On The Road Again

We are leaving Moab today, bound for Colorado and Mesa Verde.

Despite our first impression of Moab, we have had a really good time here. Our cheep camp site tucked into a small oak grove along the Colorado River on some BLM land made a huge difference over the Rustic Inn. It was quite nice falling asleep listening to the white noise of the river inside the huge walls of the canyon was very nice indeed.

Yesterday we went over to Canyonlands NP. The main part is on top of a high mesa at the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. There are vast views of cliffs and canyons, sun and gnats. It was very pretty, but Liz and I are getting a little cliffed and canyoned vista out since that's been all we've done and seen since Vegas. We drove out along a 4x4 road that went down the canyon face and into the lower mesa top and once we got around a couple of families over their heads and scared to death, we had a blast. The family truckster is quite the capable off road car. After that we headed back over to Arches to finally see the Delicate Arch. If you east coasters don't know what that is, it's the rock arch on Utah state plates. We were both still pretty beat from our previous days hike, but we sucked it up and did it.

And what a hike it was. While the arch was awesome, what made it even more amazing were the thunderstorms rolling across the plains to the west. They would all die out before they could ever make it to us but the rolling clouds and flashes of lighting made for a dramatic sight. Like bad western oil paintings, but made real.

Anyway, our time here at the laundromat is almost up, so here are a couple pics from our adventure at Canyonlands.