Rafting the Colorado and Exploring Moab

Rafting the Colorado and Exploring Moab

Booked in with MOAB Adventures today and we enjoyed a very lovely, peaceful and scenic few hours on the Colorado River.  Steve was disappointed because it was pretty tame, only three actual rapids on this section of the river, all Class 1-2, but a nice take anyways.

Checked out the Moab Brewery later, a really cool place, excellent craft beer and they also distill their own vodka.  Food is good as well, and Steve finally met his match with the hottest chicken wings he had ever sampled. We bought a 6-pack to take home, then back to the campground to hide out from the sun.

It should be noted that Moab has no art galleries, gift shops or museums in the immediate area, or none that we could find, so if that is your thing and you are not an adventurous outdoor type, you may be dissatisfied with a visit.

The next day we decided to check out another national park – this time Arches National Park, just a short drive outside of Moab.

Our RV snaked up the entrance road and waited patiently to get into the park at 11 am in the morning.  In line for the entry gate, you can see entsy, weensy cars crisscrossing the walls of the cliffs ahead of you as you approach this dramatic entrance to Arches National Park.

This is a very beautiful park with lots of pull-outs for viewing the sights. We hiked the .8 mile “easy” hike to Landscape Arch, but never got to the end of it (that we know of) because we left without water, or a hat for Steve.  Next time, we learned to be prepared for even so-called easy hikes, especially in the desert.

And talk about not being prepared, we nearly ran out of gas during this trip to Arches, so we coasted as much of the descent as we could and eventually made it to a gas station in Moab, five miles from the park’s exit.

Our day ended well though, once we found Rick’s Glass, not far from our campground and the friendly, professional owner quickly repaired the small ding in our windshield, before it became a big problem. 

We found three days to be plenty in Moab and we are glad to be hitting the road again tomorrow!

Moab, Utah

Moab, Utah

After a good night’s sleep and breakfast at Ruby’s we fueled up, washed our windows and headed out toward Moab. We drive on Scenic Byway 12 – an “All American Highway” – the highest designation of US scenic byway system and soon enter The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

We traveled past many small towns where most families are alfalfa farmers or ranchers. It was interesting to me that the growing season is only 120 days, just three months long!

All of a sudden, we dropped into incredible switchback turns over high white cliffs. The landscape shifted from red to white in a second as we took a turn in the road. Drive some more, and now it’s red again as we fly through Capitol Reef National Park.  Sheer red cliffs and azure blue skies!  Who knew?  An unexpected treat on the road!  Now, finally left on Route 24 and we are traversing flat, wide open expanses of nothingness.  Utah goes on forever!

Capitol Reef National Park, Double Rock Arch Formation. Photo by Ray Bilcliff of Pexels

Finally, we are crossing over the Colorado River and literally flying (80 MPH is the speed limit) toward Moab. It’s warm and dry and amazingly beautiful!

We are booked at the ACT Campground and Environmental Learning Center, a green powered sustainable campground in Moab. Moab is surrounded by the La Sal Mountains, and we travel through a long busy retail area that is chock full of outfitters.  Here you’ll find someone to take you kayaking, hiking, white-water rafting, climbing, mountain biking, hang-gliding, scenic helicopter tours and lots more.  The entire town caters to the adventure seekers among us with retail shops for their gear and lots of restaurants to feed the hungry after a day’s adventuring. Moab also has lots of chain motels with busy pools, designed to cool you off after time in the desert sun.

Our campground is geared to the environmentalist, so there is no pool. There are yurts, and lots of tents and a smallish section for RV’s. It featured a communal indoor kitchen and an outdoor kitchen.

The big disappointment is the lack of a pool, but they advertise the “Ol’ Swimming Hole” a short distance away. It’s a Bureau of Land Management property, and sounded great, an earth friendly way to cool off in the hot desert sun and would make up for the lack of a pool.  What a bust!  We gave it a try but RV’s cannot make it down the road to access this swimming hole, there wasn’t even a place to park an RV and hike in.  No points for “truth in advertising” for this RV Park.