Today’s adventure begins us digging into the meat of the adventure and one of the main goals, seeing some of the magnificent Utah national parks.

The day also meant a lot of driving with a lot of ground to cover.

Before we get in to deep, we also want to point out in the planning stages, we really wanted to see the Mesa Verde National Park. However, knowing we had an all day drive ahead of us and very limited time slots that worked with our scheduled to get in and see the park, we opted to skip it on this trip.

We started off making the 4+ hour drive up to the Four Corners Monument at the intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

Since the site is part of the Navajo Tribal Park system, our National Park passes did not apply and we were required to pay $8 per person.

Be prepared with everything you need to make the journey to the site. That includes plenty of gas in your vehicle, food and water, although there are porta potties on-site as well as some food trucks, subject to being open.

We were actually quite surprised how beautiful the four corners monument is, as it is not just some markers on the ground, but a nice complex with picturesque views of all four states. Surrounding the site is various tribal vendors offering handmade items. We ended up spending several hundred dollars on items that we now proudly display in our home and office.

Our prior research also told us to make sure we get the food from Grandma’s Frybread Shack. Handmade Navajo taco dough topped with various toppings made for a nice treat along with some our Pops 66 sodas.

Further along our route into Utah we accidentally stumbled upon Hole in the Rock. What started out as a quick restroom stop turned out to be a very unexpected surprise. We had no idea what to expect, but offered up the $7/person ($5 for kids) and were guided into the 5,000 SF home carved into the mountainside.

While no photos were aloud to be taken inside the home, it was an interesting place frozen in time and showed how resourceful the owners had to be to survive in the desert.

After the hour stop or so, we headed into our hotel at Moab and then with plenty of daylight hours, decided to go check out Arches National Park.

Arches was the only one of the Utah parks we needed a reservation in advance. We had secured two days of reservations with the earliest entry time slots (7-8am). Time slots are good for anytime after, so the first day did not really matter since we arrived so late. The second day aloud us to get in early though.

We arrived around 5:45pm on a Wednesday and experienced no back up of traffic of crowds. In fact, the park was quite peaceful with very few people throughout our entire visit.

This would be a good point to mention we are big fans of the Guide Along app (formerly Gypsy App). We have used the app for various National Parks we have visited, and the narration is the perfect guide to the history of the area and best advice for what are must see stops and which could be skipped.

I am not going to get into every site within Arches National Park as there are plenty of resources available. I will say that we were able to visit the entire park within about 4 hours, which is quite easy since there was only one road in and the time of our arrival. We got out and hiked as many of the sites as we could and were able to see everything. This includes Park Avenue, where to my surprise, there is a rock formation of Queen Nefertiti of Egypt. While that may make no impact on most people, I have worn a pendant of her around my neck since high school. So getting to see something completely unexpected and natural had a big impact on me.

We also hiked the Windows Trail, Double Arch Trail, Sand Dune Arch Trail, and Devils Garden Trail. By the time we got out to the later, people were non-existent and the sun was setting and it was a beautiful experience.

Since we arrived (and departed) so late at Arches, we never got to stop into the visitor’s center. So we circled back the next morning to see it and allow the boys to get the first of this trips National Park badges. This is also where we were vary glad with our decision to visit Arches in the late afternoon and evening, as the crowds for the day had already swelled.

The only area inside Arches we briefly went into see since we skipped it the night before was Delicate Arch Trail. We opted for the much easier viewpoint trail and did not hike all the way up to the arch.

The real point of heading back into Arches though was to see our first petroglyphs.

We will end the Arches portion here as we then continued on into Canyonlands National Park.

Daily miles driven- 500 miles (not including inside Arches)
Accommodations Cost- Free (20,000 IHG points)

Continue reading about our journey below.

Just like our 2019 National Park Road Trip, we will break down the trip each day in separate posts as highlighted below.

Epic Road Trip: National Park Tour (Part 1)
Epic Road Trip: Cleveland to St Louis (Part 2)
Epic Road Trip: Silver Dollar City (Part 3)
Epic Road Trip: Rt 66 to Texas (Part 4)
Epic Road Trip: Texas Surprises to Santa Fe (Part 5)
Epic Road Trip: Four Corners and Arches National Park (Part 6)
Epic Road Trip: Canyonlands National Park (Part 7)
Epic Road Trip: Capitol Reef National Park (Part 8)
Epic Road Trip: Bryce Canyon National Park (Part 9)
Epic Road Trip: Zion National Park (Part 10)
Epic Road Trip: Knott’s Berry Farm (Part 11)
Epic Road Trip: Universal Studios Hollywood (Part 12)
Epic Road Trip: Meow Wolf Las Vegas (Part 13)
Epic Road Trip: Worlds of Fun (Part 14)
Epic Road Trip: Trip Wrap Up (Part 15)

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