Say goodbye to the Rockies

 "Vail Pass is a 10,662-foot-high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. The pass was named for Charles Vail, a highway engineer and director of the Colorado State Highway Department from 1930 to 1945"

We're in Denver, spent a good chunk of the day on rt. 70 driving up and then down the Rockies. 70 runs right next to the Colorado River through there, and I think this is the 4th time we've seen the river on our road trip. The first was when we went to the grand canyon, then we crossed it going in to California, just missed it (and the Hoover dam) going up to Vegas, then saw it again in Canyonlands. The headwaters of the Colorado is about 100 miles northwest of where we are now.

Outside of Vail we ran in to some traffic because they had trucks and backhoes picking up rocks that had fallen on to the road.

Last day in Moab

 After Canyonlands we went back to Arches for sunset and hiked up to Delicate arch. 

It's a very popular hike, the parking lot was completely full at the end of the day. The last little section is pretty strenuous, and then you come up in to a huge natural amphitheater with little groups of people all around the edge. There's people taking turns to take photos in the arch, and people setting up tripods to take sunset photos. Then people actually get away from the arch as the sun gets low so they won't be in the photos, and everyone gets real quiet.

Here's a panorama from just after sunset (click to pan around)

You end up getting back to the parking lot when it's kind of dark