A Trip to Moab

So as I hinted in the last post, my friend, Rachel, flew into town on Thursday, two days after Nicole and Mollie left.  We had booked a hotel for two nights in Moab before we knew about the impending park closures.  The last time Rachel visited me here we were total slugs and watched an entire season of Sons of Anarchy together during her visit.  Reliving our glorious college days of Felicity, puzzles, and delicious meals.  This visit I was determined to show her what Utah had to offer.  Wouldn't you know my plans would go and get foiled?  Whomp. Whomp.

Alas, we were determined to still have a good time.  Especially since we couldn't cancel the hotel room without forfeiting all our money.  Luckily, the Moab website was very helpful in finding alternative sites and hikes to go see and do.  There were actually quite a few that could take us around the outskirts of Arches National Park.

We took off on Friday afternoon and decided to tack on an extra hour so we could see the scenic route winding along the Colorado river.  It was definitely spectacular, but maybe not worth the extra gas unless you are actually heading into Moab from the east.  If you happen to go to Moab and do any of the non national park hikes, then you will most likely get a glimpse of what we saw on that scenic drive.

We kept it low key on Friday and found a sports bar when we went into town to check if they would be playing the Duck game or not.  Of course, like Springdale, the entire town had no subscribers to the PAC12 network.  Gah.  Good thing I brought my laptop again.  After the bar we walked a bit around town, but it started drizzling so we opted for an early dinner at The Moab Brewery.

We got an early start the next morning and headed out on our first hike to Negro Bill Canyon.  We picked our trails based on views that would be similar to what we would have seen in Arches.  I had to make sure Rach saw an arch and a natural bridge.  This hike would end at the Morning Glory Natural Bridge.  We wound around alongside a pretty stream for most of the jaunt.  A lot of back and forth across the water kept it exciting.  You could definitely tell this trail hadn't gotten too much love in the past.  I assume it's a whole 'nother ballpark now that it's been a few weeks after the shutdown.  Although, Utah did reopen the parks using state money recently, so who knows.

A shot coming out of the foresty, stream area and into the sunshine.

Finally we see the bridge!

There was a little cave like area underneath where the trail stopped.

As we were leaving we saw someone walking up on top of the bridge.  Crazy kids.

After we made the trek out we went into town to get lunch.  We dined at a mexican restaurant, Cabo Grill that was in an old drive thru of sorts.  It was yummy, but a little pricey for the local in our opinion.

We were hoping to find some sort of saturday market still going on, but were disappointed after checking a few locations in which I had been to them in the past.

We headed out on our second hike to see Corona Arch.  This one had a lot more uphill than the last hike...it even had a small ladder to climb at one point!  All in all a fun hike.

And a shot from the other side looking out at our uphill climb.

We stopped to snag a few fun photos on the way back down.

Fingers crossed no train coming!

And because Rachel was demanding some artsy shots...

We called it quits on our hikes for the day and got back to the hotel around 3:30.  Just in time for me to shower and get the game on by 4pm.  Sweet!

We were originally gonna go out and and have a nice dinner again, but who needs a nice dinner when you already have beer in your hotel fridge and a yummy pizza place in town that delivers?  Right?  No, we did not watch another entire season of Sons of Anarchy, but we did get a good number of shows in that night.  Clearly refueling after all those calories lost earlier.

Since the state parks were still open, the next morning we headed to Dead Horse Point.  I had been there previously with Kristen and Eric and knew it was worth the view.  After finding out there were a number of good hikes to do, we opted for one called the Big Horn Overlook that was recommended by a ranger before heading up to the actual viewpoint.  It had a number of great stopping points that overlooked the canyon before getting to the actual trail end view.

I could have sworn this was the spot where Chris and the boys jumped out onto the sketchy rock that Mary got photoshopped on, but I learned when we got back that that had been in Canyonlands.

In case you missed this one a few years ago.  Chris is actually jumping...Steve photoshopped Mary out there to make it look like no big deal.  EEEEEEK!

The terrain was pretty cool along the way as well.

When we finally got to the end of the trail I had to coax Rach out.  I think my time in Zion had made me fearless.  To get out to the far rock you had to walk up and down a small two foot wide spot.  Sketchy!

The view was SO worth it!  You can see the Big Horn there in the left upper corner.

Once we made it back to the car we drove up to the packed Dead Horse Point lookout.

So gorgeous!  Dirty river, but spectacular sight!

Some artists painting out on the ledge.  Yikes!

We got back around dinner time to Springville and got to wake up super early on Monday so Rach could make her flight to L.A. for work.

Such a fun weekend!