We were really looking forward to meeting up with my parents in Moab, which was our next stop after Kanab. They were on their own little travel adventure and after seeing them nearly every day back on Salt Spring, to not seeing them for two months straight, the kids were missing their Grandparents!
It took us nearly 7 hours to get to Moab, which was a really long drive for the kids. 5 hours seems to be their max tolerance level for easy travel, and everything beyond usually means some dysregulation. I understand – it’s hard to be contained in a space that grows more uncomfortable the longer you are unable to leave it. We try to do school on the road in the first part of the trip, play card games or with toys in the middle, and then pull out the screens to watch movies or play games towards the end when everyone is tired.
In Moab, we stayed at the KOA which was our first time in a KOA campground. While we have heard good things in general about KOA camping (my parents are big fans) and the campground was nice, it didn’t quite live up to the KOA hype. The pool was super fun for the kids and the highlight of the grounds, but other than that, the bathroom facilities were incredibly dirty and weren’t cleaned once the entire week we were there. The staff whizzed around at high speeds on their golf carts kicking up billows of dust all over the camp set-ups which sucked if you were cooking or eating outside. Also, while I know the KOA isn’t to blame for this, they have an open pet policy that many people took advantage of, leaving their dogs locked up in their campers all day while they were out. The dogs in our neighboring spots howled ALL day after their owners left them and barked ALL night which was such an onslaught of never-ending noise that also caused some anxiety in my kids who were worried that the dogs were ok.
Together with my parents, we spent one day exploring Arches, one in Canyonlands, and a day on either side exploring Moab, catching up on laundry, playing in the pool, and enjoying each other’s company before they headed West for the Grand Canyon and we turned south to Mesa Verde. Almost every day, we found some reason to run into town and grab a coffee from Moab Coffee Roasters – by far the best coffee we have had thus far on our trip!
Arches National Park has a really unique entry in that, instead of winding your way through the park towards the bottom of a canyon or the other side of a mountain, you wind your way up the mountain to appear on top of a large mesa. Upon the mesa sits the park, with a collection of thousands of red rock stone arches, balancing stones, pinnacles, fins and stacks – like God saved their best playdoh collection display upon a royal coffee table next to the sky.
As we were traveling in the off-season, we didn’t have to apply for a timed entry permit to enter into Arches National Park, but any visitor wanting to enter the park from April 1 – October 31 in 2023 needs to apply for a reservation ahead of time, you can do so here. Park Rangers combated issues with congestion, safety, overcrowding, and limited park resources by implementing a pilot timed entry program in 2022 after the park saw a dramatic increase in visitors to over 1.8 million people in 2021.
We went early in the day and really lucked out with parking as there are no shuttles in Arches. We decided to plan our expedition into the park according to my parent’s abilities so picked shorter walks with little elevation change. Still, we ended up walking over 6 km, (about 4 miles) over the course of 4 trails – so not bad for a day’s exploration!
We started off with The Windows, a 1 mile (1.6km) gentle ascent trail up to the North and South Arch Windows and Turret Arch. What a glorious way to begin the day! The views were breathtaking and the crowds minimal. We were able to take this picture of our family (courtesy of my Mom) which I will always treasure.
The Double Arch walk is directly across from the Windows and is a quick 0.6 mile (1km) out and back. It was easy to do both these hikes together before heading to the Sand Dune Arch which is further along into the park. From the Double Arch, you can see out to Elephant Butte which, at 5653 ft., is the highest point in Arches National Park. Named because of its shape (it looks like an elephant!), the peak is also known as a good spot for canyoneering and is labeled as a class 5 climb, for those interested in attempting it. While none of us are climbers, one of our kids is very interested in learning how to rock climb and can often be found at the highest point in any tree or playground. If ever we can’t spot Lane right away, everyone in the family knows to look up! One day, I’d love to come back to Arches and some of the other National Parks that we’ve visited and watch him fulfill those dreams.
Sand Dune Arch was the kids’ favorite. You hike along a narrow unassuming trail in an open field and then round the corner of rock into deep soft orange sand settled between large fins rising several meters up into the sky. A hidden arch among the sand is a perfect spot for a photo op, but the kids were too intent on rolling in the sand and squeezing between crevasses to comply! 0.4 miles (0.6km) made this the shortest of our hikes, but we spent the most time overall there, squeezing into small spaces, finding ledges to perch, and running the red sand through our fingers.
The final hike of our day was Landscape Arch at the Devil’s Garden trailhead. As it was later on in the day, it was a lot more crowded, not to mention hot. We stopped for a picnic before hiking the 1.8 miles (2.9km) winding through the packed rock trail. By this time, Julian had worn himself out and took a nap in the carrier while the rest of us found the stamina for one last push. I’m glad we persevered for that final walk because by the end of it, we really felt like we had seen and experienced most of Arches. We’d driven the entire park, stopped at each viewpoint, and hiked in several different areas. The kids took the Junior Ranger books home to complete and we checked another National Park off our list!
While in Moab, we also wanted to visit Canyonlands as it’s practically Arches’ neighbor. Canyonlands National Park is divided into three different districts; districts: Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze, with the rivers themselves both dividing the sections and forming the fourth area of the park. Each district has its own entrance with Islands in the Sky being the closest one to us.
Usually, we try to get to the parks early and spend most of the day. However, we decided to do things a little differently and go for a walk in the late afternoon in order to catch the sunset and have a picnic dinner. First, we hiked the Mesa Arch loop (0.6 miles / 1km) which leads to an arch perched on the cliffside overlooking the Colorado River canyon. Then we hiked up Upheaval Dome which has a pretty decent ascent of 115 feet up to get to the viewpoint. The trail is 1.2 miles (2km) to the second overlook and back, and 0.6 miles (1km) to the first overlook. Cole took the older kids for the whole hike while I waited with my parents and Julian, enjoying the view at the first overlook. Julian was cold and tired so we bundled him into the carrier and he promptly fell asleep while we watched the sky turn to pink and orange with deep cognac hues.
After watching the sunset we had a picnic dinner under the stars – and the bats! Two bats circled our picnic area continuously, eyeing our supper. On the way home we listened to “The Magicians Nephew,” one of the seven books in the Narnia series. Audiobooks have been such a welcome addition to our travel time. It’s calming and regulating to sit and listen to and helps the long drives go by faster. It makes books that would otherwise be inaccessible to some of our kids bring ideas, imagination, and perspective taking into their reach. We always have good family discussions about what is happening in the story, what we think will happen next, and how the situations in the story make us feel. It’s also a new avenue for language acquisition, expanding our gestalt language processors’ understanding and vocabulary by leaps and bounds.
There’s so much growth on this trip. Daily we open ourselves to new experiences, create new memories and expand our knowledge about ourselves, and the world. Not a moment wasted.
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