As usual, I woke up well before everyone, and before the sun rose.  Figuring Laura would need a shower, and that we weren’t in any rush to do anything in particular that day, I decided to go on an adventure while they slept in.  I started toward Arches before I remembered, once again, that we needed gas.  Luckily, it was just a few minutes back into town to get gas, and I was still at the park entrance around dusk.  As I made my way up the entry road, I pretty quickly was able to see the sun coming up behind the distant rock formations.  I made my way to Double Arch area, where we’d been before.  The sunrise was pretty breathtaking from all angles, and I got some good pictures.  It also didn’t hurt to get some cardio in to get me started for the morning.

I made my way back to the hotel, where the girls were ready for breakfast.  We headed to the busy breakfast room, where we enjoyed an array from the buffet.  On the way back, while intending to stop at the pool to see if it was swim-worthy yet, only to find it was closed for repair.  I promised the girls we’d find a hotel with a pool in Grand Junction that night.

We leisurely packed up once more, and checked out at 11am on the dot.  We had no big agenda for the day besides to be back in Grand Junction to hit the sack before flying out in the morning.  We didn’t feel like we were able to get much out of Canyonlands, so we said goodbye to Moab one last time and headed back into the park.  We first made one last stop at the Arches entrance, as we hadn’t gotten the obligatory park entrance sign pic.   It was much cloudier this day, so the canyon wasn’t quite as spectacular, though was still quite a sight to see.

The girls napped the whole way there and through much of drive through the park, with who was awake alternating here and there.  We stopped to get some pictures at lookouts here and there, with the sleepy ones staying in the car while we walked a few feet away.  We decided to get one last hike in, so woke everyone up do a quick hike to Mesa Arch.  It was a fairly easy half mile loop with not too much of an altitude gain.  It was busy, but we got a few good pictures, and enjoyed the view at the end of the arch.

We were told by multiple people to check out Dead Horse Point State Park, which offered more nice view of the canyon.  We had sporatic sleepers again, so a couple of us got out at the end of the road for a few pictures, and we were quickly on our way.  I’d say it was just as good as if not better than some of the view from Canyonlands, so would recommend checking it out if in the area.

As I’d done almost all of the driving so far, I let Laura take us back to Grand Junction.  As we had much of the trip, we enjoyed listening to the Broadway show Hamilton on the way back.  In just under two hours, we made it to the town of Fruita, just outside of Grand Junction.  I’d found a place on Yelp called Copper Club Brewing, and while they didn’t have food, they allowed food to be brought in from nearby restaurants.  We got some pizza from Red Tomato Pizza, just around the corner, and I had a sampler of delicious beer.  It was the kind of place that allowed kids and dogs, had a view of the mountains, good beer, and plenty of hippies.  My kind of place.  We were soon on the road again for the quick trip to the hotel, the Holiday.  We got checked in, brought the bags up to repack, got our suits on, and the whole family jumped in the pool for a bit.  I checked our possible flights for the next day, and while I was hoping to leave mid-morning, saw that our best bet was the earliest flight, at 6am.  We got everything packed up for the trip and were in bed by 9.