Arches and The Bryners

This past weekend Bryan and I were able to go down to Moab, UT and go to Arches National Park with Matt and Leticia Bryner. We drove down to Price Friday night and then drove the rest of the way Saturday morning. We met up with Matt and Leticia shortly after noon and started our adventure into the park. The weather was perfect (considering we were coming from SLC where it just snowed the previous Wednesday). It was about 55 degrees and sunny skies. We wore long sleeve shirts and had a jacket just in case. The best part was that we were able to meet up with Matt and Leticia and spend a lot of time with them. They are now living in Grand Junction, CO so we don't see them as often as we'd like to :).

We spent the day hiking to the different arches (I'll try to remember the names of them). We stayed in the park all day and all of us were pretty worn out by the end of it. We hiked three or four different trails to the arches. Some of the hikes were more strenuous than others. All in all we estimated that we hiked about 6 miles on Saturday. As you can guess, we were all sore as we woke up on Sunday morning :).

Arches National Park is absolutely beautiful! It is amazing how God carved out such beautiful structures for us to enjoy on earth. I had never been to the park before so it was so fun to see all the different arches and just enjoy the beautiful weather. It was such a fun weekend!

I, of course, brought my camera and took lots of pictures. Here are the arches we saw:

The North and South Window Arches were the first hikes we did. I believe the first two pictures are showing the South Window. They were very close to the parking lot so the hikes only took probably about five minutes each.

Here is Bryan on his way to the South Window Arch.

Matt and Leticia on the stairs to the South Window Arch with angelic lighting from the sun.

This is the North Window with Matt and Leticia in it!

Bryan and I in the North Window. It was huge! This picture is from far back too and we still couldn't get the whole arch in it!

Here is the North Window from farther back.

The Double Arch. The first one is huge and the second one is in the background on the left.

Bryan pondering in the double arch. I love this picture! Bryan is the best :)

Taking a rest in the Double arch. The hike up to this point is actually pretty steep so we needed a few minutes before we proceeded.

This is one of the Arches that Matt and Leticia didn't want to hike down to. I forgot the name of it, but the sun was shining right through the middle of it. We'll call it "sunny arch"This is Pine tree Arch. I don't think those are pine trees under the arch, but we just went with it anyway.

This one is Bryan's favorite. It's called Landscape Arch. It is VERY long and skinny. Pretty amazing that it can hold up after all these years! This was a tough, long hike and it wore us out, but we were determined to see this last arch. It's the one on the Utah license plates.

Delicate Arch! We hiked up to see this one right at sunset. There were a lot of people there to see the sunset. I can see why! The sun hit the red rock so perfectly and it illuminated to vibrant colors. This was a tough hike! It was 3 miles round trip and it is a gradual uphill slope all the way there. It was fun to hike to because you come around the corner and you get to see this arch just sitting there by itself--steep cliffs surrounding it on all sides. The hike was worth it to see this one!
Bryan and I under the arch. This gives you an idea of how huge it is! It was absolutely amazing!

And here are the triumphant outdoorsmen (and women) with the Delicate Arch behind us.

We went out to eat that night at a cute little Italian Restaurant called Pasta Jay's. Cristie Bryner suggested we try it out. It was just the carbohydrates we needed after a long day of being active. Bryan and I stayed the night with Matt and Leticia in Grand Junction, CO afterward. Bryan bought some two-way radios for us to use for our trip and we kept in touch with Matt and Leticia as we drove to CO. Thanks to Ryan Kump for the Cabela's gift card! It was the only "non girly" present we got for our Wedding.

We were able to go to Stake Conference with Matt and Leticia and then we played "Puerto Rico" with them afterward. All-in-all it was such a fun weekend! We were able to get a lot of time out in the beautiful weather, spend personal time with Matt and Leticia, see the town of Grand Junction and Arches National Park, and use our walkie-talkies as we caravanned back to Colorado. Good times with the Bryners!