Moab: Our First Visit

So it’s Friday night (around 11pm) and Colleen and I decided we were going to take a couple days from working and go on a vacation somewhere. Expedia has great reviews on many places to visit and we decided on going to Mexico. Yes, Mexico.

Problem #1: Flight leaves at 6am Saturday Morning (less than 7 hours)
Problem #2: We have not packed, nor do we know what we are doing with our dog.
Problem #3: We do not have Passports or original birth certificates.

So we decided to go to the desert, oops, I mean Mars, oops, I mean Moab.

Day 1:

We didn’t end up leaving until 5pm on Saturday due to packing issues. The drive to Moab was nice except for one thing — I couldn’t find the OU-Oregon game on the radio, so Colleen was having to hit “refresh” on my Blackberry every 20 seconds so I can keep up with the play-by-play. I must say, I didn’t even watch the game at this point and I was disgusted with the game. At least the Aspens changing colors in the mountains were pretty.

After a quick stop in Glenwood Springs for some caffeine and dinner, we rolled into Moab just before midnight. Good thing we reserved our hotel ahead of time, because every hotel in Moab was full.

Day 2:

Since we were on vacation we decided to sleep as long as we could. We were up at 10am and made it to the Pancake Haus for breakfast by 11. It was super busy, however the food was good even though it was over-priced.

Across the street from the Pancake Haus was “Moab Adventure Center” and that’s where Colleen and I decided that we were just going to do the tourist thing and have them show us around Moab. Five Hundred Dollars later…we were signed up for three adventures – 4×4′ing in Israeli War Machines, hiking in a permit only area called the Fiery Furnace and mountain biking on some slickrock in Courthouse Wash.

The IWM tour left at 2pm and so that gave us just enough time to walk around town a little before we had to be back at the MAC. There seems to just be one main drag in Moab and we found this hilarious store called “Dog Barkery” where we picked up some stuff for Sooner. They had this bumper sticker that said, “My Corgi is smarter than your Honor Student.” Haha, I know it’s so overdone, but the sticker is so true. Our dog is smart and it will look great on a Nalgene.

The best part about the IWM tour was that we got to drive ourselves. We were in a convoy with a couple from Lakewood and Luxemburg. Those little machines are impossible to tip over and have some crazy shocks that make the ride super smooth.

One of the arches we stopped at along the way was called Uranium Arch. And it was called that because of all the uranium mining that used to take place in the area. Another cool landmark we got to see were the holes where uranium miners had drilled a core sample out of solid rock. Rees, our guide, had us drop rocks in the hole and we discovered it took 8-10 seconds to hit the bottom. So, for you physics majors out there, you can determine how deep the hole was based on speed, gravity and the air-speed velocity of an unlaiden swallow.

After the drive we quickly drove to Dead Horse Point State Park and took pictures at sunset. These are some of our favorite pictures of the entire trip. And yes, we did climb over the guard rail to get some better shots.

Upon returning to Moab we went to our guides favorite mexican place in town – Fiesta Mexicana. The house margs were killer, and after one a piece we were ready to call it a day.

Day 3:

We woke up early so we could be to the MAC by 7am. We met Kathleen who would be our guide for the day and we found out we were the only ones on the hike. Score! She drove us to the Arches National Park Visitor Center where we had to watch a video about how fragile desert life is and not to deface any arches. Yeaaaaah. Ok.

The Fiery Furnace was a fun hike and the area requires a permit due to all the rescues they have to do with people getting lost. Kathleen our guide took us to “Unseen Arch” which only 200 people (maybe) see a year. It was neat to climb in a lot of slots between the canyon walls.

We stopped for lunch at the Moab Brewery and had a great lunch. This is the best place for a burger in Moab.

Not to miss out on any of the action, we decided to go back to Arches and hike around some more. We went to Balanced Rock, Devil’s Garden and hiked to Landscape Arch, however the sun had already started to set and they aren’t the best pictures.

Day 4:

Again we woke up early to be at the MAC for our mountain bike tour. And again we found ourselves as the only participants and so we got to choose how long our breaks were and a special singletrack loop at the end with a ledge that if you fall-off-your-bike-you-will-die. The hardest part about the mountain bikes is that the seats on the rentals weren’t as nice as what I have on my own bikes, plus we didn’t have any padded shorts, so it made for some sore rears by the end of the 10 mile ride. I know….*whine, whine whine*

If it works once, try it again, and we did. We went back to Moab Brewery this time to also sample some of their beer. Whoa….I don’t think people in Utah know how to make beer. Their wheat beer was good, as was their German seasonal, however their red’s were as bitter as I was at the Pac 10 refs after the OU game and their lagers tasted like oatmeal – coffee flavored. Blech!

In the afternoon we decided to go check out Gemini Bridges and see if we could make it there in a passenger car. We ended up doing the whole Jeep trail from the top-side in our Altima by driving very slowly. All those backcountry forest service roads to get to the mountains in Colorado are paying off!

At Gemini Bridges we saw where the episode of the Amazing Race (Family Edition) had a choice to rappel off the arches or ride a mountain bike down. As you can see in the pictures, it was a ways down, but I still would have done the rappel. Even after seeing the plaque that some drunk Moab teenager tried to drive his Jeep over Gemini Bridges and rolled off the top to his death below.

There was still one last thing I wanted to see before leaving Moab and that was the Delicate Arch. It’s the Granddaddy of ‘em all. It’s the one on all the shops postcards, Utah license plates, t-shirts and anything else they need an arch for in Utah. There’s only one problem. It’s a 3 mile hike up this huge rock with no shade and we are in the desert. No wonder many people opt to just view this arch from a distance.

However, Colleen and I slathered on more sunscreen and decided to give it a shot so we could get some photos of the most famous arch in the park. After about 30 minutes of hiking we arrived at the arch and started taking lots of pictures. It wasn’t long however before some “arch hogs” (there is a flyer about “arch hogs” at the trailhead) started showing up and actually walked down to the arch and sat underneath the arch, causing everybody to not be able to take a clear picture of the arch without some goofball standing under it.

On our way back to the car we stopped to take a picture of a Petriglyph.

For dinner we ate at Zax’s Wood Fired Pizza, and it was good, but expensive. Oh well, we were on vacation right?

Day 5:

When we woke up to leave the next morning the clouds were socked in for the first time the entire trip. There was snow up in the La Sal mountains and we weren’t going to wait around for things to get worse. We decided to be rebels and support the Starbucks in Moab by getting some Frap’s and left town. The drive home wasn’t too bad (except for the construction on Eisenhower Tunnel) and I finally got caught up on what actually happened in the Sooner game with the help of Tivo.

We shall return to Moab soon enough to do the 4-wheelin’ properly with people who are obsessed with it, at least now we have done the tourist part of the town so we can relax and enjoy the scenery next time we go.