A Gorgeous Day At Moab

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.

We are definitely on the road again but it’s a different road.  We aren’t traveling in an RV.  We’re traveling only in a car. We brought our motorhome and our Jeep Wrangler north but left our Jeep Liberty behind.  It was time for it to catch up with the rest of our vehicles. 

I mentioned before we really had no idea the route we would take.  We wanted it to be a little different than the routes we had taken north in the last couple of years.  When we pulled out of Phoenix on Friday we headed due north on I-17.  Taking that route eliminated others we had considered including the Redwoods and Las Vegas. 

Others still open were the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and Moab.  It was past Flagstaff when we decided we weren’t going to visit the Grand Canyon this trip.  We were leaning towards the Four Corners and Mesa Verde.  That’s where we were leaning.  Kayenta was the little town where one road went east towards that area and another road weaved through Monument Valley towards Moab.   We topped the gas tank off there and headed north on highway 163.  We were going to Monument Valley.

 

The Western Mountain book listed several 10% and even an 11% grade.  They were definitely a piece of cake in the car and since they were so short wouldn’t have been an issue in an RV either.    However, the route from Phoenix seemed uphill all the way.  We always seem to talk about the Siskiyous and Grapevine as being mountainous when on our route south where elevations climb to about 4400 feet.  They don’t compare to the mountains of northern Arizona and southern Utah.  It’s constantly uphill and downhill with elevations over 7000 feet.  Patches of snow were still along the roadside in some places.  It’s not a route we would want to take on every trip we made south.   

 

Driving through Monument Valley was beautiful.  There were so many places to pull off the road and feast our eyes on the gorgeous scenery.  We did just that.  Hundreds of pictures were taken.  Aren’t you glad all of them aren’t posted here? 

Moab is definitely an outdoor paradise and reminded us a little bit of Sedona..  It has something for everyone.  The Colorado River is there for water enthusiasts.  Trails and trails and more trails attract owners of  ATVs and Jeeps.  Rock climbing is popular as is hiking and biking.  It’s such a popular place that many hotels were full on the Friday night we pulled into town.  It would be nice to come back and spend more time checking it out when we aren’t on a mission.  However, Moab is not a cheap place. It’s popular and the prices reflect that. Since we weren’t in our RV, we didn’t check out the RV prices.  That might be a different story.

We needed a hotel and could find nothing under $100 a night.  We didn’t want to buy a room.  We just wanted to sleep in it for one night.  No boondocking for us this trip!!  We had no choice but to bite the bullet and plunk down a wad of cash.  We ended up with nice overnight lodging at a not so nice price..

First stop on our agenda after checking into the hotel was looking at the shops and dinner.  Dinner was just as amazing for me as I could have hoped.  We found a little restaurant on the main drag.  I couldn’t pass on their wild Alaskan Salmon.  It was delicious!  I licked my plate clean …. well, kinda.

Then, it was a long shower and off to bed. We had at least another couple days of travel ahead of us. This was just day one and we had left about 471 miles behind us. Can you imagine how many more miles we would have accomplished had we not stopped so often to gauk at the beauty of Mother Nature? 

We were hoping for sunshine the rest of the way.  At least that’s what we were hoping and that’s what the weatherman had forecast.  Arches National Park was just around the corner.  We would be visiting there on Saturday and afterwards put some more miles behind us.

How many leave tips for housekeepers when you’re staying for just one night? 

‘Tis life on the road.