Rain? What Rain?

Monday, September 9 & Tuesday, September 10.

Monday morning we made our way from Green River to Arches National Park.  Our plan had always been to do the scenic drive on Monday afternoon and hike it on Tuesday.  We left Green River in rain, arrived at Arches in rain and did the scenic drive in rain!  Even in the rain, the arches are fascinating and we’re excited to see more. Our hotel here in Moab is the Gonzo Inn, and it matches its name!  Very funky decorating and vibe to the place.  As luck would have it, the Mexican restaurant across the street was claiming to have the best margaritas in town, so we had to see about that.  Seeing as how we have a very small sampling - only theirs - we’ll have to agree.

Balanced Rock

Double Arch

Nice rain hat, eh?

Up and at ‘em Tuesday morning!  This was supposed to be our day to hike among the arches for the day, but the weather was awful and looked to continue for the day.  Road trips have to be about flexibility, so we decided to go to Canyonlands National Park (only about a half hour away from Arches) to do their scenic drive and save the hiking for Wednesday.  Canyonlands was a complete afterthought on this trip - we figured we might do a drive-through as we were leaving Arches on Thursday if we had time.  Thank you, Mother Nature, for “screwing up” our plans!  The rain stopped, the clouds burned off, and Canyonlands was spectacular!!  

It is mostly a drive-through park, but we managed to get a few miles of hiking in on the Grand View Rim Trail - pretty moderate trails, but definitely some uphill climbing on rocks involved.  And edges.  Lots and lots of edges.  I’m working on it.  We probably wouldn’t have seen this park at all, and instead we spent the day there and loved every minute.

After Canyonlands, we went to Dead Horse Point State Park, which is kind of next door and also a very pretty place. It is so named because legend has it a herd of wild horses were corralled there back in the day, were forgotten and died.  Surely someone could have come up with a better name at some point in the last hundred or so years!

Colorado River

Dinner tonight was just weird. We went to the Sunset Grill, a beautiful restaurant which is on the very top of a huge hill overlooking Moab.  It was the home of a Uranium Magnate at one time and has been a restaurant for the last 20 years or so.  The phenomenal view from our table and the superb world-class food made up for what was probably the worst service we’ve ever had in a restaurant anywhere. We had to practically beg to get waited on, she spilled beer on us, got the orders wrong, the bills were wrong, and then she chased us down in the parking lot to complain about the tip!  Rhonda had a chat with the manager - poor guy.  Such a strange evening! 

But the view was wonderful!

Today was just one surprise after another.  We had no idea Canyonlands would be so fabulous, we had never even heard of Dead Horse Point State Park, and we had a wonderful dinner under very strange circumstances.