Arches National Park—September 16, 2024

Yesterday we drove from Mt. Pleasant, Utah to Moab, Utah, a distance of about 185 miles.  Moab is lovely little historic town located about 5 miles from Arches National Park and about 30 miles from Canyonland National Park.  The Colorado River runs through the Moab Valley right by Moab the town.

Today we visited Arches National Park, which is 73,234 acres of eroded sandstone fins, towers, ribs, gargoyles, hoodoos, balanced rocks, and arches.  Delicate Arch is the most well-known of these arches with its 65-foot arc, but there are over 2,000 arches cataloged in Arches National Park.  The park includes the largest proliferation of arches in the world, including Double O Arch, Broken Arch, Landscape Arch, Windows Loop, and Tower Arch. The Delicate Arch might be the one everyone has seen most often, as it’s the iconic image for Utah. Guess which of the following pictures is of Delicate Arch?

When I read that Arches has formations called hoodoos, I was confused.  I only know about the hoodoo that is a set of spiritual practices that were created by African American slaves in the south. Remember the book and movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?”  The title alludes to the hoodoo notion of “midnight,” the period between the time for good magic (11:30pm to midnight) and the time for evil magic (midnight to 12:30am). What I didn’t know was that a hoodoo is also a column or pinnacle of weathered rock.  Apparently, there is a connection between hoodoo spirituality and a hoodoo rock formation.  A hoodoo rock resembles a strange human form, often topped by an overhanging ‘hat’ of harder rock.  For example, in Bryce Canyon National park, Native Americans considered hoodoos petrified remains of ancient beings who had been sanctioned for misbehavior.  The best example of hoodoos is the first photo. Don’t they do look like people? The second photo reminds me of a dinosaur—or I suppose a hoodoo dinosaur.

Today when we were driving around the park, Doug kept pointing out scenic or interesting things to me. It’s nice that he does this, but after several hours of it, I grow weary of acting interested. It reminded me of the time that Mom and Dad and their good friends Jay and Marilyn came to see us when we lived in Estes Park, Colorado for a short time in the 90’s. Estes Park is right at the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, so we decided to drive through the park one day while they were there. Doug drove and Daddy rode shotgun, while the rest of us sat in the back of the van. Of course, Daddy had a primo seat and could see everything, so he started yelling, “scenery alert!” every time he saw anything pretty. Since Doug was driving and the rest of us were sitting in the back with less of a panoramic view, there were several times when we couldn’t even see what Dad was pointing out. After a long day of this, Mom had finally reached her limit and said, “Les, give it a rest on the scenery alerts.” So when Doug points out the umpteenth thing of the day, all I have to do is say, “scenery alert!” and he gets the message.

And finally, some arches: