One of my favorite times to work on the blog is on quiet Sunday mornings before the kids wake up. I'd better make it quick this Sunday morning since I have lots of other things to do to get ready for NomiAnn and Papa Kay's visit. (We've all been covid-tested and quarantining in advance.) Yay! It's been a while since this house has seen visitors.
Back to the last time we didn't see NomiAnn and Papa Kay, here are the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend adventures in Moab. On Friday morning, we loaded up everyone's bike to go for a ride. Upon arriving at the river trail, Jason and I hopped out of the car and hopped right back in after about fifteen seconds. It was freezing! Cold and super duper windy. It was obvious that the kids were not going to enjoy the ride, and I frankly didn't feel like dealing with the whining from forcing them.
And so, we settled for a nice long car ride instead. We drove a giant loop that took us along the Colorado River for a while before turning off to drive up through the LaSal mountains. Beautiful overlooks!
At the summit, we dropped off Jason to bike the final twenty miles home. He's so quick that we hardly beat him back to the condo.
After lunch, we hopped back in the car again for another drive into Arches.
Our mission was to hike up to Delicate Arch to watch the sunset.
From this angle, the arch seems so precariously balanced.
Happy faces all around.
The only downside to Moab is that is is getting so very popular. We've been visiting Moab for a decade now and have seen a huge increase in the number of hotels and people in the parks. While we've generally learned to save our visits for "off-peak" times, on this Thanksgiving weekend there was bumper to bumper traffic for miles heading back into town.
And so, the next morning we decided to take the road less-traveled. Literally. You'd think we wouldn't want another trip after all the driving from the day before, but Brooklyn was preparing for her driving test the next week so it was good practice.
Our destination? Don't laugh. This. (Photo from the NYT.)
Yes, the Utah monolith. Discovered just a few days earlier, we were crazy enough to follow the GPS coordinates that had been controversially shared. Only thirteen miles from our condo as the crow flies, we were tempted by the adventure. Even though it was a seventy five mile drive, we knew it wouldn't be there long.
The drive itself was beautiful. After traveling south for about 30 miles, you turn off onto UT 211 and head towards the Needles district of Canyonlands.
Another few miles, and our adventure gets cut short. Right about the time the gravel road started to get sketchy, we realized that our mini-van was quite low on oil. We still had another ten miles to go before reaching the monolith, so we decided to be responsible and turn around instead. It's simply not worth ruining your vehicle and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.
While we were a bit disappointed to miss out on the monolith, it was definitely the right choice. I'm not sure our minivan would have appreciated the rough road. Even more significantly, it turns out that the monolith was already gone!! Apparently someone had removed it the night before, with its disappearance being just as mysterious as its appearance.
As a consolation for missing out on the alien structure, we drove a few more miles into Canyonlands instead. Not wanting to venture too far in, we settled for a short hike at Cave Spring. A fun little loop, it took us past an old cowboy camp and prehistoric rock paintings.
Plus, the overhanging rock structures were intriguing.
Final adventure, Newspaper Rock. We stopped for a gander on our way to get oil in Monticello.
Pretty amazing! With etchings form the ancestral puebloans to the pioneers, it really does tell a story.
A pit stop at Hole in the Rock and it was time to pack up and head back to Salt Lake.
While not the Thanksgiving we originally envisioned, we were thankful for safe travels and the great weekend we had together.
No comments:
Post a Comment