Moab - April 25 - 28, 2005

We bid a fond farewell to Torrey late Monday morning and headed toward Moab. It was an easy haul and we arrived in early afternoon at Archview RV Resort, just north of the entrance to Canyonlands National Park. Since Mother Hubbard's cupboard was bare, we headed to Moab to pick up some supplies and hit the Visitor's Center. Once again, the setting is beautiful and the weather is a bit iffy.

Tuesday's weather looked to be reliable so we decided to head for Arches National Park and do some hiking. We headed out pretty early so we could get some good light for photography and were well rewarded for our efforts. The beauty may not be reflected in our photos, but trust us - it was awesome. Our first short hike was at Park Avenue an area that is familiar to anybody who has ever seen a western movie, "Thelma and Louise", or "Mission Impossible II". We then moved on to a longer hike at Devils Garden, followed by the Windows Section of the park. There are over 2,000 arches in the park measuring from a qualifying minimum of 3 feet to Landscape Arch, which is 306 feet from base to base.

We had planned to return to Arches to photograph Delicate Arch at sunset and moonrise. However, when we returned "home" at 6:00 PM we received a cocktail invitation from our neighbors, Rod and Jean. Frankly, that sounded much more inviting than going out and hiking another five miles after the 12 we had already logged that day. Rod and Jean are from Granby, Colorado and had recently taken up RVing during the winter months. This was their last stop before eagerly heading home to friends and family. It was a very pleasant evening and we hope our paths cross again.

On Wednesday the weather was very cloudy and threatening, but we packed a lunch and headed to Canyonlands for an auto tour. The last time we visited the park it was bitterly cold, with intermittent snow and very windy, so this was an improvement.

In the afternoon we visited some petroglyph sites along Highway 279 that runs along the Colorado River and hiked to Corona Arch, on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. The petroglyphs are from the "Formative Period" which span 1 A.D. to 1275 A.D., a period overlapping the Fremont rock art we saw in the Capitol Reef area.

The hike to Corona Arch turned out to be a bit of an adventure. When we started out the weather had improved and there were basically clear skies. When we were nearly at the arch the breeze suddenly turned fierce and we were caught in one of those 30-second downpours for which the Southwest is famous. Then we heard the thunder. This hike was on slickrock and involved climbing a short ladder and holding on to cables in the steeper sections. Well, slickrock earns its name when wet, and holding on to metal ladders and cables can be chancy in lightening storms. Hmmm, what to do? Answer: Search for a geocache!

Our friend Richard had just turned Bill onto geocaching - using a handheld GPS to find hidden treasure posted on the Internet. This hike included his first hunt. So we just laughed in the face of wind, rain and lightening and went treasure hunting. Fortunately, the treasure, an ammo box containing trinkets and a register, was fairly easy to find in a pile of boulders.

Everywhere you look in southern Utah you see a familiar movie setting and have the impression that John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Jane Russell are kicking up dust right around the corner. So on Thursday we decided to go to the Movie Museum at Red Cliff Lodge, about 12 miles up the Colorado River from Moab. The museum included numerous movie posters, photos showing how the movie sets were built, movie paraphernalia and costumes and a life size cut out of John Wayne.

There are three wineries in the Moab area (Yes, they do make wine in Utah!). Since Red Cliff Lodge sponsors the tasting room for Castle Creek Winery we took advantage of the location and sampled a few wines. We then returned to Moab to wander around a bit, admired some of the classic muscle cars that were arriving for the annual Classic Car event scheduled that weekend, and had a yummy dinner at Moab Brewery. The next day we were off to  Colorado.