That nifty title is the slogan you see on the billboards approaching Moab, Utah for miles on miles. Moab is famous for biking, jeeping, and has lots of other outdoor activities such as rafting and hiking. It is full of college students working summer jobs as guides, waiters, etc. in hopes that on their off time they can play.(Kind of like teachers traveling to work part time in campgrounds…..) 🙂

We were excited to visit Moab again for several reasons. 1) We were going to meet up with friends we worked with in Montana     2) We remembered some local restaurants with fondness   3) Arches are just really interesting formations that we don’t have in Maine

As we arrived in Moab, we first made efforts to hook up with our friends–James and Zoe, Kim and Lisa. We had a nice chat in the campground with James and Zoe while waiting for Kim to finish up work.  Then we all went out to dinner at the Moab Brewery. That was one of the fondly remembered restaurants. It was a great evening of catching up, sharing new happenings, and reminiscing about our experiences in Montana.   This brewery has FANTASTIC beers on tap, but they don’t bottle any of them.  Glen’s plans to bring some back to Maine to share with the guys at a fall campfire quickly fizzled out, but he did, however, sample several different beers so that he could make a complete report when he returns home. 

A bit off the subject of what we are doing….James is an author, and we just finished reading one of his books,Heckel Casey  It is an interesting read with a classic battle of good vs. evil.  He also has some horror stories if that is more your thing….  look up James Hoch.

The next day was one of fun activities that allowed us to avoid the heat. We started with the highlight of the trip–an airplane flight over Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  Our friend Kim is a pilot who flies rafters back from trips on the Colorado River, as well as tourists looking to see the national parks from the air. He also has his own plane and had some spare time that day. We had our own private tour of the parks from the air. It was amazing! Glen decided that looking down from 7000 feet while seated in an airplane isn’t as scary as a 1000 foot drop on a hiking trail.   Here are some photos from that tour.

After the great flight, we decided to head up Castle Creek Canyon to a local winery. Wine is hard to find in Utah. You can’t get it in the grocery store. This particular winery was also located at a resort called Red Cliffs Lodge. Here you could ride horses, raft, and do other outdoor activities from a base right on the Colorado River. Because of the location with beautiful red cliffs all around and the river flowing by, many movies have been filmed in the area. There was a small museum dedicated to the films located there and we had fun exploring it.

The dummy of “Thelma” from Thelma and Louise was in the museum along with a lot of old west artifacts, movie posters and photos, costumes, and other memorabilia. Lots of the John Wayne westerns, Indiana Jones, and other movies were filmed in the Moab area. They say one or two movies shoot here every year.  A new movie with Will Smith called After Earth recently finished filming here. And….we got to see lots of the props and sets for the current movie being made there.  There were cool old trains and train cars loaded with ore all loaded on flatbed trucks. We were hoping some director would “discover” us and we would be cast as extras….but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Terry would have made a fine barmaid, and Glen the shopkeeper that gets killed or some other equally impressive roles. We would have had to call up Rich for some pointers on acting. Oh, well. Some other time perhaps. If only we got to see the stars, at least…  The latest spiderman actor, Andrew Garfield, and Johnny Depp are making a movie version of The Lone Ranger. No luck in that department either. I think that seeing Johnny Depp act as Tonto will be really interesting!  Anyway, the winery and film museum were interesting, and we picked up two bottles of a nice white wine. Then we headed back to town to reserve a spot on an evening boat tour.

The evening boat tour was a combination dinner/tour. The dinner was billed as a cowboy Dutch oven dinner, so Glen was looking forward to seeing what kinds of things they would cook up. There were several kinds of BBQ’d meats, a potato/veggie/cheese sidedish, baked beans, corn, rolls, salad, and apple crisp for dessert. At this meal Glen decided a third Dutch oven may be on his wish list so he can cook a main dish, a side dish, and a dessert. Santa??  He also determined that although the food was good, it didn’t hold a candle to his own dutch oven meatloaf or stew recipes. 

We had a nice chat with the people at our table for dinner. It turned out that the gentleman across from us was a scout leader, and the people next to him were also big into scouting. So our dinner conversation consisted of talk about Dutch oven dinners, Boy Scouts and their shenanigans, and camping in general.

The boat ride was after sunset, and they had a light truck that would drive near the river and light up the canyon walls as a narration was playing. It included some geology, some western history, and some music. Because the river was extremely low….the safety tour included the instructions to just hold the PFD over your head and walk to shore as the water was only waist deep at the deepest parts….we could not go as close to some of the areas that were lighted as we normally could have. That made it a bit less dramatic than it may have been. But it was a nice gentle, cool, evening cruise on the Colorado River.

Friday was hiking day!  We rolled out of bed early to beat the desert heat as much as possible. Our planned hike was to Delicate Arch. That is the arch you see on all the Utah T-shirts! (and the license plate) Delicate Arch Hike  We had hiked this before when we visited Arches, and looked forward to a repeat experience. With lots of water and a snack, we set off to have fun. That goal was accomplished, and even though Terry got sand in her shoe and had to stop to apply a band-aid on the hole it carved in her toe….we did it.  Even Glen admitted that the heat really made an easy hike difficult, and we both shook our heads at the people starting the hike at noon with no water bottles in sight.

We then drove to another part of the park to see Double Arch. It is a beautiful sight, and hard to appreciate just how BIG it is until you put people in the photos. Glen once again climbed up into the arch to see over the other side, and Terry once again decided she was not a mountain goat. While going up would be okay, coming down would not be pretty.

The visitor center on the way out was our next stop. We hadn’t stopped on the way in because we were trying to beat the heat. It wasn’t built when we were here in 2006, so we had fun exploring the gift store and watching the interpretive film.  If you visit a park, we highly recommend seeing the film that they have. It is always a learning experience. (and sometimes the only air conditioning around!)

Next we took a side road out of Moab toward Potash to see some ancient Indian writings and some dinosaur footprints (allosaurus) that are within easy walks of the road. They were both really fun to find and the drive along the Colorado River was nice as well. It was downstream from where we had taken the boat tour, so all new scenery for us.

We decided we know why some countries adopted the practice of afternoon siestas. Two of the three days we were there, we would go swimming in the pool in the early afternoon, then retreat to the cabin for a nap, and then get up in time to enjoy the cooler evening and dinner. It really did help us cope with the heat.

Lastly, we went out to dinner one more time with Kim and Lisa to try to say thanks for the airplane tour. It was another evening of laughter and a perfect way to end our time in Moab.