Arches and Canyonlands

Our second day in Moab, UT, a town nestled in a valley between two imposing rock walls, dawned with me feeling considerably better. After our Holiday Inn Express breakfast (the food actually tasted good) we drove a short distance to the Arches National Park. Unlike the natural bridges which actually connect two areas, a geological arch is one that nature has carved over millennia into some of the massive red sandstone monoliths that are found in this area. We started with the "Delicate Arch", a small beautiful arch which some Utah residents display on their license plate. Even at the end of "high season" the park is crowded, so after that we took some advice and drove to the end of the park route worked our way backwards.
The route to each arch viewing site was a walk varying from two-tenths of a mile to at least half a mile, up and down over rocks and sand. The weather was lovely, the temperatures were in the seventies, and we handled the walking just fine. All told, we visited seven arches and got reasonably good photos of each. My pedometer reported that we had walked just short of six miles. At between 5,000 and 7,000 feet of altitude.
After lunch we drove the the upper part of Canyonlands National Park, the area known as "Island in the Sky". As was Arches, Canyonlands provides a scenic auto route to the major sites. Unlike Arches, it is laced with hiking trails and is a hiker's paradise. We stuck to the auto route.
Two rivers -- the Colorado ad the Green -- running parallel at this point have carved out the canyons. A little like the Grand Canyon, the canyons are immense and deep, stretching for miles through the desert landscape. We added another mile in this venture.
We ended the evening with dinner in a restaurant on a cliff above Moab. It was a good ending for a good day.
POSTSCRIPT: The mal de mer returned overnight. Better in the morning.