Moab Honeymoon

We've been in Moab for 11 nights.
As I mentioned in my last post we started out with 3 nights(Friday, Saturday, Sunday) at the Holiday Inn  Express which was a few miles north of the center of town. Moab is an amazing place surrounded by red rocks.

On the way into town we'd noticed the front end of the van had developed a shimmy. We found a garage in town who said they could do a front end alignment for us on Tuesday. We also looked into tours of Arches and Canyonlands parks and booked four tours, one each day, Monday through Thursday, all with pickup available.
We decided we'd move the KOA campground south of town on Monday and leave Moab on Friday.
While we were staying at the HIE, we decided to lay low and spend most of our
time at the hotel, so we didn't do any exploring except to go out for a meal each day on Saturday (Moab Brewery) and Sunday(Eddie McStiffs).
Our room had a great view of the rocks to our east.

Monday, Sept 23 - We left the Holiday Inn Express and went on our first tour, a half-day raft trip down the Colorado River with NAVTEC Expeditions. This was a fun tour on a river that was 15' lower that it had been in the spring. We started with a ride up the river with amazing red cliffs we hadn't seen yet. Then we had a picnic lunch of sandwiches, fruit, chips and cookies before we boarded the boat. Our guide, Reed, was a great boat handler and maneuvered the boat so that we had a few bumps and splashes even though the river was low. Having never been rafting before we had a great time and enjoyed the company of our tour-mates. The scenery was absolutely amazing, but I didn't bring my camera on the raft but I found this image online which looks a bit like our trip. Not a lot of white water which was fine with us.

The tour ended about 4:00 and we went to Eddie McStiffs for half-price apps from 4-6. Afterwards we checked in to the KOA campground.

and were treated to the first of many lovely sunsets

Tuesday, Sept 24
We took the van in for the alignment appointment and walked to breakfast nearby at the Jailhouse Cafe which was great.
We returned to the garage where we found out it was more serious than just an alignment and we'd need front ball joints, and that they couldn't install them until the following Monday(Sept 30). This meant that we'd have to stay longer in Moab, which by then we realized was perfectly fine. We extended our stay at the KOA through Saturday and made a reservation downtown for Sunday and Monday.
With these details nailed down we took a drive out Kane Creek Drive and saw amazing cliffs soaring over the Colorado River,

 and found Moonflower Canyon.

 A lovely shady spot with a huge tree.

 The short walk up this canyon was nice and cool in the shade. Lots of interesting plants and rocks.

 Mostly it was fun because we knew nothing about it and felt we'd discovered it.

Will doesn't seem too happy in this image, but he's having fun too.
After our short walk up the canyon we returned to the campground and waited for our pickup for the Canyonlands by Night dinner and boat tour/ light show.

 We had a lovely barbecue meal with a large salad bar and a variety of meats, potatoes and beans. Then we boarded the boat which held 144 people!

We set out up the river. Much of the same area we'd traveled by raft the day before but now in a different light. Still amazing cliffs everywhere.

I've forgotten which of our guides told us this but it is said that one sees in the rocks the impression of the world on you. I saw many images in the rocks but this one looks like a picture of my grandfather.

At the bottom of the image is the hat of our tour guide, Preston. Just above that I see my grandfather's eyes and nose and the hint of the outline of his head and ear, as in the image below.

This image was so clear to me. I'm not sure anyone else would see it. But it made me think about my grandfather and his impression on me. I think at least part of the image in the rocks is a shadow because another day I looked for this image and could not see it in the daylight.
There are so many rocks and images made by the desert varnish
(the black coating that appears on some rocks. It is fascinating and still somewhat of a mystery regarding how fast it 'grows'.), fallen rocks and sunlight that one could spend a long time just looking for images in the rocks.
Once the sun had set the light show began. This involved a truck with bright lights driving along the road and shining the lights on the rocks as we floated by. There was also music and narration telling the history of the area from geology to the arrival of man. It was beautiful and interesting. A few times they turned off all of the lights so we could watch the natural light show: the stars. I saw two shooting stars and missed at least one other.
Later, at the campground, we were sitting around the gas fire and there was a huge meteor(10 seconds?) in the sky. It burned bright green for a time and took so long that there was time to say 'Wow!' and have others look and see it. Not sure if it was a shower or just random but this site indicates there were several potential sources and it seem at least one other person(maybe two?) saw it.
Later, we found out that the light show is not very popular with the locals as it disturbs the dark sky, bothers campers along the river, and clogs traffic on the road. We enjoyed it but understand the concerns.

Wed Sept 25
We lazed around the campground all day and had a pickup at 3:30 for our tour of Arches National Park. This was with a different operator, Moab Adventure Center. We received very nice, insulated water bottles at check-in which was a nice perk. Our guide, Sam, was knowledgeable and friendly but often said 'right' when he meant 'left' and initially didn't even know how many of us were on the tour. The bus had been turned off in the sun and was initially very warm. So warm that one couple ended up getting dropped off at the visitor's center and didn't go on the tour. We were near the front of the bus and didn't think it was terribly hot.
We drove through Arches, stopping at several sites.

That's Balancing Rock over my head, although it looks like I've got poo on my hat. We walked all around Balancing Rock.

We stopped at another place where we had to walk between the rock 'fins' to get to another arch:

We also saw Delicate Arch but only in the distance.

 But the zoom on my new camera works pretty well. I used a fence to help stabilize the camera:

 Here I am with another arch in the background.

We ended up at Skyline Arch to watch the sunset. See our shadows in the image below:

 After the sun set we made our way back out of the Park and got a ride back to the campground.

Thursday Sept 26
Our final tour in Moab was an all day 4-wheel drive trip to the Needles area of Canyonlands National Park. Our guide, Chris, picked us up at the campground, on the way south to the Needles entrance. We immediately engaged with Chris and the hour long drive to the entrance flew by.
After a stop at the visitor's center where we saw our route on the relief map, we headed into the park. We stopped at Newpaper Rock where there are many petroglyphs which I don't have a picture of for some reason. These drawings are both old and new. 'Cowboy Art' is the term given to 'glyphs painted in 'modern times', 100 years ago. Anything newer than that is considered graffiti, although once it has been there 100 years it becomes Cowboy Art.
From here we proceeded through a wide valley with enormous mesas looking like Imperial Battlecruisers from Star Wars.

 I took a lot of these pictures through the windows so they aren't as bright and some have reflections.
 We got to a parking lot and then proceeded to climb rocks in the vehicle. Most of the images don't really show how rugged, steep and narrow the track was.

 At times we even had to go up the hill backwards for short distances! At times it was quite unnerving like when we couldn't see anything in front of us or on either side but we never really felt like we were in danger and Chris was a very competent driver.
 At times all I could do was take pictures of the amazing sights as we lurched along.

 We traveled through a wide valley.

In the rocks along side of this valley we were shown the petroglyphs.

 Along side the 'ancient' glyphs another hand print dated 1926 can be seen. In seven years this will stop being 'graffiti' and become 'cowboy art'.
Another petroglyph image:

We are clearly amazed!

Here's Will and Chris beside the vehicle.

 We continued through a few more hair raising rock climbs in the vehicle and eventually we came to a parking lot where we ate lunch and prepared for our hike.

There were six of us on the tour and the two guides. All of the passengers were at least 50 and closer to 60. We all doubted our abilities but 5 of the six of us made it to the top. My camera battery was dying but I managed a few images of the hike.

Our hike accomplished, we made our way back through the park and the long drive back to Moab. We got to the campground at 7:30 which was 90 minutes later than advertised, but that was fine with us. We had a wonderful day with Chris and it was the highlight of our tours of the Parks.

Friday Sept 27
We were really tired from our big day on Thursday so we didn't plan much for the day.
From various tour guides we'd heard that there were a few short drives out of town that were worth taking so we embarked on one of them, Rt 279 along the other side of the Colorado from Moonflower Canyon where we saw the entrance to Long Canyon which looked amazing but is difficult to grasp from this photo.

 Jug handle Arch was across the parking lot

We returned to Moonflower Canyon and saw the petroglyphs we'd missed the first time

There is a little more to our Moab adventure but I'll stop here for now so I can post this before we leave.

Day 36 - Moab, UT

Here we are in Moab Utah where we plan to spend several days, maybe up to a week. But before I get into that, since my last post....
We enjoyed our stay at Canyon Ferry Lake. The restaurant at the top of the hill wasn't gourmet but was perfectly fine, especially being so close to the campground.

Sat. Sept 14 we drove south to West Yellowstone via Earthquake Lake.

This lake was formed in a 1959 earthquake which blocked the river. This picture doesn't show the dramatic landslide that caused the lake to form but here is an image I found in an online article:

  You can see the lake on the left and I think the original visitor's center is that white blob on the left. In the picture with the van, above, the van is facing the collapsed cliff. We didn't know anything about this place before we decided to drive by but it was very interesting.
Our campsite in the West Yellowstone KOA was grassier than usual although it doesn't look particularly lush here, in many KOA's everything was gravel.

 A couple in a nearby campsite, Bob and Sheila, were very friendly and we spent time with them by our campfire. Another couple left a note on our van but we couldn't figure out who they were. They invited us to visit them in another campground inside the park but we weren't going that way so never figured out exactly who they were.

Sunday, Sept 15 we went into the town of West Yellowstone to visit the Grizzly and Wolf Center. They keep animals here who cannot be released to the wild because of injury or familiarity with humans. It was nice to be able to see a grizzly bear without fear.

They hide food around the enclosure and then open a door to let the bear in. He roams around 'foraging' for the food. They explained that they try to keep the food as much like what he would eat in the wild as possible and his foraging is also like it would be in the wild. He seemed to have a great time and didn't notice the crowd watching. After about a half hour he goes back into his 'home'. Then they put more food out and another bear is let out. It looked like they had about a half dozen different bears who each appeared once or twice a day.
They also had wolves on exhibit and several raptors. We watched some young wolves playing like puppies.
A new exhibit was the otter pool. I shot a bunch of video clips but never managed to capture the otters very well. This screen grab from one of them shows Will with one of them. They were very active and seemed to like playing with people on the other side of the wall.

We ate at Bullwinkle's both days (Sat and Sun) we were in West Yellowstone. Our bartender, Sara, was like an instant 'old friend'. We decided we must have known each other in a past life. The food there was also very good. First time I had the elk ravioli which were wonderful and Will had spaghetti which was also delicious. Next day I had a wonderful salad with chicken and Will had the elk ravioli. Wish every town had a restaurant like this! We had another camp fire with our friends Bob and Sheila that night. I didn't get a picture of them, or even exchange information but we had a great time talking with them.

On Monday Sept 16 we left West Yellowstone early and drove through Yellowstone park to see the Grand Tetons. We stopped in a pullout to have our breakfast.

We looked for wildlife here but only saw some ducks which is what I think the person is pointing to in the picture.
At one point traffic was stopped and it turned out to be this bison walking along the side of the road. 

 He looked very old and tired poor thing. I snapped this shot as we slowly drove by.
It was quite a cool morning, and as a result all of the vents and geysers were visibly steaming and could be seen from a distance.

 You can see some steam in the background here too, although it looks a little like a forest fire.

On our way by we stopped at the geyser fields we'd seen in the evening on our tour but they looked a lot different in the bright sunshine.

There was a lot more steam and some of the colors seemed brighter.
This was a quick selfie as we tried to stay ahead of a large group of tourists.

 We stopped at Colter Bay where we'd originally thought we'd spend the night. Will was really tired so he took a nap. I took this picture from the front seat where we were parked:

We continued on and enjoyed the spectacle of the Tetons.

As we drove through Jackson we were a bit put off by the large crowds and what seemed like endless t-shirt shops. We didn't even stop there, we just kept going.
We ended up on a stretch of road with few towns but eventually ended up in Pinedale where we ate at the Wind River Brewpub and then found our way to the Freemont Lake Campground where we went right to bed even though it was only 7:00. The day had been pretty warm and there were thunderstorms in the evening. Somehow we felt much too warm all night and never really slept well. The next day was a slow day and we just hung around the campsite.

It was very quiet at the campground. We were across from the vault toilets and I don't think anyone else used them but us.
We went looking for a place to buy firewood in town but the season was over and no one had any for sale. We were told we could get a permit from the local Park Ranger's office to get our own wood but when we went there they said it was $7 per cord with a 5-cord minimum.... but if we went to the park where we were staying we could gather wood wherever we found it. So we did that and had some nice views of the lake. Our campsite was close to the far end on the right side. The lake is about 3 miles long.

And we saw where it appears they dammed the river to make the lake or maybe they just control the level this way.

We found plenty of wood and ended up having a wonderful evening burning it and watching the stars in the clear sky above, even though on our way back from getting the wood we saw showers in the area.

But we keep forgetting how far you can see here and this shower was long gone by the time we got back to our campsite.
That night it went down to below freezing and there was frost on the picnic table when we got up. We were warm, though, because we'd bought an extra blanket for nights like this.

Wed. Sept 18 We didn't have enough battery power to make coffee and so decided to go out to breakfast in Pinedale at the Wrangler Cafe which had great pancakes.

As we left the campground we saw this power boat on the lake but otherwise it was very quiet.

After 2 nights of 'primitive' camping (no running water) we decided to stay at KOA again and drove to Rock Springs, Wyoming which was a pretty big town. At the KOA we showered and did laundry. We were very close to Hwy 80 and also the train tracks so it was pretty loud but we had a fenced in area which made the campsite more private.

It is a little difficult to see the campsite but the van is making the 4th wall of our 'enclosure'. Our picnic table had a sun shade, a fire pit and a charcoal grill. We had electricity and wi-fi which seemed luxurious. We had a fire there with wood from Walmart that was only $2.50 a bundle, about half what we've been paying. It was much warmer here and we didn't need our extra blanket.

Thurs. Sept 19 we left Rock Springs and drove to Vernal, Utah and the KOA there. All along the way we saw references to dinosaurs. Looking at a brochure of the area it turns out there is a lot of dinosaur stuff to see and we may end up passing that way again to investigate.
We saw lots of sweeping views as we drove by the Flaming Gorge area

I enhanced this image of the 'flaming' part of Flaming Gorge:

 You can see reflections as I took it out of the window.

The last image is as we approached the Flaming Gorge Dam.

The town of Vernal was bigger and more interesting than I expected. We found the Vernal Brewing Company which was housed in a very new looking building. Both the beer and the food were wonderful. I had roasted Brussels sprouts with candied bacon for an appetizer and a delicious kale salad with salmon. Will had the French dip. We met a nice guy named Howie and enjoyed talking to him about traveling. Turns out there are at least 2 other brewpubs in town. I'm surprised one town can support 3 brewpubs. Maybe there is a college in town.

Our KOA campsite was on the edge of a large field and the whole place was grassy and much more restful than the night before with all of the road noise. I neglected to capture an image of this campground, though.
We had another nice camp fire. I don't always mention it but we've only had a few nights without one.

Friday, Sept 20 we got up and had only one cup of coffee before heading towards Moab, the idea being we'd stop along the way and have more and eat breakfast. But, it turned out there was no convenient place to stop for a long time. It was after 11 when we finally found a place in an interesting valley that had lots of pump jacks. I didn't take a picture but here's an image I found:

 There were many of these and signs for Berry Petroleum which I just learned is based in Bakersfield, CA but gets 13% of their crude oil from the Uintah Basin which is where we were.
 Again, there were many amazing sights as we drove but somehow my pictures don't seem to capture the grandure.

I'll try enhancing this one and see if it comes out any better

 Actually that seems like a big improvement. I'll have to do that to more of the images. I'm using Goggle photo so I have to upload to Google then download again which is a bit time consuming.

Sometimes I think the unexpected things we see are at least as interesting as the famous parks we visit. 

I think this is part of Canyonlands but we just saw it as we approached Moab.

We arrived in Moab and went to a grocery store but found the parking lot very crowded. There was a Mexican restaurant adjacent to the same parking lot so we decided to eat there after shopping. when we came out of the grocery store we noticed a lot of people along the side of the road, waiting for something. We asked someone and they said it was the Homecoming parade. At 3:00 on a Friday. Even though there is a lot going on here, it is still a small town. So it turns out to be a good thing we decided to eat because it would have been a wait for the parade which was over by the time we were done. The restaurant had pretty booths so we took some goofy pictures:

And, we're all caught up. We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express after we ate and hunkered down in the room for the evening. 

As I mentioned we plan to be in Moab for a while so will try to report in again before we leave the area.