I just returned from a great hike through the land of the Arches. I started the hike around 10:30 and around 14:00 I returned to an incredibly hot car. Now I realize why the Indians have a red skin. It was so hot and I even think that if an Indian would see me now, he would directly give me an Indian name like ‘Red Whiteskin’ or something similar.

It was quite busy in the national park, and the most common nationality I encountered was Dutch. Everywhere I heard Dutch and saw Dutch people. Thanks to some of the people I met I got a lot of good tips for the remainder of my trip. I also noticed that the Americans I encounter all get really excited because of my Yankees cap. They directly feel the need to talk about the game, the team and their history, but I really don’t know how to respond because I have never yet seen a Yankees game.

Right now I’m in Utah and the most stunning thing here is the environment. Everything has a red color, the sand, the rocks, everything. It is very warm and at times hot (when it’s not raining). Utah is a kind of desert and one with a lots of hills. I think the only reason Utah exists is by the grace of the tourists.

Colorado was all grass. Everything was green because of the endless seas of grass and the landscape was a little hilly. Colorado can exist because of it’s grass… it supplies food for lots of cows and horses. Colorado also has some mountains that are rich with gold.

Kansas was very plain, with a bit more bushes and oil! Lot of oil and lots of machines pumping the oil from the ground.

Today (just like yesterday) I’ll be spending my time in Moab. A little city that really resembles a very small town near the Arches. An arch is a big rock with a hole in it, so you can walk through it. Yesterday I was traveling towards Salt Lake City when I stopped at some parking lot/view point to have a look around. Here I encountered some ex-Dutch people that had been living in America for quite some years. They told me that going to Detroit was a mistake (as I already figured out myself) and they told me going to Salt Lake City would be another mistake. It was far better to drive to the south, eventually ending up in the same place, Vegas.

Once I arrived at Moab (yesterday) first thing I did was find a library to browse the Internet and then I went to the visitors center to find out all the local attractions. My coincidence the guy working at the visitor center was a Dutch guy! The funny thing was that he knew I was Dutch after saying about three words in English and we directly switched to speaking Dutch. He had acquired a heavy American accent, which made his Dutch sound pretty cool.

The Dutch guy told me I absolutely needed to see a certain arch during sundown at around 20:30 so I bought a little map and that evening I went to see the arch. The walk was estimated to take around 45 to 60 minutes, but I walked there in only 33 minutes. After arriving the view of the arch was impressive, but the weather was not so good. A lot of wind and I could see thick rainclouds at the horizon. While I waited for the sun to set the rain slowly started to fall, making me think about why I had brought so many water with me. To avoid more rain I skipped the sunset and started heading for home.

Today I’ll go and view another arch… said to be the biggest in the world. The arch I visited yesterday was said to be the most beautiful according to some people from Utah.