Life after Zion is starting to feel like a hit and run. Hit the road, run through the sights and hit the road again.
Driving Betty is heavy workload in graduating elevations with rumble strip lanes and dish rattling pavement. Exploring in the never-ending cold and rain is tipping the scales to tiresome. We keep thinking grey skies are gonna clear up, so we put on our happy “go” face, this time running from goblins to arches and canyons.
But first, chores. With no bars for 3 days, we were behind on posting blogs. Library. All our warm clothes were muddy and wet. Laundry. Out of dishwashing liquid and half and half. Grocery. Destination: Moab, UT, 150 miles east under dark skies and traveling storms.
Moab is a cute tourist town with one library, one laundromat, one grocery store, one oversized RV parking spot and dozens of restaurants, souvenir shops and name-your-adventure outfitters. Voted USA’s “best small town library” in 2007, it had everything you want for blogging updates – fast enough wifi, a group puzzle-in-progress and wandering cats.
Like Cher or Madonna, this one name operation says it all. “Laundry” was a sparkling clean, state of the art facility with industrial machines and a technician to teach you how to use them. $12 in quarters and 2 quesadillas from the food truck across the street made us feel whole again.
Only the hike to Angel’s Landing was more crowded than Kroger’s City Market. We played bumper carts in every aisle with Moab locals, getting our must have provisions and stocking up with a big sale on seltzer water (it’s harder to find than you think!) On the way out of town we stopped for gas and a shot of the Lion’s Park Bridge, crossing the Colorado River and connecting Moab to Arches National Park.
Our mounting impression of this Mighty Five Mecca is that it was definitely home to some prehistoric civilization. We used to laugh at the alien life theorists, but now we get where they’re coming from.
The first of our three night stay here in Dead Horse Point State Park was short but electric. We pulled in around 6:45pm and plugged in to reheat leftover tortellini soup with a crusty baguette. No reason to unpack – we have to move campsites everyday because we pre-paid our reservations, scoring only single night stays. Knowing what we know now, BLM is at the bottom of the road and you can stay there as long as you want but you have to give up $40 every night plus electric plug-ins such as heat, microwave and charging Como batteries, for the the free convenience of not moving. For as much moving as we’ve done in the past 3 months, that sounds like a steal!