We woke to grey and heavy skies and left for Moab (via Starbucks). It quickly became apparent that the skies were heavy with snow, lots of it. Blizzards of it in fact. And we headed straight into it over a mountain pass. I have never seen anything like it (besides the rain to Boise) it was so think and fell for hours and the stuff that had already settled on the road sides was feet deep. We were worried we might need snow chains, but luckily there was enough traffic to keep the roads clear infront of us.

After a few hours the snow gave way to more rain as the land flattened out and after a few hours it changed again to red sand and weird cliff formations, forever with mountain ranges in the distance where ever we turned.

We arrived to Moab and our hostel/log cabin around 4pm. Moab is a cute little town which only really exists because of the National Park a few miles south of north of it. It had some interesting shops - most of which were closed due to it being off season. We spent the night cooking in the cramped and rather disgusting kitchen in the main building before retreating to our log cabin, well, shed with a bed, and tried to keep warm!

The next morning we ventured into Arches National Park. There were alien like rock structures and strange arches carved by nature, or someone else, millions of years ago. Again, it snowed, rained, snowed some more, and had the occassional outbreak of sunshine!

In the afternoon I had my first Dennys and then we went in search of some ancient Indian carvings along the rock faces around the town, and found most of them. It snowed a bit more and we went back into the park to watch the sunset which never really happened given all the snow clouds, but we did walk up to the 'Delicate Arch'.

The next morning the sun came out! And spent a few hours on some of the trails in the park, getting a bit lost and scrambling over rocks and arches and enjoying being outside without stuff falling from the sky.

In the afternoon we set off and headed into Colorado. We stopped at some small roadside towns/villages to have a look round and then carried on to Cortez. Here we had just enough daylight left to get into Mesa Verde National Park. This was pretty much closed, but the roads were opened. We drove up the steep mountain road, with it getting cold, the snow reappearing and the daylight fading and warnings of bears and mountain lions everywhere.

Mesa Verde was home to settlements of the Anastasi Indians and has intricate townships built into the cliff faces and valleys of the mountains. You can't get to them really, being half way down a cliff, and no one is really sure how they managed it either thousands of years ago. They apparently worshipped the sun and sky and everything they believed lived up their. There isn't really any trace of them or any reasons as to why they died out and many believed they 'went home'. When you see the buildings you really do wonder how the hell they made such precise houses and with no equipment, so who knows how they got there or where they went.

Despite Cortez being quite small and mainly closed, we found a lovely Chinese restaurant and had a nice meal.