Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park

Monday May 24th

Today we will be going to Canyonlands National Park and then on the way back to Moab we are going to stop at Dead Horse State Park. Breakfast at the hotel with Mimi and Papa before we get out on the road to start our day.

First stop is at the Monitor and Merrimac which is outside of the entrance to Canyonlands. This is a great place to get a beautiful family picture.

While we were out there one of the other couples happened to be from Orlando, Fl. where I was born, and their children went to my parents rival High School. It's funny how small the world can be when we grow up thinking it's so large. After giving Kristin a few heart palpitations with how close we got to the edge it was time to move on.

While Arches National Park is all above the horizon, Canyonlands is just what it says. everything is down, down, down and it was unbelievable just how wide and vast the canyons really are.

Way down there in the middle is the Green River and the Colorado River. It looks like the river is just a stream from this high up when in all actuality it's quite wide at many places along this stretch.

Dead Horse Point State Park is the next stop for the day. Once out of Canyonlands National Park it's not far to the turn off to Dead Horse Point. If you're planning on using the National Park Pass while on your trip this park is not included as it is a state park. This park is well worth the entrance fee though as the views are amazing and the history behind this location is very interesting.

In the picture above you can see the potash pits. Potash is used in many fertilizers around the world.

Dead Horse Point got its name from the amount of horse skeletons found in the area. The point was a natural corral for cowboys to push wild horses. the legend goes the cowboys picked out the best horses and just left the rest. At one point on the drive out to the point it was incredible how narrow the pass was it was easy to see how they could just block a small section and then the horses couldn't escape.

We were all getting pretty hungry at this point in the day, so we all headed back to Moab for an early dinner. Pasta Jay's was the place to eat since we had a long day in the sun and needed to reenergize.