MIGHTY MOAB!

Destination: Moab, Utah!  We love Moab, and were here two years ago, so we just had to come back!

When we arrived, it was 106 degrees!! I think this heat is following us!

We unhooked the trailer, got everything set up and the air conditioner going!!!  It takes a while to cool down an aluminum trailer!

After driving about 6 hours, we just relaxed at the trailer, did some laundry and had a good dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce (thanks Bobbi!)

We all got so excited to get up in the morning and head to Doughbird Donuts for a donut before our plans for the day began – BUT!!!!! We looked it up and guess what???  THEY WERE CLOSED!  The shop closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – we arrived on Tuesday and couldn’t wait for a donut on Wednesday!

It shouldn’t be that big of a thing….but may I tell you that, even though donuts are not my favorite thing, THESE donuts are different!  It’s hard to explain, so you’ll just have to trust me!  Doughbird donuts IS open on Thursdays, so all was not lost!

It’s hard to decide which flavor to get, but for me there is only ONE to order – the vanilla cake donut with icing and sprinkles!

Here are some of the other ones that are just as amazing – I am just partial to vanilla cake with icing and sprinkles!

Wednesday’s adventure was E-bike riding along the Colorado River in the Moab valley!!  It was even better than we all thought it would be!  Two years ago we all rode E-bikes along the rim of the Grand Canyon, which was spectacular – this was just as amazing in a whole different way – instead of being up high, looking down, we were down low, looking up!  The scenery is hard to describe and even harder to really capture the beauty in photos – but I will try!

The ride began along the river, which was so peaceful – and, once again, God is so good – it was 106 degrees the day before, but we woke up that morning to a cool morning and LOTS of clouds!  The temperature was about 75 degrees!!!!!  The sun really never came out on our entire three hour ride, so we never got too warm!!  It was wonderful!  We even rode for about ten minutes with a slight drizzle, which kept us so cool!

AND A COUPLE OF VIDEOS OF THE RIDE!  

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After the ride, we were ready for lunch, so we headed off to the FOOD TRUCK PARK!  It’s a cool place with about 10 different food truck options, and shaded tables to enjoy your food!

As we sat and ate lunch, we talked about how wonderful the bike ride was, and how much we all loved Moab!  And the best part is that we had another day to enjoy it again!

Thursday morning brought a trip to…..DOUGHBIRD DONUTS!  It was the first thing we did in the morning – haha!  Isn’t it the breakfast of champions?!?!

Two years ago, we had spend a whole day in Arches National Park, marveling at the beauty of the natural arches, and hiking to several of them!

This year we decided to drive into Canyonlands National Park and also Dead Horse Point State Park!  Leonard and I watched SO MANY YouTube videos of both places, and knew they would be amazing – just like Arches!

In Canyonlands National Park, the main attraction that we wanted to see was the MESA ARCH – well…I’m not even sure how to describe it and its beauty!  It’s about a ten minute hike to the arch, and even the pathway is beautiful – rocks and hills everywhere, different foliage like sage brush and cactus!

As we were approaching the arch, we passed a man who said to us “It’s well worth the walk, and they should name the arch ‘OH MY GOSH,LOOK AT THAT VIEW ARCH’! 

He wasn’t kidding!

As you approach the arch, it looks just like a pretty, but non-descript arch, especially after going to Arches National Park.  And THEN….

Here is what happens!

It’s like looking through a window into the entire canyon!  It actually left the four of us speechless for a minute!  I hope you will all enjoy these pictures – I think it gives a good idea of what we experienced!

I read somewhere that Canyonlands is like Utah’s grand canyon – YEP!

After the Mesa Arch, we headed to Dead Horse Point State Park, which is one of the most photographed and breathtaking red-rock visits in the Southwest. The panoramic views do make it look like a miniature Grand Canyon!  The legend of the name goes like this:  Cowboys used the steep, narrow neck of the mesa as a natural corral to herd and trap wild mustangs, tragically leaving some horses to die of exposure within sight of the water below!

One of the craziest things in Dead Horse State Park is the Shafer Trail roadway.  I had seen videos about it and it’s a crazy, windy, steep road down into the bottom of the canyon.  It is 19-miles long and UNPAVED, and it drops roughly 1,500 feet from a mesa and there are steep, dramatic switchbacks almost all the way down! We stood at the top of the mesa and got photos of the road and some cars doing the harrowing drive!!

After spending most of the day there, we headed back into Moab to grab lunch.  Another place we had seen, thanks to YouTube, was Antica Forma pizza – popular because of their authentic, wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizza – the oven is so hot that the pizza is done in NINETY SECONDS!  May I say that it was one of the best pizzas – it was a consensus among the four of us!

What an amazing and fun day in Moab!  So much to do and see there!

Next is another stop over (Elko, Nevada) before another “destination” – Sparks Nevada and Lake Tahoe!  On the way to Elko, we had to make a slight detour…

When you travel as much as we do, sometimes things go wrong on the trailer (or the truck as you saw in the last post!) – it’s one of those times for us!  There was an issue with our water tank that is under the trailer…the water tank support is a metal pan, held on by many bolts.  The heat we had in Hays, Kansas caused the water tank to expand and some of the water was draining out of the vent.  Because of that, Leonard crawled under the trailer, and when he did, he saw that FOUR bolts going down the center of the pan were MISSING!!!!!!!! 

We didn’t think there was a rupture in the tank, but since we have almost two more months to travel, we wanted to make sure!  Once again, God is taking care of us…Between Moab and our stop in Elko, Nevada is AIRSTREAM OF UTAH!!  It’s literally on the way!  After calling and explaining our issue, they told us to come on and they would take a look at it!

Friday morning we got up and left the campground at 6:30 am to head to the Airstream dealership – this is what we saw on the way out of town – beautiful!

We made it to Airstream of Utah at 11:00 am!  While they looked at the trailer, they gave us a recommendation for lunch – WOW!

The place is called SWEET LAKE BISCUITS AND LIMEADE!

You can probably tell by the name what the two specialties are!…

BISCUITS…AND LIMEADE!

We tried both – we shared a raspberry limeade – fresh raspberries in it and a lime wedge, with sugar around the rim of the glass – amazing!

And biscuits with sausage, egg and cheese – oh and one more thing.  They have hash brown bites, which are hash browns deep fried!  WOW – WOW – WOW! We could only eat one each – but they were delish!

Airstream of Utah was wonderful and every employee and technician was so kind to us!  It only took a couple of hours and, as they were replacing the missing bolts, they also noticed that our water pump was rattling!  It was just loose so they tightened it – another blessing for us!

Bolts replaced – check!

Water pump tightened – check!

Amazing lunch recommendation – check!

VOILA!  All is fixed and we were on our way!

Well…this has been an adventuresome few days to say the least!  But we are ready for whatever comes our way!  That’s part of the adventure!

It’s wonderful to have the blessing of our Airstream and time to see our beautiful country – oh, and friends to come along with us on these trips!

Until next time…