The drive from the Grand Canyon to Moab wasn’t too painful, in fact it was pretty. We saw Monument Valley (though no pictures were taken) and we arrived in Moab at a semi-decent hour…only to discover that getting a campsite or room was practically impossible on a Saturday night! Morgan had been informed that we would have no problem getting a place there in May. Much to our disappointment, this was completely untrue. The weather was gorgeous and it was a weekend, so we thought maybe the visitor’s center would be helpful, but all it really gave us was numbers for the town’s hotels. Even though it cost much more than a campsite, we were able to get a handicap room at the Motel 6. On the way there, we drove to a hill top restaurant to enjoy a view of the city from the restaurant’s parking lot. We noticed that the Moabaites make creative canopies.
With a place to sleep at night secured, we got cleaned up and wandered into the cute town of Moab. Shops and restaurants lined the main drag. We noted a couple cars who felt the need to drive up and down that “main drag” in search of…well, we’re not really sure what. One had a couch in his truck bed, so maybe he wanted to get some girls to fill it, either way, even with the 8 times we saw him pass, he was always alone (except for that one time we saw him with that guy in the passenger’s seat). Guess Utah’s a boring place for single teenage boys? Either way, we found some great places for grub at Eddie McStiff’s, Slickrock and Zax. All had cheap menu options with good food and accessible beer. Even with reading the laws from our “Utah guidebook”, we were still surprised when we walked into Woody’s and were told that unless we were members or wanted to pay for a membership we had to leave the bar. Uh, excuse me, what? We learned that unless dining, you were not able to consume alcohol without paying for a membership (which was thankfully cheap). We paid the $4 and sat with our “coldest beer in town” and watched the Swiss/Thai couple play pool. The time spent in the city those nights were peaceful and warm.
Oh, yeah, the National parks, what we were really there for. Haha. On Sunday, we enjoyed a long day of car driving and hiking around the Canyonlands, Utah’s largest National Park. The park was split into 8 sections; we took on the “Island in the Sky” and fully enjoyed our time there. Even though we’d visited the Grand Canyon, it was a much more “hands on”, up close, nature experience out in the Canyonlands. The crowds were smaller, and we enjoyed a nice hike to a Canyon rim. Well worth the trip. We also went to view the famous Mesa Arch (Morgan even scaled it!).
After a long day in Canyonlands, we finally made it to Arches on Monday. Morgan was really excited for this, even though renting bikes was not in the cards for us (we learned that contrary to the pictures, bikes were NOT allowed on the trails or rocks – only on the paved trails). That morning we knew we were down to 70 miles left in the van, but figured the park was close; we should be ok, right? Morgan figured we should start from the end and head towards the entrance. And that we did, we drove all the way to the Devil’s Garden for our first view of a few of the 2,000 recorded arches in this park. This park was definitely more crowded, but worth the visit.
Like I mentioned before, we were slightly worried about the gas in the van and the remaining mileage gage dropped quickly to the point where we were forced to leave the park for the town of Moab. Both of our eyes were constantly checking the predicted miles remaining and we noted it hung around 3 for awhile. Finally, in the town we spotted gas and pulled in just in time for the gage to read zero remaining miles. Phew! That was a close call!! Once we were full of gas, we trekked back to the park and finished our site seeing.
Capping the day off with the beautiful, famous, Delicate Arch. It was still 96 degrees around 5pm at night but Morgan looked forward to this hike, so we did it. Oh my goodness, a 3 mile hike you’d think wouldn’t be too tough, but no, this was uphill most of the way (500 ft) and in the direct sunlight. I was huffing and puffing after the large rock hill. With Morgan’s encouragement and some water, we were able to make it to the top. Wow! So cool, the hike was worth it after all.
After fun in the sun, and some odd burn spots to show it (hands, behind the knees, ankles and backs of the elbows), we took off from this playground for some more fun in Jackson, WY.
TTFN!!
