Day 4 We did NOT sleep in! but AGAIN by the time we had finished breakfast and our preparations for the day, Arches National Park had reached capacity and was not allowing any more vehicles to enter! “Try again in 3-5 hours” teased the sign once more! No worries. There are endless places to explore here beyond the artificial boundaries of parks. We settled on Hwy 279 Scenic Byway, which followed the Colorado River in the opposite direction of our previous day and promised petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, and a state park intriguingly named “Dead Horse Point”. All in, we were off. The road and the river ran between rock walls - steep on our left, more rounded on the other side of the river to our right. After passing a bevy of rock climbers operating from the shoulder just barely out of the roadway, we spotted an innocuous sign that simply stated “Petroglyphs”. We pulled to the side of the road and spent the next half hour studying and trying to decipher the depictions of humanoids, animals, and symbols that decorated the sheer rock faces above and just out of reach - both physically and conceptually. Evidently people have been exploring this amazing landscape for thousands of years. Not much further along the road we came upon Poison Spider Mesa road head. We pulled in with more promises of petroglyphs and the added bonus of dinosaur tracks. We spent another hour hiking up the rockface to investigate and imagine the incredible history of the place. From prehistoric sand dune desert oases, to ancient seabed shoreline, to the river carved landscape we meandered today that had once hosted a native people driven no doubt by the same curiosity that fed our current explorations. Back on the road again it wasn’t too long before we stopped to take a lunch break, sitting atop a huge boulder overlooking the smooth flowing river and the rounded rock walls on the other side. We couldn’t help notice the depth of silence, not even broken by the calls of a single bird. We continued after the break but didn’t get far before being lured off track by another intriguing sign, this one promising our first stone arch - “Jug Handle Arch”. We pulled into the mostly empty dirt parking lot and got out looking for a trail sign. We found none, but instead a dirt road leading into a rocky canyon. Four-wheeling here we go! Not knowing what to look for or where to find it, we drove for about a mile and were considering turning around as the road seemed to deteriorate the further we progressed. Then we came upon a couple hikers who promised us great views, a stone “arch” and that the road would be passable in our vehicle eventually connecting back to the highway again. That was all the encouragement we needed to continue. And “yes” the views were incredible as the canyon grew ever narrower and the road climbed ever steeper to reach the plateau from which it had been carved. The “arch” turned out to be a huge boulder that formed a stone bridge under which the road passed, but the dramatic views made it all worth it. Our first real arch would have to wait. Once back on the road we had a choice to make - head back south and retry entering into the Arches NP, or go north to a dead end at Dead Horse Point State Park. We chose the dead end and were glad we did. The story goes that cowboys once used the rocky point to corral wild mustangs from which they would cull the ones they valued while leaving the others to fend for themselves. With little vegetation and no water the rest of the herd died, and thus the name, Dead Horse Point. Today the point offers a 270° view overlook of the extensive landscape carved by the Colorado River. It is the closest to Joe’s memories of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. Millions of years of geologic history panoramically on display. There are no words..... Eventually we turned around and heading south again we were confident we would get into Arches. We arrived 10 minutes before the visitor center closed - just enough time for Lyn to get her National Park Passport stamped! Then we proceeded into the park. As we drove in there was an endless parade of vehicles leaving the park. With just a couple hours until sunset we found the places we stopped relatively uncrowded. Our first short hike gave us an intimate view of our first arches - North Window, South Window and Turret Arches. The history of how these arches are formed is a tribute to the creative powers of Nature. All the arches seemed to double as wind tunnels for the blasts of cool dusk air that whistled through the surrounding juniper and whipping up dust. Other sites on the drive included the citidals of Courthouse Rocks, the official Balancing Rock - as well as countless impersonators, and our final sunset hike to the Delicate Arch Viewpoint. As we drove out of the park the sun setting behind a veil of clouds outlined the rock formations in dazzling gold as if the landscape were on fire. Certainly our hearts and imagination were from all we had seen and experienced during the day. We called in an order for Mexican takeout which was ready for pickup on our return to Moab and our hotel where we reflected on yet another amazing day. And so ended our fourth day.