Monday, May,04

It rained almost all last night until about 6:00 this morning. When I got up around 7:00 it was still cloudy and cold. By 9:00 The sun started to burn through the clouds and by 10:00 it was bright and clear but still a little chilly.
We went into Moab to the RV parts place to look for a new faucet for the tub/shower.
The guy had one but it was one of the plastic ones and he wanted $35.00 for a $12.00 faucet so I decided that I didn’t really need it that bad. I can work with this one until we get home and I’ll buy a brass one.
By the time we got home the temperature was getting warmer so we took the doors and windows off the jeep and headed for “Canyon Lands National Park”. On the way we turned off on the road to “Dead Horse Point State Park” the view from the point is breath taking.

That is the Colorado river you see at the right of the above picture and in the center of the one below.

Later in the day we were on the road you can see in the foreground of the next Picture.

After leaving Dead Horse Point we went to Canyon Lands National Park.
We drove to the visitors center, watched a video, got a map and went back toward the entrance and took White Rim Road which is the first left turn after you come through the gate. About a mile after the turn off you get to some really neat switch backs that take you down an almost vertical drop into the Colorado River Gorge. The road is good and wide with lots of turnouts for taking pictures and for getting out of the way of on coming vehicles of which there were few.

The views were spectacular.

I was amazed to see cyclists’ coming up the switch backs. I figured they would want to go down instead.

From the valley floor we could see Dead Horse Point.

And many other Interesting formations.




We could see this white vehicle coming toward us at a long distance. At first we thought it was some kind of jeep but as it got closer I thought it looked more like a “Model A”. When It finally got close enough to recognize, I saw that it was an MG TD. We pulled over to get a picture of it as it came over a rise in the road.

When the guy got to us he stopped and I asked him what the hell he was doing out here with such a nice old car.
“Hell” he said, “It just a Volkswagen”. It turned out to be a kit car.
Patti asked him if she could sit in it to get a picture.
“Sure“, he said, “if you will take a picture of me afterwards”
Here is Patti in the car.

We stopped at a couple of places to get shots of the River.


And more rock formations.

Patti said she thought this shot looked like a jeep commercial.
Maybe for 1989. :o)

A little further down the road we came across this beautiful snake. I think it was a Gofer Snake.

Near the end of the dirt road we came to a large mining area called “Potash” so I guess that is what they are scooping up. There were a series of large settling ponds each one a little higher up the slope. I don’t know how the operation worked. Patti was fascinated by the loader and got this shot.

We got to talking with some folks at one of the view spots back in the canyon and they told us of an outfit that does Jet Boat tours called “Canyon Lands By Night”. They said that the place was on the north side of the river just outside of Moab.
The road we were on came out on highway 191 just north of town less than a mile from their office so we went there and booked an evening dinner run for Wednesday at 5:30 pm.

We had another wonderful day and got back to “Plan B” around 6:30.
I had put some ribs to cook in the crock pot before we left this morning, so all we had to do was pour off the excess water and fat, add some barbcue sauce, make coleslaw and wait about 30minutes for the sauce to warm up and then eat. It’s always yummy.
Tomorrow we plan to go to a place called Gemini Bridges.