I told Ralph to save the polygamy for Utah but he wouldn't listen
If I ca find these somewhere I will bring some back - A shop owner told me of another scary one, "kill a wolf save 100 elk" he suggested an alternative "kill a redneck, save 100 wolves"
Elk antler arch, try saying that after 4 beers
Just outside Salt Lake City, Utah we spoke to a couple of guys loaded up with all their worldly goods on their bikes. They were hoping to hitch a lift in a lorry, they are permanently on the road and travel about like this hitching and cycling. They shared some scavenging secrets with us such as checking the propane camping gas canister recycling bin at the campsite as people often put them in before they're empty, sure enough Ralph has scavenged successfully. They also check for distributors of food and camping equipment and round the back they find perfectly good items which for whatever reason have been chucked in a skip at the back, sell by dates, shop returns. They showed us their artisan bread, fancy granola, new watch, new tent, you name it they had it......
They wouldn't let us take a picture of them, so we opted for their bikes, they had great beards.
Ralph has found a new favourite TV show - Extreme Couponing, needless to say he shouted a lot at the television.
We were now heading into South east Utah, home to five national parks.
Arches national park is beautiful but crowded, to give three quick examples, the Fiery Furnace, a collection of amazing close knit rock pillars which can only be explored with a ranger as its so easy to get lost in, yet you must sign up 2 weeks in advance if you are to get on this hike (needless to say we had not planned ahead). Secondly, the sunset at delicate arch is a must but it is quite a surprise to get round the last corner of the hike to find tens or even hundreds of people. Lastly the campsite is bookings only, despite what our out of date guide book said (damn our attempts to be mildly sustainable), when we got their the next available slot was not for another fortnight. In a word plan ahead and be prepared for crowds even in October!
I am glad to see that despite 4 months of American cheeriness (the response to' how are you?' from everyone here is 'I'm GOOD!' while in the UK we are Not bad or OK) I have not lost my ability to moan like a true Brit, it must be the lack of decent cheese (anyone going for an extended trip in the US should bring a cool box of cheddar with them - if you can get it past customs). Anyway, it can be safely said that the Arches themselves are amazing just look.
Health and safety gone mad
La Sal mountains in the background
Balanced rock
An evening walk to Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in the park for sunset, along with the rest of the world! The trail goes over slickrock and so is marked by cairns as you can't see the way otherwise, not too bad during the day but a bit tricky at night on the way back.
Delicate arch
It was a little crowded but still very pretty
Landscape arch
Uinta chipmunk
Partition arch
Navajo arch
Double O arches
We visited some petroglyphs just outside Moab, despite being thousands of years old someone thought it would be great idea to graffiti the word GAY across part of them -genius!
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