More Moab

We took a drive out to Canyonlands National Park - Island in the Sky area, just north and west of Moab.  Since Chris & Chris recommended driving Shafer Switchbacks road we decided to return that way.

Not nearly as impressive in pics as standing on the rim, of course.  You gotta visit this area if you get the chance, and bring extra underwear.  

BTW, that's the road we're returning on.  

Who says there's no wildlife?!  These little guys were all over the place.  

This was at the bottom of the switchbacks.  Sorry, Wendy wouldn't let me take pictures on the way down.  Ask her to see the video, though.  

Yup, that's an arch.  'Please don't walk on the arches' they say.  No need to tell ME twice... you can see how close I got.  

The Colorado River runs right through here.  I had no idea.  

Balancing rocks are a fad around here.  

Petroglyphs (aka ancient graffiti) along the Colorado River.  

Kind of look like Ancient Aliens, don't they?  

Moab, Mecca for Jeepers

Highway 191 brought us, after a little zig zag on I70, to the holy city of Moab, UT.  Actually, about 9 miles south of Moab to a BLM campground at Kens Lake (38.47874 -109.42224).  We figured we'd stay for 2 or 3 days but we wound up there for 7.  There are a couple National Parks and lots of scenic drives (from paved loops to 4x4 trails and everything in between) around there, and there are still things on our list to do when we come through again.  Some hilights:

First, the campground.  Nice site (#18) but lousy phone and internet.  We moved up to the open area (site #1) for the last night and communication improved significantly.  

Just uphill from the campground, looking north towards Moab.  Probably obvious why phone and internet is better closer to the centre of the valley (to the left).  

Lush countryside, eh? 

We decided to go to Arches National Park which is just north of Moab.  Found out on the way that it was the first day of fall school break.  BTW, the driver in front of us is the reason they invented backup cameras and sensors.  Just sayin'.  

Here's the gate line from above after we got through.  Road at the top is highway 191.  

Had to do a little off-roading to reach this one.  Found out later that the section with the jeep pics is rated "moderate" while the rest of the trail is "easy".  This courtesy of Chris and Chris from Durango Colorado, in the red jeep behind us.  They'd just bought a new backroads book for the area so gifted their old one to us (score!), so after that we actually knew the difficulty of the trails we were heading on.  

Some crazy rocks around there.


It's only been a few days, yet I can't remember what the significance of the background is.  Still, I'd better include this pic.



Delicate Arch had a 4 mile strenuous climb to the arch or a 1/2 mile easy climb to the viewpoint.  Guess which one we did.


Sand Arch is one of the coolest and easiest to get to.  BTW there's a warning sign saying not to approach to closely as pieces are falling off (the one on the upper left fell this year).




I heart dead trees.

See?  THIS is why we don't do selfies...

Southwest or Southeast?

From Boise we had to make a choice, southwest towards Reno and then down the California/Nevada border, or southeast to Utah and then down some other route than I-15 (seen enough of that road already).  Weather forecast for storms moving into California so...

Overnighted at the Brigham City rest area (41.55194 -112.06932) because we were drowsy and Utah wants drowsy drivers to pull over and get some rest.  Nice people.  

Next day (Oct 17) we turned left at Ogden and skirted around Salt Lake City via I-84 and Highway 40 towards Duchesne.  Then back southwest towards Price, and southeast on 191.  Boy, the lengths some people will go to to avoid Salt Lake City (aka the city of eternal road construction), eh?  Overnight at a gravel turnout at Mile Marker 270 (39.37523 -110.40170).