Moab Spring Break 2010

We left for Moab on thursday of spring break. We went another couple from the ward with us, Stuart and Maria Zuniga. They drove separate since they had to come home a day early. It wasn't too long of a drive down at about four hours total. When we got there, we got our tents set up. Our tent was one of our wedding gifts from my parents. It's supposed to be a five man tent and it was way huge for us. We were able to fit a lot of things from our car in it during the day so the Zunigas could fit in our car. That night all we did was drive through town and then took a short hike in Arches National Park to see all the stars. There were tons! We eventually couldn't find where the trail was supposed to go, so we turned around and came home. It wasn't too cold that night so we made dinner and then played some card games in our tent for a while and ate some cookies.

The next day we went back to Arches to go on a few hikes. It was a whole different experience in the day than it was the night before. Mountains were everywhere! And we started spotting arches in the distance all around us. Our first hike was to what they say is probably the longest arch in the world. There was a sign that talked about how a huge boulder fell from the under side of the arch while some hikers were there. Nobody was hurt, but a guy got a picture of the boulder breaking away from it. I believe that was in the early 90's. That was a very cold hike, with wind coming through some of the canyons we were walking through.

Our next hike was a longer 3 mile hike up to see the Delicate Arch. It was such an amazing place. Right before we rounded the bend to where the arch was, Stuart and I climbed a small incline to our right up to where there was an archway in the rock. I got up there first, not knowing what I would see. I was shocked as I immediately saw the delicate arch perched between a canyon and a huge bowl in the rock. I had never imagined what that would look like. It was beautiful. I was pretty tired because my foot had been bothering me all day, and Cambria pushed me up the hill for a little while on the hike. It was cold at times, but way worth the pain.

We had a really nice camera that we are going to buy from Angie, and I took a lot of pictures. We decided that it was too cold to stay at the campsite till bedtime so we went to the local library and played Settlers of Catan. Then we found a pizza hut and ate there while playing some card games on the table. We went home, took showers at the campsite building, then went to bed. Stuart thought it wasn't camping if we had showers. I guess I agree, but it was so warm and felt way good.

Saturday morning, Stuart and Maria left for home after we looked at a few shops in Moab. Cambria and I walked to the finish line of a half marathon that was going on in town to look around. There was nothing much to do there so we decided to go to Slick Rock. We didn't have any bikes or anything so we looked around at the other bikers then headed up the mountain. It got pretty hard to get up the dirt road at the muddy parts, but my car made it pretty well. I got quite a bit of red mud on my car, which made it look like it's supposed to be a 4-wheel drive. Once we came down from the mountain we went and checked out a Hostel that was in town for future reference. It was way disgusting and we decided that camping anywhere would be way better than staying there.

Well, at that point we had traveled North to Arches and South to Slick Rock, so we decided to go on a drive up the Colorado river canyon to the East. We saw a lot of campsites up there. The whole road was paved so it was a pretty quick drive compared to the Slick Rock mountain trail. It was pretty nice. There was a little place to fill our water bottles in a spring, so we stopped on the way out and did that too. Cambria had read that there was a bird refuge to the West of Moab so we headed out West. We Ended up covering every direction of the compass that we could possibly go from Moab without a Jeep.

We couldn't find the refuge, so we just kept driving and driving following the river along Kane Springs Road. Eventually we went through a couple of streams and the road got pretty rough. There were some really narrow switch backs too that dropped a few hundred feet really fast and went through some narrow canyons. We came out in a very large valley. There was a sign that said it was some sort of state trust land. We decided to turn around before we got too far up a mountain to keep the car in somewhat of descent shape. I really enjoyed driving around with my wife. Just having the time alone reminded me of our honeymoon. After we got back into town we bought Cambria a blanket at the local ALCO, which is kind of like a Wal-Mart. She used it inside her sleeping bag since she was cold the night before and slept horribly. I ended up freezing that night and slept horribly so she drove home in the morning.

Saturday night we also went out to eat at the only Chinese food place in Moab. It ended up being pretty good although I was skeptical at first. Chinese is Cambria's favorite food and she really enjoyed it as well. None of the employees could understand much English, so you know it's somewhat authentic. On our way back to the campsite we saw a restaurant perched on a cliff so we decided to check it out. The road up to it was filled with pot holes, and was very long. We just got a desert and looked out over the city since we had already eaten dinner. We read on the back of the menu that it used to be a house that belonged to a guy who struck it rich off of natural Uranium in the 50's. He built himself a huge house on the mountain with Utah's biggest swimming pool (which was now gone, but we think we saw where it was, now filled in with dirt and grass.)

When we got back to camp we got all our stuff ready to leave the next morning except for the sleeping bags, pads, and the tent. Sunday morning we quickly folded them up and left for home so we could get back in time for church at 1:00. I poured us some cereal and we ate breakfast in the car on the way home. Last night I was actually able to fall asleep next to my wife in a warm bed, with no sleeping bags between us. We were both warm and fell right asleep. It was a wonderful vacation. Next time we want to rent some 4-wheelers for the trip, and take some bikes along.