Moab

On Wednesday, August 10, we pointed the nose of our trusty steed North to Moab, Utah for a pleasant drive on Highway 191 of only 146 miles. There were some pretty good hills on the Monument Valley side of the trip with some short 9 & 10% grades where we put the exhaust brake on our Chevy to a test, and she performed flawlessly. We are staying at Moab Rim Campark about 3 miles south of town on Highway 191. This park is pretty small with about 25 pull through sites with full hook ups. The park is very clean, well kept and is well managed with friendly staff. We paid $39.00/night, less our 50% Passport America discount for 3 nights and the full rate the other 2 nights. Very nice park that is a hidden jewel!

Moab is in  the eastern part of Utah with an elevation of around 5000 feet, has a desert like topography and climate. It's very much a tourist town with the National Parks of Arches and Canyonlands as major attractions. The area is also popular with mountain bikers and off road enthusiasts who enjoy riding the extensive networks of trails and dirt roads. The Colorado River passes through Moab and is frequented by folks riding rubber boats and kayaks. There is not much white water on this section of the Colorado though. The close by La Sal mountain range, considered part of the southern Rockies, has peaks in excess od 12,000 feetis and is also close to Moab.

Our time here has been spent going to the National Parks, exploring the countryside, and taking a very good nighttime dinner/tour tour on the Colorado River with the Canyonlands by Night tour. The biggest mistake I made was not allowing enough time to see and experience all the attractions here, which gives us an incentive to return! Picture taking here has been a challenge. There's a lot of haze or something in the air that makes everything look cloudy. The Ranger told us it was from the heat rising off the desert floor.

We're pulling out Monday (8-15) bound for Salt Lake City for 3 days and then on into Idaho. We're noticing cooler temperatures as we've turned north, which are very welcome. It was a chilly 60 degrees here this morning but heats up to the mid 90's in the afternoons with low humidity.

We passed through the town of Blanding, Ut and stopped at the visitor's center for a pit stop, and what did we find, but a charging station for Tesla electric automobiles. First one we've seen in our travels.

Entrance to Moab Rim Campark They also have nice rental cabins available. They will be much busier in the fall months when the temperatures cool down.

Our site #23. We have a nice cottonwood tree, picnic table and a concrete patio on our site.  Satellite dish worked well here too. 

There are a bunch of Wabbits in this park. I "shot" this one when he wasn't looking!

The first Arch we saw approaching Moab. This is named Wilson's Arch and is on the right on 191 headed north. if you look closely, you can see the moon right in the middle of the arch. If you look even closer, you can see a person on the bottom of the arch giving you an idea  how large it is.

Entrance to Needles overlook which is part of Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is so big that it's divided into 3 sections and you can't drive direct from one section to another.

View from Needles overlook. I's so much bigger than you can tell in the pictures. It's probably over two thousand feet to the bottom of the canyon.

This formation is huge, but looks like a toy here.

It's a long way down.

Entrance to "The Island In The Sky" section of Canyonlands NP

You know me, can't resist a flag shot!

Mesa Arch in Needles section of Canyonland.

View looking through the arch.

I debated about putting this picture on the blog. There are some really stupid people in this world. The parents of this child Sat him under the arch on the edge of a cliff to take his picture. The poor child has no idea of the danger he's in. Just made me furious! The family were of foreign nationality, as most of the visitor's in the park were, but that's still no excuse.  You can't fix stupid!

View from Grand View Point in Canyonlands NP.

There are a lot of trails and roads in the valley floor throughout the area.

You can see several SUV type vehicles in this shot if you look closely.

Entrance to Dead Horse Point State Park. Our National Park geezer passes were not accepted here, so we had to pay $10 to get in. The story behind the name is that back in the day when there were many wild mustangs in the area, cowboys would drive them into a canyon and close it off. They would then rope and corral the better horses and leave the rest to die with no food or water, thus the name.

The Colorado River flows through the park.

There is a several thousand foot high cliff just beyond the sign. Gave me butterflies just to look at it. The blue stuff in the background are ponds that have flooded salt mines. They fllood the mines and add cobalt coloring to the water to enhance evaporation and then let it dry up and go in and dig up the salt. The salt is non-consumable and is used for road de-icing, etc. 

Another shot of Colorado River going through DHPSP as seen from a nice overlook.

Crickett and I did a day trip into the La Sal Mountains and came upon this group of horses in the road. This part of the country is "open Range" which means livestock are free to roam wherever they choose including the roadways. There are "cattle guards" crossing the road every so many miles to keep them from roaming too far.

Three of them posed for us while the bay showed us his best side!

These guys and gals were very happy to see us! I thought they were going to get in the truck with us. They're obviously very well cared for as they were all in good shape and had been recently shod.

They started gnawing on the truck when they saw we weren't going to feed them!

We came upon a group of Aspen trees while in the mountains. Aspen's are gorgeous when their leaves start turning.

We came across a couple of "good ole boys" that were preparing to launch their kayaks for an 18 mile spin down the Colorado River. The guys were very friendly and fun to talk to. One of the guys had his pooch with him that he takes in the boat with him. His name is Cisco!

Sorrell River Ranch entrance on Highway 128 that runs parallel to the river. They told us more than 50 movies and over 200 commercials have been filmed in that area.

River rafts and kayaks

Entrance to Arches National Park

Most famous arch in the world. It's name is Delicate Arch and is the state symbol for Utah. It's picture is on the Utah license plates. This picture was taken from far away. The hike to get to the arch is 3 miles and is considered strenuous, so guess who didn't go! BUT at least I got to see it and take a picture!

There are many arches throughout the park, but almost all require some degree of hiking to reach them. We weren't prepared for that!

You have to walk between these narrow canyon walls to reach Sand Dune Arch.

It opens up once you get past the narrow part.

Sand Dune Arch

Front view of Broken Arch.

Back view of Broken Arch

I captured this raven while walking to the Broken Arch. They're a cousin to our crows, but much larger.

Not sure how they got up there, but they were friendly.

Look what we found! Another North Carolinian!

Arches named Windows. We couldn't get near them for the throngs of people and dang tour buses!

I wanted you guys to see a closeup of the Utah tag with a picture of Delicate Arch on it.

Balance Rock near the entrance of the park.

Another balance rock!