Moab is an interesting place. Reading the history it has had a boom and bust time over the last 50 years. The discovery of Uranium made it one of the wealthiest towns in the USA. With the decline of this market in the 1970's tourism has taken over with two major National Parks on the doorstep (Arches & Canyonlands). Also John Wayne made movies here & Harrison Ford filmed all the classic Indiana Jones movies in the area.
Tracee & I hit the road after breakfast and went straight to Arches National Park (2 miles out of Moab) before the day heated up. Arches has the highest concentration of natural sandstone arches in the world (over 80). We spent a good 2 hours in the park (about 18 miles in one way) and then decided to exit and head East.
We made the decision to miss visiting Canyonlands National Park about 33 miles further up the road. With the high temperatures one park a day is enough (you need to spend a good couple of hours in each one). We could have stayed on an extra day - but we were a bit 'canyoned out'. In the last few days we had visited Sedona, The Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon & Arches. While all distinctive in their own way, and awesome to visit - they are all variations on a theme - rock and lot's of it!
We took the Scenic Byway (HWY 128) out of Moab and connected with Interstate 70 again and headed across the state line into Colorado. We had a fuel stop & lunch at Grand Junction and then pushed on to Glenwood Springs where we checked into a cheap motel for the night. It was a shorter day today - we were off the road before 3:00pm and had covered 401km for the day.
We jumped on the Harley later on in the evening and went for a cruise around the town to find something to eat. We found a nice restuarant that did a good steak. One thing I have noticed about Glenwood Springs - about half the men are wearing cowboy hats and drive large modern 4 door pick-up wagons. We must be getting into the heart of the 'Wild West'!
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