We’ve decided that you can identify some places by the predominant non-auto vehicle you see on the local roads. Horse and buggy? Nappanee, Indiana. Snowmobiles? Lincoln, New Hampshire. Golf cart? Sarasota, Florida. Harley? Sturgis.
And when what you see more than anything else is ATVs and UTVs, you’re in Moab.
Moab is a playground for adults who want to play on rocks and get covered in its signature red dust.
Like us.
That Day We Biked
We got one share of that dust on the day we biked.
The Colorado River runs here, and Moab clings to it like a lifeline. Part of that includes miles of paved bike trails alongside, one of which you see here.
When biking single file, it’s often hard to communicate from the front position, so we’ve worked out our own secret set of hand signals.
As we exited the north side of town and turned east, the Colorado River appeared next to us, plowing its inexorable way through the majestic, red-sandstone gorge it had carved over millions of years.
Rachel’s hand flashed above her helmet, opening and closing her palm repeatedly to show that her mind was being blown by the timeless beauty of this place.
This segment was the beginning of our twenty miles for the day. Later, we walked/rode the final mile of The Whole Enhilada — one of the world’s most famous and insane mountain biking trails. So, y’know, we’ll be bragging about that for a while.
Those Days We Visited National Parks
We got more red dust on our National Park visits. Arches is five miles away; Canyonlands forty. We spent a day at each.
Arches National Park is a preserve of improbability. Boulders poise, as if to fall from their teetering position atop vertical spires. Enormous delicate arches, rounded window holes, stone hollows, chiseled canyons, and other jumbles of stone molded into inconceivable fluid shapes all clutter this Dali-esque landscape. We highly recommend a visit.
Gazing from the precipice of a vast canyon edge into yet another deep chasm far below in Canyonlands National Park is another exercise in surrealism. These beautiful, gaping absurdities of geologic scale mesmerize you with the subtle, hypnotic echo of agelessness. Of the two parks here, this was our favorite.
That Day We Played at the Cowboy Jacuzzis
One on particularly toasty, dusty day, we decided to splash at the “Cowboy Jacuzzis” — as a reward.
And a gallery from our biking day:
