Underneath the Arches.....

Lots of pictures this time - don't forget to click them if you want to see them in glorious technicolour!!

This little gem of a park has over 25oo sandstone arches, the most anywhere in the world! It's a photographers dream and we've captured quite a few of them. We've been on some great hikes to see them, scrambling over the slickrock and narrow ledges and scaling the sandstone slabs. Elvis has turned into quite the 'Action Girl' and now has no qualms about getting dirty, scuffing the nails and even getting the hair wet!

We left Capitol Reef at about 5:30am to get to Arches early because they only have 24 first come - first served camp sites. We got there early enough to have a pick of sites and we're set up in a lovely little number. Yet again (I know we must be sounding like a broken record) the scenery is amazing - there's a few pics here but that's just a Small sample. Yesterday we went on a guided tour of the 'Fiery Furnace', it's a maze like labyrinth of narrow sandstone canyons (see the pic of Elvis squeezing through a crack in the rocks) which was class - they took us into some of the most secluded parts of the canyons and explained how it all happens - if anybody wants to know anything about rocks then just ask us!

We've just come back from white water rafting which was really good - apart from the rafting we were swimming in the river and having 'water fights' with the other boats - all in good nature of course, not like when my Brother Ron and I used to have water fights in South Shields boating pond and almost drowned all the other boats in our way! We might have a picture of us in the raft - we need to check it out first with the photo company.

Just in case anyone has been to Arches, the pictures of the arches are (from top to bottom): 1 Landscape arch, 2 Pine arch, 3 Double-o-arch, 4 Balanced rock (not really an arch - just testing that you're all with it) and 5 Delicate arch.

Apparently, if you find an undiscovered arch then you get to name it, we've seen surprise arch, pork chop arch and kissing turtles arch! - we're busy looking for "Why ya Bugger Arch"

We're off tomorrow to Colorado National Monument - another big park to camp in for 2 nights, then to the White River National Forest for 2 nights. The more observant of you will notice that we're heading back to Colorado, which can only mean we'll soon be jetting out to Vancouver (2nd August)