Today we drove to the Canyonlands National Park.  Canyonlands is divided into three areas by the Colorado River and the Green River.  Island in the Sky is in the northern section.  In the eastern section is the Needles district.  The Maze in the western part of the park has no paved roads.  We planned to visit Island in the Sky today.  We stopped at the Visitor’s Center where we rented a CD self-guided audio tour of the Island in the Sky.  As we started the tour, we discovered that the CD was hard to follow so we gave up on listening to it.  We stopped at the Shafer Canyon Overlook, Mesa Arch, Buck Canyon Overlook, Grand View Point Overlook, Green River Overlook, and Whale Rock.  We walked about a half-mile to view Mesa Arch.  As usual, we took a lot of pictures.  We ate lunch at the Overcliffs Overlook.  Since it was hot, we looked for a picnic table in the shade.  We found one tucked under a small tree.   We had to bend over to get under the tree to sit down on the bench.

When we completed the tour of Canyonlands, we drove to Dead Horse Point State Park.  We stopped at the Visitor’s Center where we looked at the overlooks before going into the Visitor’s Center to look at the exhibits.  After leaving the Visitor Center, we drove to the Dead Horse Point Overlook.  According to one legend, the point was once used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa.  Cowboys rounded up these horses, headed them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point.  The neck, which is only thirty yards wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush creating a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs.  Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and for some reason, left the other horses corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River 2,000 feet below.