Moab, Utah Day 4

The day started off cloudy so Laura and I went for a walk along the Colorado River.  We found some interesting rock formations and some cactus to photograph.  We noticed the sky clearing so we headed into Arches National Park to a number of arches.  This is Double Arch.

Near the Three Gossips I found this interesting tree with Sheep Rock to the left.

As we headed back for lunch we stopped at Park Avenue.  This is a wide view of that area.

After lunch, a treat from Gaye as she made us her Avocado Shrimp dip with a Lemon Cream pie for dessert, we went into Canyonlands National Park.  While the two parks are very close together they are ages apart geologically.  While Arches is comprised of rock upthrusts with arches (of course) Canyonlands is more canyons (of course- hence their names!)
This example shows how deep the canyons are. 

Note the Jeep on the road near the top right of the photo.  Note also the road WAY down on the canyon floor in the middle of the photo- that's the same road!  How would you like to drive that road?

You can tell this area is very old because when you look out across the canyon you can see evidence of the dinosaurs that once ruled this land.  Here are two shots of a giant dinosaurs footprint.

Here's a better view...

Just kidding!  While dinosaurs really did rule this area milions of years ago they wern't quite this big!  This was caused by erosion from the Green River way down at the bottom of that canyon.  We're about 1000 feet above the white rim that you can see and it goes down about another thousand feet below that!

Unlike the Grand Canyon there are few fences along the edges of this canyon.  We were able to get very close- well as close as my nerves would allow- to the edge to take photos.