Rick and I have decided that Utah has a particularly devil-may-care attitude when it comes to speed limits.
Curvy, mildly mountainous roads have a speed limit of 80, and when you get to said curves the "recommended speed" drops to 65, and no one seems to mind the beckoning canyon of rocky doom that awaits with haphazard guardrails that don't go around the entire curve, just the beginning and the end, with a nice big gap in the middle, so that you can go flying into said canyon unimpeded.
But on the other hand, nobody out here seems to speed, probably because you'd have to break the sound barrier to do it, so you never get passed by some idiot on a blind curve who panics and cuts you off at the last second.
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| Rick at Arches |
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| Arches |
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| If you look closely near the lower right corner, you'll see Ricky standing in the shadow of Turret Arch |
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| Ricky at Turret Arch |
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| The North and South Window Arches |
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| at a viewpoint in Arches |
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| Ricky hiking up between the "fins" to Sand Dune Arch |
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| Ricky under Sand Dune Arch |
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| Erin running from the cold under Sand Dune Arch |
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| The Delicate Arch (we didn't hike all the way up to it, there's a huge ravine between us and the arch, but that guy in the blue coat did) |
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| White Crowned Sparrow (male) |
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| White Crowned Sparrow (female) |
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| White Crowned Sparrow pair |
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| I love the way the little female is kicking up snow! |
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| Song Sparrow |
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| Song Sparrow |
We're spending New Years Eve in Moab, Utah just outside Arches and plan to start New Years Day at a marsh near here and then on to Canyonlands before turning south to work our way back towards Phoenix.
