Red Cliffs Lodge day 2

We spent today visiting Arches National Park. The NPS has instituted a timed entry program into the park. Only a certain number of cars are allowed to enter at a certain time. We entered at 10:00. We were in the park for 6 hours and did several hikes to see some of the arches and other rock formations that make this park so interesting. The hike to Delicate Arch was difficult. Only 3 of us made it up there. Delicate Arch is iconic in that it's picture is on the Utah license plate, the Utah Quarter and other Utah stuff. Tomorrow we are headed for Canyonlands NP. 

Red Cliffs Lodge

The crowd has assembled. We will visit Arches tomorrow. Weather was a little iffy today but seems to have mellowed some.

Moab day 2

Jenny shuttled me out to a trailhead that I can ride and when I'm finished I can ride back into Moab. I've done that routine several times in the last few years. This year I felt like  I might not be 69 anymore. I had no hip ot knee problems but I was ready for this bike ride to be over with. It was 17 miles mostly on slick rock or dirt. The Aggie reunion begins tomorrow. The Texas participants are spending the night in Albuquerque and will arrive here tomorrow afternoon. We are going to put the MP3 in storage. We found a place for $10 a night that will allow us to plug in to keep the refrigerator cold. Tomorrow is going to be busy. 

Moab Utah

We are camped in a resort called "The Portal". This is where we have always stayed while in Moab. It's real convenient, it has cement parking pads a laundry and pool and some space between sites. The only problem is it's getting ungodly expensive. I guess you get what you pay for. The main reason for this years visit is that Moab is the location of this year's Fight'n Texas Aggie Mini reunion. Sadly I am the only Squadron 16 fighter left. We lost Alan last year. Jerry and John and Diane and Jean are on their way. We will be staying in a resort a few miles out of town on the Colorado River called "The Red Cliffs Lodge". We plan on visiting Arches and Canyonlands with a raft trip thrown in. I suspect John and Jerry are plotting something. I want them to understand that whatever it is, they will fail miserably. Mike drop. The pic is our Portal (extremely expensive) campsite.

Bluff Utah

We have been to Bluff a bunch. This is one of the 2 places I would start my Cedar Mesa backpacking trips from. The San Juan River flows through town and Jenny & I have used Bluff as a base for some kayak trips on the San Juan. Speaking of the river. I rode my bike down to it and it is flowing so fast it's scary. It's normally 1000 CFS or so, I'm guessing it's 10,000 CFS now. Hopefully that water is helping to fill Lake Powell. Our drive today took us over Wolf Creek Pass. That snow had to be many feet deep. That other pic was taken at a rest area in Mancos Co. The mountain in the background is Mesa Verde. Some of the roads out here are pretty lonely. We are in Moab tomorrow. 

Alamosa Co. KOA

We didn't move very far today. Around 30 miles. On the way here we hiked up a rocky trail to see Zapata Falls. We were not alone. There were 2 things about the falls and the hike that were note worthy. In order to actually see the falls you had to walk in the creek below the falls. It's snow melt. To say the water was cold would be a gross understatement. It was so cold it hurt. The other thing of note was that big hunk of ice visible in the pictures. Apparently in the winter the falls completely freeze. The fact that the ice is still there is testament to how frigging cold the water is. We move tomorrow. Should be in Utah. 

Sand Dunes day 2

Today was dedicated to hiking. We have quite a bit of, what is decidedly unpleasant, hiking experience on sand dunes, so we stuck to the hills adjacent to the sand pile. We left early to avoid, 1.The crowds & 2.The forecast afternoon bad weather. Turns out virtually everyone here has come to walk on the dunes so we had the trails to ourselves. The weather crumped after we got back to the MP so our planning was spectacular. There is one more hike I've been wanting to do. We'll do that tomorrow on our way out. We have a couple of days to kill before we reach Moab.