Arches National Park: Balanced Rock

Next on Dec. 1, we headed off to see Balanced Rock.  It took a while to get there though as the landscape was a little distracting.  This first photo shows the formations we are headed to in the distance:

I think this one below is called "The Organ":

Here is the rental car with my driver.  Unfortunately (especially for Ed), I left my driver's license on the scanner bed back in Canada. I'd had to scan it for work shortly before leaving on the trip, and forgot to put it back in my wallet.  Oops.  Someone else got saddled with all the driving (and was an excellent sport about it!)

There were orange traffic cones getting into photos all over the place.  The park had been doing an extensive road and parking resurfacing project for the entire year.  They were just wrapping it up, but the orange cones were ubiquitous still:

Getting closer, you can see balanced rock, it's the second formation from the left:

And after improvising some parking as the lot was closed for a few hours to paint the stripes, we are here.  One day this rock will fall as the softer rock holding it up from underneath erodes out.  Supposedly there was a similar smaller formation beside it that tumbled a couple of decades ago:

Just another beautiful rock formation right next door:

 Next up, the "Garden of Eden" ...