We pull into Moab, Utah around dusk. The little town is a mixture of downtown Ocean Beach, California and Jackson Hole, Wyoming; with little hole-in-the-wall shops mixed with tourist traps, stoner-looking cafés and fancy hotels, all with the sheer canyon cliff backdrop. Sunset comes early here, setting before we’re ready behind a wall that reminds us of The Lord of the Rings. It seems if we say the magic words the great wall will open up; complete with Orcs cranking on giant chains.

We stay at the KOA. This was a hasty decision based on the fact that Dead Horse Point State Park, our first choice, was booked. Apparently this is the last great week for tourists here in Moab. We plugged in to water and electricity—such a weird luxury since we’ve been on the road—complete with free WiFi and cable. Not exactly what we wanted, especially since no fires were allowed.  We walked around camp, meeting fellow campers from across the world—a French family with a camper that looked more like a semi; the entire back opened up to house an eighteen wheeled off-road vehicle, probably. Next to them was an old horse trailer converted to a camper, with two young ropey-muscled guys tinkering with their bikes. The trail skirted around the camp, with a shabby horse farm off in the distance overlooking Arches, and, even further, purple-blue mountains.

We noticed such a mix of cultures, ages and wealth here (especially hiking in Arches National Park), which I’ll get into much deeper later. The thing I love about this place is that we are all so different; Chinese businessmen in pants and cuffed shirts, Alaskan climbers with grizzly beards, South Africans and Australians all here for the same experience, all pointed in the same direction. Everyone is so friendly. Everyone pauses from their hike, stops speaking their native languages to share a genuine “hello” to us as we walk by.

We plan to stay here a while.

The next morning we packed up and found a much cheaper site a mile from the KOA, called Moab Rim. Here we have the entire desert behind us with trails to run Bubba, as Arches doesn’t allow dogs. We have a shady spot under some trees, hot showers and some peculiar neighbors living in an old school bus converted into an RV. We got along great. Ben and Crystal were from Washington, working summers as rafting instructors and working winters, to quote Anne Lamott, “wherever Jesus flang ’em”. They picked up temporary jobs in Moab and worked off their site fee by doing maintenance. They invited us to join them in Maine in a few months to work at a camp, but we figured we couldn’t pass up a Minnesota summer. This would not be the first alluring offer we receive.

Once we were settled it was finally time. We walked Bubba,set the fan in the camper and left for the park.

The Colorado River snakes its way through Arches National Park, which is carved and shaped by eons of weathering and erosion. It’s hard not to find drama in the red sandstone formations that give the park its name—and its beauty. There are more natural arches here than anywhere else in the world. Only one word describes the way we felt driving up the switchbacks into the park—giddy. In the next few days we will come into the park many times, and the heart-thudding beauty will not wane, not even a little.

We hiked up to Courthouse Towers first—the rock ground carved out in swirls and lines like sand—craning our necks to take it all in. One can drive for hours and hours through the park. Wide open spaces yawn into view, then disappear behind the gentle, red rock dinosaurs. The first day we only made it as far as Twin Arches, where we climbed around like little crabs, peeking in nooks and crannies.

Tomorrow we will check out the town and look for more  hiking spots.