Utah Road Trip--Day 7

Day 7 Arches

Our day started with a fun little rain storm, complete with a rainbow afterward, and ended with a severe thunderstorm with pea-to-marble-sized hail and flash floods, but we had lots of sun in between and loved exploring Arches today.

We explored the Windows section of the park first, bright and early at 7am, and pretty much had the place to ourselves! We were just walking away from the Turret Arch area when it started raining—huge raindrops! We took shelter under an overhang for a bit by the South Window, while Kari ran—happy, wild, and free—through the rain. It passed quickly, only lasting a few minutes. Kari, Joel, and Grant did a lot of running ahead and all over today and loved every second of it. Aubrey enjoys the sights, but prefers to walk like a sensible, normal person. I’m with her!

She and I did not enjoy the hot, steep hike to Delicate Arch, but we wouldn’t have wanted to be left behind, so we’re glad we did it. The sloping areas around Delicate Arch made me nervous. I was glad when we were all back on lower level ground again. Kari, Joel, and Grant went running off into the distance before heading back down. All four kids beat us back to the van by 20 minutes.

Today’s photos are like a “Where’s Waldo?” game but with Moffats. We are so tiny compared to the humongous rock formations and arches. Kari is most often the one on the highest, furthest points.

The Sand Dune arch area was super cool—very Star Wars-like. Our last arch was Broken Arch, and we rested there for a bit. By that time it was 11am and getting hot, and we had seen pretty much everything we wanted to see. We drove back out of the park, admiring the sights that were not as visible due to clouds in the morning, particularly the La Sal mountains in the distance.

We ate lunch at the Moab food carts, browsed the shops along Main Street, and got cold, sweet treats before heading back to the hotel to swim and cool down. We’d only been at the pool for a few minutes before we saw dark clouds rolling in and heard thunder. We gathered our stuff and headed back up to our room when we saw lightning in the distance. And then things got crazy! We watched in awe from our window upstairs as it started dumping rain, and then the wind picked up, blowing the pool furniture all over and into the pool and whipping leaves from the trees. And then it started hailing! In a matter of about 20 minutes, the temperature dropped from 93 to 70 degrees! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The sidewalks and road flooded with rain, hail piled up, and lightning and thunder continued for the next hour and a half. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the storm was over, leaving a mess in its wake. When we drove through town for dinner, we saw debris everywhere, huge puddles, and some trees and bushes uprooted. We asked a couple different locals if this was a common occurrence. They both said it happens once, maybe twice, a year, and that this was the second one in the last week! Several hotel guests’ cars have round dents on the hood and roof, but ours appears to have come out unscathed.

*edit: Turns out, our windshield was damaged in the storm. Had a small crack and many little dings/chips and had to get it replaced when we got home.

We are really thankful we were already back at our hotel and NOT out in the park when the storm rolled in. That would have been terrifying. We got all kinds of emergency alerts on our phones this afternoon, warning of flash floods and lightning. It was no joke!

And now, at 10pm, we’re hearing thunder and seeing flashes of lightning again, and it’s started raining again , too. This is nuts! Canyonlands is the plan for tomorrow. We’ll see what happens!