Road Trip Day 25 – Canyonlands National Park – Hanging out & a trail run for Clint

We slept in and paid another nights' camping fees. We just wanted to lounge today and worry about hitting the road the next day. We had a nice leisurely paced breakfast with plenty of hot coffee, and Lauren made her always delicious Juevos Rancheros! After a delicious meal we just kind of lounged in the sun and read our books. It was a nice day to relax, and it was equally nice that the wind was not blowing, that the sun was shining, and the temperature was really comfortable. We hung out well into the afternoon before walking down a trailhead near our campsite.
We only hiked down maybe a mile and just sat on some rocks and checked out the pothole formations on the slick rock that were full of water. Can’t really compare them to tide pools, because nothing compares to the ocean, but they are kind of like tide pools in the desert.

They even can contain a teeney tiny species of shrimp that we were able to see in one, and in another we found a ton of snails. At one point Utah was actually under the ocean, way way way back in time. This was responsible for some of the types of rocks that they have.
After our leisurely stroll, we made our way back to the campground and I went out for a quick trail run on the slick rock trail we had hike a few days earlier. It was a really fun trail to run. Ran it just before sun set, so all of the cliff sides and canyons were starting to light up bright oranges and reds from the early evening red sun. After the trail run, I headed back to camp and we made dinner: grilled cheese sandwiches and Pozole soup. We had a fire and ate beside it. It seemed a little colder tonight than the first night; but still not bad. I ate dinner sitting by the fire in my shorts that I had run in; so obviously not frigid if I could bare it in shorts. After dinner we retired to the tent with plans of leaving the following morning. We wanted to get an early start we could do a hike in Arches that I really wanted to do, before getting on the road towards Colorado.