the restroom just to be extra cautious. To be honest, we may have been fine either way, but as neither of us have pressed our luck with the low fuel warning on the Jeep before, we were definitley worried. We ended up being fine.

We got to the park gate, flashed Jaime's Veteran's All Access Pass to the Parks, and drove right on through. Only 2 cars were ahead of us at then entrance, it did not seem crowded at all.

We really wanted to see Delicate Arch. We knew it would be a trek, but given that this would be our only time here, and we came all this way anyways, what was another 3 hour hike after our 6 hour hike the day before?

Our legs were beat. But we were INCREDIBLY luck to have a thick cloud cover, and it was a little hot (not unbearable) but since there is NO SHADE on this hike, the cloud cover was very welcome.

This hike SUCKED. Ok, I am being overdramatic. We read online it was hard. The sign at the trailhead says it is hard and no shade, and to bring plenty of water and snacks (which we did!) but after hiking literally almost the whole day before it was rough. And a little scary! We had to basically scale the face of this giant rock hill, and there were several narrow ledges with no guard or barrier for protection, BUT we made it safe. The payoff of seeing the beautiful Delicate Arch was well worth the work. PLUS the hike back down was much quicker and a lot easier. Lucky for us, it was also not very crowded. Plenty of space on the trail. We saw pictures of the crowds at this arch during peak times, and we really lucked out with how empty it was.

We got back to the trailhead and Jaime stopped to use the restroom real quick and I headed back to the Jeep to eat the second half of my Subway Sandwich I got at the gas station. I was walking back to the car (by myself) and I saw something was stuck in the passenger door handle. I couldn't tell what it was from far away, but as I got closer I realized it was my little wallet! It must have fallen out of the Jeep when we grabbed our backpacks to start the hike!! Can you believe that somebody put it on our car for us?!

Let me break it down for you how awful it would be if we lost that wallet. All of our stuf was back at the hotel. 4 HOURS AWAY. it had our IDs, two credit cards, about $15 cash, and our park pass. If we did not have those we would not have had any way to purchase gas for the drive home, we would not have had our driver's licenses, we would have been in BIG trouble. Whoever found it must not have even unzipped it, EVERYTHING was still in the wallet, including our cash. And even crazier, nobody came to take it off the car after whoever put it back.

Luckily for us, we parked WAAAAY at the end of the parking lot. it is likely that nobody even saw it there. There were about 6 empty spaces between us and the next parked car, but there was a car right next to us when we pulled in. So they must have found the wallet and just placed it on the door handle. Talk about a freakin' ANGEL! Another stressful situation, but on our whole 3 hour hike, we didn't even know we had dropped it! When Jaime got into the car from the restroom, I told him the story and he was amazed as well! We were like WOW! Somebody up there really loves us.

Moving on to our next sites at Arches....

We felt like we had been hiking for 6 months straight between Bryce and the incredibly strenuous Delicate Arch Hike. Not to mention our poor little hearts still racing from realizing we could have lost our wallet. So we said we would just drive to some lookout points and take in some more of the popular sites. We first drove the the Skyline Arch, just hopped out and took some pics. We could have hiked a bit closer, but we decided our view wasd fine. Once we got to another trailhead with three different arches to view, we decided to just do the darn hike. Here we saw the Tunnel Arch, Pinetree Arch, and what ended up being our favorite, Landscape Arch. It was only about 1 mile each way on a FLAT marked trail, so we were fine. And the Lanscape Arch at the end of this trail really blew us away. We were so glad we ended up taking the extra hike to see it.

Our final Arch was the Double Arch which was also really cool. It was a little walk, but I wouldn't even classify it as a hike.

Our final final stop was the balancing rock, which was just a quick stop on the side of the road.

Very cool sites, and yes we had to work hard for some of them, but we are very glad we added this place to our trip. We stopped at the visitor center to pick up a couple things, use the restroom, and hit the road back to our hotel at Bryce Canyon City.

We got to our hotel just before 11pm. And had PLENTY of gas to spare. All the restaurants and diners were closed, but lucky for us we had picked up Arbys at one of the gas stations on the way back and our hotel had a microwave, so we heated that up, and then had NO problems falling asleep.

The next day we wanted to hit the road extra early, but we remembered we would gain an hour, and also wanted to take advantage of our last free breakfast. So we hit the road a little after 7am. It was an easy drive home, hit a little traffic in Victorville, CA but made it home safe. Winnie was a good girl at daycare, and she got a bath the day we picked her up and came home smelling great. She was happy to be home, but had a great time at daycare.

So there we are. Our trip that we planned literally two days ahead of time turned into a surprisingly satisfying and incredible trip. And, if there is something we have learned it is definitely not the destination, but who you travel with. Every trip we take we realize how lucky we are to have found each other. And how thankful we are up to participate in our dumb ideas like hike for two days straight and drive over 1700 miles in the course of 4 days.

We have no clue what the state of the world will allow us to do or where we can travel to in the future. But we are glad we got to get out and take advantage of the open road and see more of this AMAZING planet.

Until next time....