Arches

I took many photos from a moving car. We left our brothel in the dark. I was able to make coffee but no food. We were going to the Needles section of Canyonlands but Steve wanted breakfast first, 40 miles to Moab. Ended up skipping Canyonlands altogether. Sky was pretty at dawn

Wilson's Arch. Utah has plenty of turn outs for its scenery

touristy place that was closed at 7 am . Called Hole in the Rock. A 3000 foot home was built into a cave and had numerous kitschy sculptures around it

Moab has lots of breakfast places for all its bicyclists. This was the Love Muffin where I had an excellent breakfast panini

Arches National Park

they called this part Park Avenue as the path ran between huge monoliths on both sides

Steve in the middle

me in white

us in double arch

Delicate Arch is to the left. It was a mile climb to get this far. There was a 4 mile hike to get closer

sand dune arch

After lunch, we opted to go along the Colorado river through a canyon

ghost town that we stayed in

The diner in Thelma and Louise

I walked along the deserted road while the sun set

Utah is home to 5 National Parks, numerous National Monuments and lots of state parks. We were able to see 4 of the five. Canyonlands is huge and divided into 4 areas, two of which are only accessible with 4WD vehicles. The two that one can drive a car into still involve long distances so we skipped the Needles section and the Island of the Sky. But as we added the Grand Canyon North Rim which is in Arizona, we still saw 5 national parks.

Moab is the capital of mountain bikers. Plenty of road cyclists come there too along with many retirees for the good weather. It had lots of upscale restaurants. We went there for both breakfast and lunch as Arches is only 5 miles away.

Arches was pretty. We went on several hikes with a lot of scrambling up rocks. At one point we had parked near the paths for two different arches. I thought I had made it clear which one we were going to. Steve had gone back to the car
for another lens (he does want that new camera that all the high performing lenses are in one unit) while I walked to Sand Dune Arch and waited and waited for him. Did he not understand me? He has significant hearing loss and refuses to wear his aids. Did he get lost? Turns out to get into this area, one has to squeeze through a very narrow chasm while going up a couple of feet. A woman coming down panicked and refused to jump the two feet into soft sand. No other way out. She just stood there for a long time backing people up coming and going. Steve got caught up in that.   He was in disbelief that someone could be so uncoordinated. I said that will be me coming out of there though when the time came, I did fine. I did stop for a photo warning the woman behind me. She continued plunging ahead trying to push me. Perhaps she had hearing loss too.

Despite the rules against it, a couple of people climbed one of the taller monoliths. Made me dizzy looking at them.

Lunch was at their food truck court in Moab. It was in the 90s by then but they had lots of sprayers and shade so it was comfortable. Very tasty Mexican food.

Instead of Canyonlands, we went along the National Scenic waterway following the Colorado into a canyon for 40 miles. The bike path went by the water for about 10 miles. The canyon valley was filled with numerous campgrounds.

Then on to the worst air B&B ever!  Didn't I look at the reviews? Well yes I did. In advance I read that it was not the Ritz and it smelled funny. After our stay, I saw one negative review. I did write one myself and it never got published. It seems the owner has to review you first before anything gets published, a major defect in the system. It was located in a ghost town, which they were upfront about but not about how badly the house was falling apart. Plus the owner was some sort of hoarder with the patio completely covered with broken down furniture spilling over into the yard. The worst part was that the bathroom was dirty and lacking toilet paper. They provided one bar of communal soap which had pubic hairs on it. Yep gross. They had advertised air conditioning  (a hot day!) but I assumed this was false as the house was so old though later as another guest complained, it was turned on though little of it reached our room. Steve was totally disgusted and assumed all of this was my fault and thus refused to speak or  to look at me the whole evening. I just went out and walked and walked mad that I have to make all the plans and then get all the blame if things are not perfect. Then the next day, every time he saw some sort of motel he would say, why didn't we stay here, why didn't we stay there. Ugh.
And I was out of wine. Tried to buy some in non-Mormon Moab but it was a Sunday.

Below is our food truck and those crazy climbers: