OMG!!!
October 17, 2007
OMG!!! That was what we both thought yesterday, when we saw the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. More on that later. First, I need to bring you up-to-date.
We left Crossville, TN on September 10th as planned. Our first stop was in Bloomington, IN to visit my folks for a couple of days, then on to Iowa City to play with the grandkids and their parents. The next stop along the way was Lincoln, NE to see our older son Kevin, and Mike’s mother. After enjoying visits with all, we headed West.
Early evening, on September 24th, we rolled into Moab, Utah. We had not planned on arriving there until the next day, but after driving through the mountains outside of Denver, there wasn’t really much to see along the way, so we kept on trucking. Lots of vast emptiness until we got close to Moab, and then we started seeing dramatic changes in the terrain. Where there had been nothing but flat nothingness, there were suddenly large red rock formations.
Since we had traveled so hard the day before, our first full day in Moab was spent just getting the camper set up, doing laundry, and driving around. We had been blessed with a Harvest Moon on our drive into Moab, so the next evening we headed out away from the lights of the city to enjoy the sheer beauty of it. We were not disappointed. It was a genuine Kodak – National Geographic moment. Any pictures one may have seen of a full moon set against rock formations could not hold a candle to witnessing it firsthand. All that was missing was the coyote baying at it off in the distance. We took a couple of pictures, but due to the simplicity of our camera, that magnificent moon looks like a distant dot. I’ll post a couple of the pictures, but you’ll definitely not be impressed.
Glenn and Jalene Carter joined us at our campground on the 26th. They too had traveled two long hard days to get to Moab. Glenn and Jalene are more experienced at full-time rving, and are superb at planning activities, so we just followed their leads and suggestions. Our first adventure was going to be exploring the Arches National Park. NOTE: If you are 62 or older, and do any sort of traveling, be sure and get your permanent senior pass to our nation’s national parks. It gets you into all of them for free, and gets discounts on campgrounds. Well worth your $10
On Friday, we all went out to the Moab Airport for their fourth annual skydiving show. The skies were clear, the temperature was warm, and the wind was mild when we arrived. Talk about a counter-culture. It reminded me of the kyakers we had encountered in North Carolina a few years before. They definitely walk to a different beat, but fascinating! We got to talk to a few of them, and we even watched them packing parachutes. Some skydivers packed their own chutes, but there were a couple of guys from Iowa who were there specifically to get paid to pack chutes. We watched a few group jumps, and even a few tandem jumps. For one brief moment, I almost talked myself into trying a tandem jump. I had erased it from my “list of things to do before I die,” a few years back, and the excitement of the moment almost made me put it back on the list, but good sense prevailed. I almost thought we could convince Glenn to try it, but he too opted out. The mother of one of the owners tried to convince us that it was a safe sport, and that, “rafters have had deaths, but we have not had a single accident.” Oops, wrong thing to say, because the last day of the show, one diver’s chute failed to open and he perished. I think that is permanently off my list. There’s a message there.
We did several different hikes in the Arches, but especially loved our guided hike to the Firey Furnace. You may think, “big deal, a bunch of big red rocks with holes in them,” but it was much more. The hike took us about a mile and a half into the rocks, with some true scrambling, and some rock hugging through narrow slots along the way. Our guide was terrific. He asked if our group would mind spending a little more time than scheduled, and go on a little side trip. Of course, we all agreed to go along. Boy were we glad we did. This young man trekked us through another narrow formation into a magnificent canyon amphitheater that rose high above. He asked that we all just find a place to sit and be silent for a few minutes. Just sitting there, you could take in the grandeur and serenity of it all. It was truly a spiritual moment.
Another day, we all piled into Glenn’s four-wheel drive Jeep and headed into Dead Horse Canyon. Our intention was to go offroad for some fun. Before we actually got offroad, we got to see some crazy high wall climbers, and some great petroglyphs. When we did get off the main road, we bounced along a bumpy dirt road. As we progressed, we noticed some clouds forming and thought it best to not go too far and get caught on a dirt road that could suddenly become a red, soggy, and possibly flooded road. Just before we decided to turn around, we happened upon a huge precariously balanced boulder that seemed to defy gravity. We did manage to get a great picture of Mike trying to hold it up. The offroad trip was postponed for a while.
…to be continued
