My husband and I just returned from a week long trip to Colorado and Utah. We have rented campervans in the past and love how flexible our plans can be when we are driving around with our rental car, hotel and restaurant all in one.  We were excited to find KuKu Campers, the same company we used in Iceland, now in Colorado.  The company is fun, quirky and each van has a different mural painted on the side. The owner was excited to point out we would be driving "Bob Marley". After a quick briefing about the van, a less than quick stop at one of the largest REI stores in the US and a trip to the grocery store, we spent the rest of the day driving to Utah.

Here is a photo of "Bob"...

Our first stop was Mesa Arch in Canyonland National Park. I was hoping for a perfect sky to photograph the stars and possibly the milky way, but to my luck, it was partly cloudy and very bright from the almost full moon.  We pulled into the parking lot around 12:30AM and made the short hike out to the arch in the dark. Night hiking is very quiet, calm and peaceful. 

This was a photo of the night sky at Mesa Arch. Moonlit and long exposure...

We slept for a couple hours nearby and headed back out to the arch at 5AM. By 5:30am, there were about 15 of us lined up in front of the arch waiting for sunrise.

Sunrise at Mesa Arch...

Behind the scenes. This was after many photographers had dispersed...

We didn't stay long after sunrise because we had a jeep rental waiting for us in Moab, which was an hour away. Canyonland Jeep Rental supplied us with a map of the trails and suggested the best route to take within our time frame. We left "Bob" behind and headed out on an all day off road adventure.  Here are a couple photos taken along the way...

By early evening we were both ready for sleep, but decided to drive into Arches National Park to catch the evening light.  Arches is beautiful and has one of the most dramatic entrances of any park we have visited.

Click here for part II of this blog post.