Day ten: Park, park, park, bar
I’ve never been truly afraid of being struck by lightening until this trip, and I wouldn’t have thought about it much now either if it hadn’t been for that waitress in Bryce who told me that a German tourist had been killed two weeks ago, standing on the rim of the canyon. There is something a little malevolent about the lightening striking him and not a metal handrail or tree or one of the many oversized tourist buses driving around. I realized I didn’t have to be the tallest thing, or the most conductive.
We were surrounded by thunderstorms today so I definitely kept one eye on them as I toured the sights.
We had breakfast on main street Moab, aka the main highway, as semi trucks rumbled past. Moab is built a little valley by the Colorado river, safely protected by nondescript red hills from all the beauty that surrounds it. To be fair, if you blindfolded me and brought me here from San Francisco I would probably say, “Oh wow, this is so pretty!” But go just a mile in any direction and things get amazing. I’m sure the city is in this spot for practical reasons, but it is a pity. Also, this is a big hub for “adventure” tourism…mountain biking, rafting, 4-wheeling, etc. so in that case people wake at dawn and don’t come back until evening and don’t care what the town looks like. I feel bad putting in a crappy picture, but here is Moab:
Have I mentioned that all the tourists around us are from Europe? French, German, Italian, misc. I want to apologize to them for the bad food they are being forced to eat. There is good food in the U.S. I swear! Except for that one good meal, we’ve been eating stuff that is Denny’s-equivalent. Edible but dull and greasy. I’m not a food snob by any means but I’m not used to having a waitress look at me blankly when I ask if the trout is fresh. “Fresh? Well, it’s frozen or processed or something. I’m not sure.”
Our first stop was Arches National Park, just a couple miles from here. This is the first time I felt I was on the tourist treadmill. It isn’t a big park, and everyone got their maps from the ranger and obediently drove to each viewpoint, got out, snapped a picture, got back in and drove to the next. The scenery was gorgeous, but at this point I’m very spoiled. We’ve been driving on empty two-lane roads and have had beautiful spots completely to ourselves and I love that. Having to wait for a parking spot to view nature kind of ruined the ambiance!
Also, I think arches are neat, but they aren’t on my top 10 list of land features I must see.
Next we headed to Dead Horse Point state park, where you get an amazing view of Canyonlands.
It was getting late, but we wanted to visit Canyonlands as well, and it was only a short drive (short now means 15-20 miles!) so we went.
I’d been viewing Canyonlands from above at Dead Horse Point, and I was hoping/assuming that we’d be able to get down in there and see those crazy mountains from the ground, but it turns out the road runs along the top of a butte(?) mesa(?) and we had almost the exact same view, just from 10 miles south. I’d like to come back sometime and rent a jeep and really check it out. These fast trips are really just to give us an overview of places we’d like to come back to someday.
We had dinner at a good Thai place and then tried to hang out at Woody’s Tavern, but the live band was so bad and loud it was unbearable.
Roadtripz and Other Journeys 