April 22nd: After leaving Canyon of the Ancients NP Visitors Center, we hooked up and headed out with our next destination Moab, UT. Of course there was wind on our travel day, but nothing horrible, thankfully. We pulled in to our campground and settled in fairly early in the afternoon. Itching to get out and be active, Sean and I unhitched the truck and headed in to Moab in search of their bike path and a bookstore. Traffic through town was horrendous! Seems there are too many people visiting for the infrastructure to handle safely. We found our bookstore and hunted down a parking spot which had us walk by a food truck park. There was a specialty hot dog food truck that caught our eye and we planned to come back after our biking adventure. Back to the task at hand, we made our way to the bookstore and each found some books to read later. We finally made our way to the bike trail. It’s a beautiful path that goes into Moab, along the Colorado River, up to Arches NP, and many miles beyond. We parked at Lion’s Park Trailhead (very nice facilities) and headed East along the River to its first ending shortly after Goose Island Campground (further down the road it starts back again, but neither of us were wanting to ride on the road to get there). Backtracking, we next headed North to Arches NP and stopped at the sign to take a photo (we had already been through this park on a prior trip) and then back to the truck. In total, we logged over 9 miles on the trail. We worked up quite an appetite and loaded up quick to make it back to our found treasure of specialty hot dogs! We fought traffic and waited patiently for a parking spot only to find that our food truck was closed! The audacity!!! It was 6:20pm!!! Now we were both frustrated and hungry and trudged back to the truck. Once back in truck we came up with a plan to make our own specialty hot dogs at home with chili, cheese, mustard, pickles, and jalapeño! Sean grilled the hot dogs and I got the chili heated and everything ready and we had the best meal on the picnic table with the mountains as our audience in the background.
April 23rd: Sean planned to take us on an off-road approach to Canyonlands National Park via Long Canyon Trail. To get to this trail, we took Potash Road (beautiful views) that follows Colorado River and turned onto the trail. The trail was quite easy to navigate in our truck and again the views were beautiful. Sean was really wanting to use his drone to capture us while driving, so I drove us a little way while he used his drone and below is a video that he took. Once in Canyonlands NP, our main goal was to drive Shafer Canyon Rd down its many steep switchbacks to White Rim Rd and stop for lunch at Gooseneck Overlook Trail. We packed some PB&J sandwiches and ate while sitting on a rock overlooking the gooseneck shaped land below us and looking for other signs of life in the vast landscape. After some time, we loaded back up and headed back to Grand View Point Rd and first attempted to stop at Mesa Arch, but there were WAY too many people, so we headed to our next stop Aztec Butte Trail. Before we got there, we ventured to another area called Green River Overlook. Another viewpoint that makes you feel small. Once we satisfied our curiosity, we headed over to Aztec Butte Trail and hiked about 1.5 miles and nearly half of that was straight up! We saw a couple more Native American ruins and again a stellar view. Once back to the truck, we decided to drive to the end of the road, but were disappointed that there was no view you could see Green River without hiking many miles. So, we headed to the end of Grand Viewpoint Rd and the view did not disappoint! We headed home on the pavement this time and spent some time with the pups and had a pizza for dinner.
April 24th: We needed a lazy day, so we decided to take it slow and eventually we would go kayak the river to get some exercise. Sean made us pancakes and eggs on our camp stove griddle (we are still indecisive on getting a Blackstone) and lounged around with the pups. After lunch, we decided it was warm enough and headed to Lion’s Park to launch the kayaks. We had a wonderful time, although fighting against the current was a challenge it was not horrible. We stopped at Goose Island Campground for a rest and bathroom break and soon headed on. There was a small island in the river that we were trying to get to, but proved to be too far for our “lazy day”, so decided to let the current take us back to the launch point. We held onto each other’s kayak and kicked back, lazily meandering down the river. The current kept turning the bow of our kayaks the opposite direction of where we were heading so Sean was intermittently correcting our direction and due to this we decided that fending for ourselves would be best. We could see our stopping point in the short distance! Almost there! I see Sean shifting in his kayak and wondered what he was up to, then all of a sudden he flipped his kayak over and he and all his items went spilling into the river! I paddled as fast as I could to him while he was trying to hold his phone above the water and was able to grab it and laid it in my kayak. He was struggling a bit to grab his paddle and kayak and swim, so I decided to try and grab the end of his kayak to drag it to shore, then I FLIPPED OVER TOO! The water was sssooooo cold! I couldn’t think or talk, and felt like I couldn’t breathe! After a few of seconds of shock, all I could think was I lost Sean’s phone and my right shoe was gone… We both finally made it to the near shore both dragging our paddles and kayaks. Sean was already flipping his kayak over to drain the water once I settled on the rocks dreading the fact that I just lost his phone that he entrusted to me to keep safe. I flipped my kayak over and saw the flash of his phone’s cover slide to the bottom! I grabbed it and felt immediate relief that I didn’t lose it!!! I let him know I had it and quickly placed it in my fanny pack that carried my phone the whole time. All items were accounted for, minus my shoe. We tried our best to drain the water from my kayak, but had trouble for some reason. I happened to look past Sean and we sat on the rocks contemplating how bad this situation could have been (losing truck keys, wallets, phones) and I saw my shoe floating against the rocks! Sean went over to grab it for me and we decided to head for the launch point which was about 1/4 of a mile away and was super sketchy in my water riddled kayak. I felt I was going to tip over with every wind gust and wave. Luckily, we made it to the launch point without tipping over again! After draining all the water from the kayaks and getting loaded back up, we were exhausted from the stress of the whole situation of potentially losing phones and such. We headed home thanking God the whole time. After getting in dry clothes and taking care of pups, I cooked us some pasta w/ marinara and we ate around our fire pit to warm up. It was an early night for both us.
April 25th: We loaded the pups and ourselves in the truck with a route planned to take us to Gateway, CO via Onion Creek Trail in Utah. We passed many trail goers at the staging area and entrance to the trail, and got many funny and intriguing looks as our truck made its way down the trail. This trail is so pretty and offers many beautiful views and you can’t forget all the water crossings (Sean’s favorite part). We took Onion Creek Trail to Hideout Canyon Trail/BLM 100 to Polar Mesa Trail to Dolores Triangle Safari Rte/Gateway Rd to Castleton Rd. Sean was able to get some more drone footage. At nearly the end of this drive, we stopped at Bull Canyon Overlook & Dinosaur Track site. Dinosaurs are my favorite, so of course we had to stop and check it out! They had some well preserved tracks and you were free to roam the area to look for more and find your own area to overlook the canyon. Part of the route we planned to get to Gateway was closed for construction, so we ended up heading back to Moab by way of Castleton Rd. We passed many trails and viewpoints for the Castleton Towers in Castle Valley. We realize there is so much more exploring potential and that will always draw us back to this area. After our adventures of the day, the truck was quite dusty and we went to the local manual car wash and were surprised to find there was a line. Everyone had the same idea. Honestly it didn’t take long for the line to move along. While Sean was doing to grunt work, I was inundated with weather warnings for Tornados and Severe Weather for the area near our property back home in Texas. I got a call from Tammy (Sean’s mom) checking if we were aware and I was tracking the radar of the storms now that we had gained some cell service. This had us stressing a bit, although all we could do was hope and pray that everything would be okay. We watched that storm for hours as it sat there stationary over the area and waxed and waned and spit out a tornado (luckily in a field, not near our property). Our neighbors checked in with us and kept us updated on the severity of the storm. Once back to the motorhome, we took the pups to play ball and in Skittles case, find a stick and chew it. At one point I petted Skittles and immediately pulled my hand back because it felt like I got a sticker or cactus spine in my hand, but nothing was on me. I inspected her fur closer, but again nothing. She seemed unbothered, so I went to pet her again thinking it was a sticker that I knocked off her and it happened again. I asked Sean, “why does it hurt to pet your dog? I feel like I keep getting cactus spine or stickers.” He goes to pet her and pulls back immediately as well and says, “Ahhh!” I touched Skittles and also touched Sean and shocked us both, lol! We both look up and noticed giant power lines running the space above us and realized Skittles is electrified, but grounded because she’s not wearing shoes. We decided to vacate the area and take the pups on a long walk around the RV park. We started to load up all our outside items in preparation for traveling the next day.
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