Day Seventeen of the Cross Country Trip

Day 17 began mediocre but proved to be a lasting memory. We woke and checked out of the hotel, then went to get gas and fill up water at this one adventure shop. Moab would be such a nice place to stay for a while and take advantage of everything the town and its surrounding environment has to offer. I then drove into Arches National Park, and it was extremely hot. We drove through and saw many rock structures that were shaped in phallic such ways. We then saw Balanced Rock, which was pretty cool. On the way to the Delicate Arch, the one arch that Arches is famous for, I got stuck behind two bikers going like 20 under the speed limit so I was extremely irked. We went to the Delicate Arch viewpoint instead of the actual arch because it was very hot and we were very tired, and the viewpoint was less walking. It was rather underwhelming, just the same as you can see in pictures. We unfortunately did not make it to Canyonlands, but I definitely plan on going there at some point. I drove into Colorado, until Durango, where we stopped at Walmart to restock. Our last Walmart run. Wow. Walmart was our go-to for anything. Every time we went to Walmart we always got the fruit first, apples bananas and grapes what have you. We made a tradition of munching on the grapes throughout the rest of our shopping venture. We left the firewood Shoenice gave us in the parking lot with a little note, saying "take me please :)". Mark picked up and drove us all the way to the Great Sand Dunes. As we were approaching the sand dunes, already not too impressed with the arches that morning, we perceived the sand dunes to be puny. The entire way down the road we kept on saying how small they were and how disappointing of a day it truly was. We were 100% wrong though. As we got closer, the dunes kept getting bigger. Tends to happen. We got out to take a picture of the dunes, and were literally eaten alive by mosquitoes, like at least 20 on me at one time. We sprinted back to the car, and drove to the actual dunes. I started trekking ahead, and chose a different path than the other three. The dunes were a mental and physical workout for me. Not only was it exhausting to climb steep inclines of sand, there was always another dune after you would climb to the top of the one that you had previously thought was the top. In this way, it was a mental exercise to keep going, even when I wanted so badly to stop. I met up with the other boys at the top, took in the view and then began the journey down. The way back was so much more enjoyable, as I gained major speed running down the dunes, and got a huge rush of adrenaline. Every time I stopped moving, I was swarmed by mosquitoes, so we had to keep moving. After the sand dunes we drove up to Colorado Springs, because we heard of a nice cliff jumping spot, Paradise Cove. Danny drove the whole way, and we stopped at a gas station, where we did push ups and handstands, both common practices everywhere we stopped. The unfortunate thing that occurred at this specific gas station involves me leaving Connor's flip flops I had borrowed at the pump. We did not realize this until we had stopped, two hours away, and were not going back. Boy was I on a roll of losing people's stuff, first the GoPro and now this. We stopped at Woodland Park High School, and just decided to sleep there. Connor and I reclined in the front two seats of the car, while Mark and Danny slept on several sleeping bags right next to the car.