Our hotel was nice and spacious, reasonably priced, served a good breakfast, and had an outdoor pool and hot tub that were still open that late in the year. Oscar and I got in some good hot tub time both evenings, and I even took a few plunges in the pool when I'd get too hot in the hot tub.
That first evening we drove several miles outside of town so we could look up and see the stars. We didn't get great photos, but what we saw with our eyes was pretty incredible. We got great views of the milky way after laying down in the dirt long enough to let our eyes adjust. 
The next morning we went to Arches National Park. Oscar and I visited in July of 2012 and recognized a lot of these areas.
On our last visit the relentless heat and direct sunlight made me feel nauseated most of the day. By contrast, this weather was absolutely perfect. It was a little chilly in the early morning but by the afternoon it was 54 degrees and sunny with no wind. It was November 24th, and we didn't even need jackets.
The main goals of the day were to hike to Delicate Arch and for the kids to do enough to earn Jr Ranger badges. They worked on their books in the car, so there were several lookouts where they wanted to stay in the car and keep working while just Oscar and I got out to take photos.
This is called Phallus Rock named for very obvious reasons. You won't see it listed on the official park maps, but you will see it labelled on Google maps.
We all thought this structure looked like a penguin standing sentry.
The La Sal mountains looked amazing along our scenic drive. I've never seen them covered in snow since we'd never been in that area during the cooler months of the year.
We did make the kids get out and take the hike up to the Windows with us. Here we are inside North Window.
We then stopped at this pretty lookout with a mountain backdrop.
And we finally arrived at the trail head to Delicate Arch. Oscar and I had done this in 2012, and it was pretty brutal in the summer. There's no shade until just before you get to the arch, so you're in direct sunlight the entire way. Even though I was in better shape and 30 pounds lighter back then, it was much easier to hike at 26 degrees cooler this time.
We didn't take many photos on our way up since the hike is still very steep and challenging. These are some views and a small arch once we were nearly at our destination. This area is the only place with shade on the entire hike.
Here we are making it to the incredible, iconic Delicate Arch. I was so proud of the kids! It was a tough climb for them, but they powered through it. Allison was stunned by the size of the arch. She was expecting it to be much smaller based on the photos she'd seen.
The short hike also took us around to Turret Arch and South Window
We saw a few more lovely arches before we got back on the road toward Delicate Arch.
The views here in Arches just don't quit!
Allison chose to wear her Jr Ranger vest with her Jr Ranger badges and got a lot of comments on it during the hike. Most people had never heard of the Jr Ranger program and just assumed she was a girl scout.
Before descending down closer to the arch, we got this cute family photo. Oscar's head is conveniently blocking the people inside the arch, and I used Google's magic eraser to remove the other people to the side of my head. There's always a long line of people wanting to get pictures inside the arch, but this turned out to be the better spot for photos. The photos of your people are more clear and you get a fuller view of the scenery behind you.
I wanted to get photos inside the arch too, especially since we hadn't done so during our trip in 2012. Here are some photos we took while we waited (and yes, I used magic eraser to remove the extra people).
When we got close to the arch we asked a family behind us to get our photos. One stood relatively close to us with my phone and one stood more at a distance with Oscar's phone.
Here's my sweet Allison about halfway back down the trail.
We stopped off to see some petroglyphs and a little log cabin.
After our hike we continued driving through other parts of the park we hadn't seen yet.
We'd seen Balanced Rock before the hike (photo on the right), but our views were much better after the hike.
Oscar and I took the small trail to sandstone arch. The kids were too worn out and didn't want to leave the car, so we let them stay and work on their Jr Ranger books. Sandstone arch is really neat. With several places to climb and lots of red sand, it'd make a great play area for kids. 2-5 year old Tyler would have loved it! There were quite a few kids there, but I removed them in the photo editing.
We took a few more photos of the gorgeous scenery before starting our hike back down.
Once we'd finished sight-seeing we took the kids back to the Visitor Center where they were sworn in as official Jr Rangers. We also got to look through a powerful telescope to see sun spots.
