We awoke the next morning early. We have a little tradition in the Bailey family that on birthday’s, you get breakfast in bed. Well today we were blessed 14 years ago with our first born son Isaiah. He shares a common birthday with my brothers first born daughter Joanna. Kind of neat given that Gene and I are identical twins. I am not sure how Joanna and Isaiah look at it but Gene and I think it’s a blessing. I remember when Therese went into the hospital; we were at Gene’s in the garden the day before Joanna’s birthday. So we all got up, except for Isaiah, I made sure he had pulled the curtain the night before. We made him cereal and milk. Prepared his cards and then sang to him as he awoke. He told us he was awake the whole time. Knowing my son and that he is a late riser like any teenager, I am not sure I believe him, but who knows. It was a joyous occasion.
He received a funny card from his brother; a moo mixer (makes chocolate milk in the cup, from his mom and dad; and a bionicle from his brother. He was all smiles and I was glad to see it. Fourteen! In 2 years he is able to drive a car in the United States. Wow the time is flying by fast. Well we took our time leaving but finally headed for Arches National Park. If I had planned a little better, I probably would have done Mesa Verde on our way to whitewater rafting, but the Lord has a way of making things work the way they do. Since starting this trip, I have found if we listen to the Lord, and let Him direct our footsteps, there are several blessing that cross ones path. This was no exception as you will find out later. We left Colorado shortly and reentered Utah. Back to the deserts. As we have tried to do at most state lines, we were able to get a passing shot of Utah’s. It held skiing, remember Salt Lake City Olympics, and delicate arch. Two extremes in this state.
Along the way, we saw signs warning us about visibility and wind storms. I thought about this for a minute and it did not register. Many signs along the desert roads were strage to us being from Syracuse and having never driven these roads. Well my wife was driving and pointed out a sand or dust devil that had kicked up as a result of the strong winds blowing across the desert region. We saw many of these. I put a faint red circle around the funnel.
As we got closer to Moab, We saw the familiar rock formations that make up this area, sandstone mesas. We found out later that the structures were called sandstone fins. We saw most orientation movies in the national park visitor centers which did a great job on prepping you for what was in the park. After entering Arches, again our annual pass did the job nicely for moving quickly through the park entrance, we stopped at the visitor center to find out if there were any ranger guided tours we wanted to do. We have come to find out that all national parks have the same process. Get a brochure/map of the park, talk to a ranger about special events, find out what ranger guided tours were going on, watch the orientation movie to determine what we should see, then go see sights or find our campground. We are staying at the Devil’s Garden. Its called this because of the heat, but not today, we have overcast skies and a cold front is coming through. As we drove to our campsite, the plan is to see several attractions. We took out our map and began looking. First there was the Organ, then the Three Gossips, then Sheep Rock then the Tower of Babel.
We then traveled to balance rock. We tried several fun things like balancing it on our finger, then in the palm of our hand, but the best picture was by itself. The kids also built their own balanced rocks. I guess this is taboo in a national park since once a place is designated a national park, the rangers do their best to make sure it is never disturbed. This includes forest fires and the clean up after. You will find evidence of forest fires in most if not all national parks, especially in this arid area. We were shocked to see all the trees standing and left in place whenever a forest fire struck. In fact you can not collect wood for fires in national parks. All dead wood is protected and there is a fine to move it. I am not kidding. So building a balanced rock replica was taboo.
We continued to drive towards Devil’s Garden and saw many neat sandstone formations along the way. Oh yeah, when we watched this movie, they admitted that thousands of years of erosion could had made these beautiful formations whereas granite canyons and mesa take millions even billions of years. So much for the Bible’s creation theory. So far I am not seeing arches, hence the name of the park. Then we stumbled on the following “could be” or “would be” arches. The thing about arches is they could be here today and gone tomorrow or caves today and arches tomorrow.
We then went to our first arches, North Window, South Window and Turret Arch. My kids quickly found that they could scramble up the sandstone with little problem. It is getting down that was harder. I had to keep an eye on Isaiah. He is getting tall and can scale more rock then I thought. Ethan was much more reserved. Isaiah and Ethan scrambled up Notrth Window rather easily but South window was unreachable…so I thought.
We then went to Double “O” arch. I thought here again that neither hole would be accessible but my kids proved me wrong. I tink you can see why they called it double “O”. As you can see the sky became cloudy and it was just not overcast, they were dark and ominous. I felt like it may rain, but in the desert who knows. As I have described earlier, you can look eastward and see lightening and hear thunder, then look westward and the sky is as blue as can be.
We then went to Turret Arch where something strange occurred. Aaaa…Rain! The rangers told us that this part of Arizona hardly ever sees rain, and when they do its usually for 5 min. As the clouds rolled in, it looked like it would stay awhile. At first it was light and on again off again. Ethan digged down to see that the wet sand was only surface deep. We continued to the Turret Arch depite the rain. It actually felt good. 
Then as we were climbing into the Arch, it began to hail. Ice the size of watermelon seeds fell from the sky. We saw lightening near us and heard multiple cracks of thunder. I of course counted the interval between the lightening strike and the thunder for distance. 1 mile for every second of interval. We decided to remain under the arch to stay dry. The boys hid under a large rock.
At first there was about 6 second intervals, then 3 then none! The storm was right above us. I looked up to see large bolts of lightening. We decided to split and it is a good thing we did. I found out later that although rock is usually a good insulator, the arches caused lightening to travel down them…kind of like following the curve of the arch. We are glad now we left. As we were driving north to Devil’s Garden campground, we saw a sight that is very rare in Arches according to the rangers; a flash flood. This happens when there is a down pour for an extended period of time…say 20 minutes or more. What had turned into a daily sighting (dry river beds) became a raging river.
As we drove up to our site in Devil’s Garden the rain had stopped and we could see clearing in the horizon, but for now it was a mere 75 degrees and we were loving it. We found our site number 54 of 54! We had just made it and it was a beautiful site right in the sandstone fins. We saw a ranger drivng about and found out that the lightening we had seen and heard near by hit a tree in site 51 only 3 sites over! The tree had caught fire and a Boy Scout troop had noticed it and reported it. The occupants had not seen it hit. Later I saw the occupant, her name is Janet. I began to talk with her about the fire then the conversation turned to our trip and as it turns out, they are believers, we connected immediately and we invited them over for birthday cake, coffee and tea. Janet introduced us to Dwight, her husband avid campers since retiring and have seen most if not all 50 states and then some. They actually camp as in set up a tent and do it all the hard way…I am impressed. I took some pictures including the tree that was hit!
We ended the day with Isaiah blowing out his candles, great fellowship with Janet and Dwight and a full moon. 
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