Today’s our last day in Moab and we pretty much did nothing. There’s plenty of stuff left to do in both Arches and Canyonlands…but since Neil can only hike a couple of miles before his foot gives out (it’s getting better albeit slowly) there aren’t any hikes short enough to go on. So…we worked on detailed route planning (rest stops, gas stops, and such), worked on what we’ll do between the time we leave Junction City after our repairs, watched the NFL, and Neil did the outside pre-travel stuff.

Bama won again last night…it looks like the team is finally forging an identity for themselves and playing the kind of football that they’re known for. The defense was incredible; shutting out undefeated Ole Miss and keeping them far below their season averages of 400+ yards, 27 first downs and 38 points…total yards were about 175 with less than 40 rushing, about 10 first downs and no points. The offense kept the ball 38 minutes out of the game and rushed for 250+ yards so it looks like the O-line is finally getting their communication down and working as a team. The Ole Miss D is pretty good as well; holding us to 40 yards rushing and 175 yards on 20 pass completions in the first half but we kept at the run game and eventually wore them down in the second half. We just need to keep improving and everything else will take care of itself.

Dinner tonight will be leftover Asian short ribs from last night served sort of soup/stew style over rice…it was really yummy and will be even better after aging overnight in the fridge. Connie’s working a bit since we will be traveling or sightseeing most of this week and she still has a little to get done on her upcoming clinical rotation scheduling.

I wanted to post one last picture from Arches NP to show you how high the plateau it sits on is…looking at the picture below this is looking northeast along the park entrance road. The highway is immediately to the left of the frame and essentially parallels the road the car you can see is on until it passes the far edge of the plateau you can see in the park…the edge is about another 2 miles up the highway from here. The two small buildings you can see right above the grass and below the sandy colored rock are the entrance station and visitor center then the park road goes almost to the left of the frame on the same level than turns sharply right up the side of the plateau; the road runs just about at the level of the top of the sandy colored section as it climbs up the side of the ridge. Just after the road passes behind the point of rock immediately in front of the car you can see it does a couple of final switchbacks and then emerges over the top of the plateau edge just out of frame to the right. The plateau is about 1,400 feet higher than the entrance road and once up on top it’s sort of rolling terrain across the top of the plateau; most of the road accessible portion of the park is up on the plateau with the hikes taking you either out to the edge of the plateau to see the arches or down into the canyons in the plateau. 

After Connie was done working we took a 20 mile or so drive up the Colorado RIver canyon heading upstream from Moab…we got some pretty dramatic photos in the narrowest part of the canyon. The bottom where the river and road were was maybe a quarter mile wide at best in the wide spots and the rim is about 1,200 feet higher than the river. After about 15 miles we got out of the canyon and into the high plains again with mesas and other rock formations around us but again in one of those miles away scales…we stopped at a little campground named Onion Creek and took a quick tour of the no hookups dry camping area and then headed back home. Stopped by the Moab Brewery for Happy Hour, came home and jumped in the hot tub for a few minutes, and put on the rice to cook for dinner. Here are the views from the Colorado River Canyon…again just fabulous and incredible. We kept saying Wow! again.

There probably won’t be a post tomorrow or Tuesday…I’ll try to put something together Wednesday night after our day in NM. We’re staying tomorrow in Durango CO then continuing on to Albuquerque NM and then resting a day…although we’ll more than likely drive the 70 miles to Santa Fe after Connie works in the AM and do some tourist stuff followed by dinner before driving home.

Cyas.