Greetings from Utah, but we are almost to Arizona....
We arrived at Gouldings Campground at Monument Valley about 4:30 and are spending the big bucks for hookups, showers, wifi, etc. Up to & including tonight our average cost per night is $11.06. We will visit the Navajo Tribal Visitor Center tomorrow and look into a tour -vs- us driving ourselves through Monument Valley.
I don’t want this to be too much blah blah blah about where we went and what we saw. Never the less, we are seeing some beautiful scenery. And Delicate Arch at Arches NP was truly a WOW experience.
The Ravens: We were told by our Fiery Furnace Ranger at Arches that Ravens are extremely intelligent birds. They rank up there with dolphins and golden retrievers in the brains department. They can imitate many sounds and are very clever at opening things. When we pulled into our campsite at Dead Horse State Park I thought I heard a frog across the road and followed the sound to see what I would find And there was a raven making croaking sounds! At the Needles area of Canyonlands they had signs posted to keep all food containers in locked cars because the ravens can open many boxes and zippers such as on coolers. They stated further that you can get a citation if you fail to keep your food secure from the birds. So our raven encounter came when we went for a 2.4 mile hike this morning at the Needles area of Canyonlands. When we parked the camper we noticed a couple birds flying right over to us kind of like begging chipmunks. We did not think too much about it at the time then when we returned from out hike there was a raven up on the camper roof and he seemed to be picking at something. Dan climbed up to chase him away (he ignored my clapping) and we found he had removed all of the caulking around the running lights near the camper top!
The Burger: Moab, Utah seems like a cool little town. Mountain bike shops on every other corner and all kinds of “happenings” going on. Folk Festival and marathon this past few days. They have a funky volunteer run radio station and instead of a Goodwill store they have WabiSabi. When you make a purchase you get to vote for which local nonprofit organization you want them to support. Across the street from WabiSabi is Milt’s Stop & Eat. We were past there on a Sunday afternoon and the parking lot was packed. Almost a week later we were back in town and Dan offered to buy me my first meal out since we left home... I knew just where I wanted to go and we were not disappointed! Milt’s is local owned. They use local fresh ingredients; we shared a burger, fries and a chocolate shake. MMMM Good! in fact it was so good we went back the next day when we passed back through town.
The Ride: I am no dare devil and I am too old to do too many new crazy things but riding just little bit of slick rock trails is really really fun, We rode the Great Pyramid trail at Dead Horse Point State Park. It was only 4.2 miles and only rated Easy-Moderate, but it was enough thrill and fun for me. I spilled once and had to walk a few places. It was as exciting was skiing but with rocks & trees as obstacles instead of snow. Very fun.
The weather has turned very wintery so we are going to keep moving south looking for some warmer temperatures and who knows what adventures.
that's all for now... jean
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