Moab, UT

Moab - August 24th - September 2nd

As we head out of Provo the smoke is thinning and we see some beautiful green hillsides.    We are also traveling on miles of brand new asphalt.  We have noticed that the roads in Idaho and Utah are pretty nice.  You really notice those things when you are in a motorhome.  It’s an easy drive to Moab and we arrived by 2:30 p.m. got all settled into our resort and went into town to find out what to do in the area.  We wanted to get John’s Senior Pass to the National Parks, so we went to the Arches National Park which was only a couple of miles from our RV Park and for $10 got John’s pass which gets both of us in to the National parks for free forever!  Nice little benefit for being a senior.  If you are 62 or over you can get this pass for just $10.  Good investment if you are going to be visiting the National Parks.  We just spent a couple of hours at Arches National Park, so we just drove around and took pictures, we want to go back and walk out to each of the arches.   We went back a few days later and hiked the trail out to Delicate Arch.  They said it was a strenuous hike, and I would agree with them.  It wasn’t for the weak.  I was sweating pretty good, but it was worth the climb to be up close and personal to the beautiful arch.  

 

Balanced Rock

Windows

Jamie, these pictures are for you, they are of the Campground at Arches National Park.  I think you would love to come here and camp.  You are right in the middle of the park!

 

One of the highlight reasons we wanted to coming to Moab is because we wanted to do some jeeping.  We’ve never done it before, and didn’t really know where to go, but we got a map and headed for the trails.  Our first trail was Hell’s Revenge (which we didn’t even know until after we got through it!).  It is rated “difficult”!   Way to jump in with both feet!  Well, as you can guess it was challenging, but John is an excellent driver, and we didn’t have any problems, as for me, I was white knuckled for the first couple of hours telling John to let me out, I could walk back, I wanted to go home!  Obviously I really couldn’t walk back, so I was in for the long haul.  After a couple of hours of white knuckling it and experiencing the rocks and rolls, I started to get used to it and after we got through I decided that it was pretty fun after all.  So, we took on the next trail called Fins and Things, and of course it was also a “difficult” rated trail.  We did good on it, having fun now, and then it started to rain.  That added another element to the process that we hadn’t had before, but we met a couple of jeepers and decided to stick together in case anyone had problems.  We all made it through without any problems, but it was nice knowing that there were others out there with us in case something happened.  It may not seem to steep or scary from the pictures, but believe me, it was a lot more exciting in person!  If you ever get the opportunity to go jeeping you should take it!  I’m sure we will be doing more before we leave the Utah area.  Enjoy the pictures.

The black is tire marks to follow.  No guardrails here!

Yes, we go up and over the rock.

The black line over the hill in the middle
and over the big hill is the road

Dirt road turns to sand turns to rock!  Fun

More rock hill roads

UP, UP, UP!

John checking out the road ahead.

Back roads.

Here are some pictures from Fins and Things:

Yes, I am smiling!  

The weather quickly changed to rain and the landscape looked
totally different.  Hard to believe it was the same place.

 

looks like snow or ice, but it is just the
same rocks but wet.

These are the people we met and hooked up with. Really
nice young couple with 2 dogs in the back.  The are from
North Carolina.

Yes, that is a very skinny bridge.  You just keep going.  Since
the jeep in front of you made it!

Day 2 of jeeping we went to Canyonlands recreation area, also just out of Moab.  We went through Hurrah trail and on to the Chicken Corners trail this time.  It was a “Moderate” rated trail, no big rocks to drive over, but lots of small ones we drove over and around and between and it is appropriately named “chicken corners” as there were a lot of blind corners that you couldn’t see around and you just had to go.  Don’t worry, we only saw 2 other people on the trail and there was plenty of room to pass when we met them.  This trail you drove in and then turned around and came back out so we knew we were bound to pass someone on the road.  We were just hopeful it wasn’t somewhere we would have to backup on a skinny ledge road!  John drove in and I drove out!  Pretty proud of myself for driving it!  Enjoy more pictures!  They are unbelievably amazing in person.   If you ever get a chance to visit Utah, we would highly recommend it.

                           

    

 

One of those Chicken Corners!

Friday we needed some repair work done on the motorhome, so John got to stay with the mechanic while I got to go into town and explore the shops.  It is a cute little town and some really fun interesting stores.  What I liked about the stores is that they didn’t all have the same thing.  There was a lot of native american artistry in the way of pottery which I can tell you was amazing,  I couldn’t believe that all the intricate painting was done freehand.  they also had some pottery that looked like it was painted, but was done in different colors of clay, very intricate, I have no idea how they did it.  Also there was stoneware, beautiful rugs, jewelry, iron work, woodwork and many other beautiful articles for sale.  I also stopped for an iced coffee and got this great iced coffee made with ice cubes made out of coffee, topped with cold coffee, added a shot of vanilla and some cream, and it was a hit.  I’ll have that again.

Iced Coffee made out of coffee ice cubes

Then add a shot of vanilla and some cream!  Yummmy

                     

 

We went jeeping one more time before we left town.  We did the Steel Bender trail!  The name should give you a clue about the trail.  The majority of the trail was rated "difficult" and some of it was rated "moderate".  Really couldn't tell much difference,  I thought it was all difficult!  But John was having the time of his life.  We were on that 14.5 mile trail for over 5 hours!  Several times we had to get out and stack rocks just to get up on down a rocky place.  Also, along the trail we saw lots of bear and cougar tracks, but never saw any animals.  Toward the very end, we had to cross a small creek and got stuck coming out the other side, but a few tries and John got us unstuck, he's a great technical driver!  
I took lots of pictures and a few videos.  

 

After spending our last day in Moab at the mechanics, 

we are headed to Kanab!