Friday

Sorry that we haven't blogged since Tuesday. We had issues maintaining battery power, locating dog-friendly wi-fi access and finding time to just sit down and write. Now that we are home we will finish the daily blogs, posting each remaining day as a separate entry. So the main title will say "Saturday," but the subtitle will actually refer to what day that blog it about.

Got up very early at 5am so that we could get to Arches National Park in Utah before the crowds. We also wanted to get there early enough to avoid detection. See, one of the most iconic landmarks in the nation is the Delicate Arch in Utah. It is a mile and a half hike from the parking area to the Arch. While dogs are allowed on National Park land, they are almost never allowed on the hiking trails. So, yes, we broke the law for a photo opportunity. After all, we had already been thwarted at the Liberty Bell. From a previous trip, we found out that if you go early enough, there's a pretty good chance that you'll get away with it.


We crossed into Utah at mile 7332 and got to Arches National Park just before 7am. Actually a little later than we wanted to. There were a couple cars in the lot, but no park ranger vehicles. We had to hurry past a few other older folks along the hike, but no one seemed to mind to see a dog on the trail. Looking back in the distance we saw a big tour bus pull into the parking lot, so we quickened our pace. We figured we had a pretty good jump on the tour as they would take some time to get organized before they started after us. As it turned out, we had about twenty minutes to ourselves. There was a man and his young son just leaving as we got there, and a couple sitting on some rocks several hundred yards away just hanging out. We were able to take our time, shooting from several different angles. We finished up in plenty of time, passing the older folks as we left. We stopped by where the couple was sitting and spoke to them for a few minutes. They were quite amused watching us taking pictures. It turns out the girl was also from Orange County but now lived in Aspen, Colorado. As we made our way back to the to parking lot, we passed the tour group as well as many other people making the hike. By the time we got back to the lot, it was full and another tour bus had pulled up. Our timing couldn't have been better. We ran into the couple again in the parking lot and they came over to say "hello" again. The girl was an obvious dog-person so we gave her the blog address. She thanked us and said that we made her day and couldn't wait to see the pictures. Maybe she'll get to read about herself. If she does, "Hi" from Dave and Hapa.
(Editor's note: Some people have mentioned that they didn't see anyone in the Delicate Arch picture. You gotta look closely. Kind of gives you an idea of how big the arch is! By the way, in case you don't know, you can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.)

From there, we made the loooooong drive back to Orange County, CA. There's a lot of other stuff to see in Utah, like Zion, Capitol Reef, Monument Valley and the Salt Lake/Park City area, but we had actually been to those places on previous trips. We hit Arizona at mile 7795 crossing the little northwest corner of it and getting to Nevada and the Pacific Time Zone at mile 7825, gaining another hour there. Kind of forgot how awesome the scenery in that area is. It's a deep canyon, with sheer rock walls on both sides of the freeway. We got to Vegas right in the middle of rush hour and were pleased to find the traffic considerably light, especially on a Friday night. Again, not stopping since we had been there already, we pressed on through the city and hit the California state line at mile 7948. The ride to Vegas from LA seems long to many, but to us, it's a breeze. After almost 900 miles and close to 18 hours since we woke up in Grand Junction, Colorado that morning, we got home at mile 8184 at 9:45pm.

We had such a great time on this trip as always. Even though we just got home we look forward to the next one. There is still so much of the world to see!

We want to thank our family for putting us up and supporting us throughout the trip. Thanks to Yvette for coming along with us on the way out. We also want to thank our many Zama friends who either put us up at their homes or at least allowed us to use their home (Steve and Wayne) and the ones who offered their homes to us. Also thanks to everyone who came to meet us along the way (Kathy, Khahnie, Clarence and Joanna) as well as everyone who tried to meet up with us, but the timing just didn't work out. Thanks also to those of you who called and emailed. And finally, thanks to all of you for reading and posting messages. All of your friendships mean a great deal to us. Until next time...!