ARCHES

    As we left the grossest hotel we have ever had the displeasure to stay in, we were relieved. Of course for the obvious reason (to get away) but also because we learned a few things the day before. We decided to fill up Graham's car at the local station, bought plenty of snacks to hold us over and additional drink bottles to add water into. On the way over I remembered I had packed a moisturizer that had 20 SPF in it, quickly had to apply it to Graham's neck which was so incredibly sunburnt from the day before. We felt like professionals as we drove on over to our next destination.
    Pulling into Arches National Park, we were surprised to see that there were several cars turning on the road, whereas there were very, very few at the other locations. We took an obligatory "proof that we were here" picture, paid our dues ($10, FYI) and went in. The Visitor's Center gave us many options oh this one is a rigorous hike (that's gonna be a no) and 3 miles, no shade but a nice view (still no).
    We drove for maaaany miles, stopping at all of the viewpoints. The trip took about 45 minutes to get to the end, then 45 minutes back, but then getting out of the car added on about 3 extra hours. Again friends, only one water fill up station in the front of the park and one at the back. This trip simply is no doable without water. Moving on.
    My personal favorite was Double Arches! It was an easy place to get to, though I def needed better traction on my shoes, and has super nice views. The pictures hopefully give it some justice. It was here that we received a tip to wear my bandanna backwards (as in on the neck) after dipping it in water to yield off the sun and to cool off a bit. Graham, whose neck was much worse than mine and would be in a wedding in 3 days, wore it and looked cowboy-esque to me. So dang cute, check out my pictures below for proof!
    Other places we went to included the Skyline Arch, which was nice and small,  though not near as cool as the first arch. While we were there, we someone dressed in all black longsleeves, pants and a beanie to take a picture of the two of us, where he promptly took it without putting in the actual Arch. Sigh. Luckily there was one more visitor down the way who understood the concept. Onward we trudged. Another pretty place was the viewpoint of Delicate Arch. This is the most famous one in the park, a large chunk of Utah has this one on their license plate. As much as we wanted to hike to it, that was a 3 mile round trip, uphill and with no shade: aka not happening. So instead we went to the viewpoint, where we drove right on up, walked .15 of a mile and took a photo from a distance! Easy peasy :) And lastly, as we stopped at the Garden of Eden I could not get over how much similar Thunder Mountain (all my Disney peeps, you know what I mean) looked to this terrain. It was pretty impressive to see how well it had been engineered!
    Arches would be our pick, if we had to choose one between all 3 parks. While it had the biggest variety and amazing views, we were also much more prepared for this one (so basically I'm saying I am straight up biased). It was really amazing to see all of the diversity in the desert! As we left the park I was so glad for my boy to say, "I'm really glad we went to southern Utah!"