Moab, UT Arches National Park

We’re staying at the Archview Campground just north of Moab, Utah. But, we upgraded our campsite to a basic cabin with air conditioning to accommodate our baby dog, who does not tolerate the heat very well. While Bob and I drag our butts up the steep slopes of sun beaten rock at midday in the Utah desert, Deefer stays home and sleeps. It’s a pretty sweet cabin with views of the mountains and Arches. I’m pleased as punch because there’s a small fridge, so I don’t have to tear my hair out trying to keep the lunch meat on ice for the next 5 days.


So, today was our first venture into Arches National Park. We hung out at the Visitor’s Center and then did a 1 mile hiking loop around “North and South Windows” and Turret Arch. A really cool introduction to how awesome this place is.


We decided to take on “Delicate Arch” later in the afternoon. We started out at 4pm on the 3 mile trail that will get you up close and personal with Delicate Arch, the most famous of the arches. In fact, it’s front and center on the Utah state license plates… or at least it was for a long time.




This was a strenuous hike, billed as “uphill” and “hot at midday” by the ranger. It was actually “vertical” and “inferno”. But, I decided not to complain after we passed a 3 year old on his way back down who calmly stated to his father, “whew, I’m running low on energy.” If he can do it, we can do it. And the payoff was spectacular. It was waves of sandstone, deep valleys, vistas for miles, and of course the delicate arch.


We had a snack at the top and took some photos before descending back down . Bob’s snack got ruined as he happily pulled out an “energy bar” he had bought the day before, but then saw that it read “Luna Bar: Nutrition for Women”. He was so concerned about what they put in those “lady bars” that he gave it to a lady on the trail. We had cheeseburgers for dinner: Bob’s choice.

Mexican Hat, Utah; Valley of the Gods

We drove from Happy Jack to Southern Utah. As per usual, a 6 hour ride turned into 12 hours. This is partly due to Bob’s incessant need to take photos, my frequent potty breaks, and lastly the scenery that is worth going slow for. Also, we stopped in Winslow, AZ for laundry and to buy a camera since Bob ruined ours. A fellow named Stan chatted us up about the Navajo reservation and informed us that we were in fact on the reservation. We had already noticed that. We did a little browsing at the Navajo trading posts along the way and waxed poetic about the Navajo Nation; our impressions of their community and how they might describe it. Good old fashion social work jibberish.

We crossed the Utah border and quickly came to the Valley of the Gods, which was an unexpected detour that we both agreed was the best thing since sliced bread. It’s a 17 mile loop drive through rock formations jutting out of flat ground that are precariously stacked. It looks totally fake and a mystery as to how they got there. Well, it’s not a mystery to scientists (wind and water over eons), but a wonder to us just the same. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever seen that I told Bob I was scared and wanted to go home.

The landscape here is so foreign that it’s alarming. You know how people say that expansive and exotic natural wonders make them realize they how insignificant they are? Well, I learned that I like to feel significant. So, here are the pics. Oh, and I’m not going home… yet.

Happy Jack, AZ

There are different types of vacations. So far, we roughed it in western NC, boozed with the family on the beach in st. George, drove for a few days out west…..and now we had a long isolated weekend at a “cabin” at 7,000 feet in Arizona.

It is technically a log cabin, but it’s more like a great house dropped into the Arizona mountains where a cabin might be. As the pictures show, it is a very large log cabin with two stories of windows facing west. It was just plain awesome. The cabin sits on ~5 acres and is very isolated. We have now been spoiled….and it will be tough to go back to tent-living after a long weekend in happy jack, AZ.

I’ve worked with Angie for a long time – and she is a meticulous IT DBA – and the cabin reflects it. She has everything you could ever want to fix something or kill time and its all organized perfectly. We played trivial pursuit – and the cards inside the box of the trivial pusuit game were all still right-side up and facing the same direction.

We got to the cabin late weds night and cooked a pizza. The cabin backs up to the Coconino National Forest so on Thursday morning we stopped in at the ranger station about 10 miles from the cabin on our way to Sedona. Sedona was about a 90 minute drive and our planning wasn’t too good. We got there around noon and the red clay and rock retains heat, so it was hot for us and worse for dee. We drove around a bit and went for a short hike then went back to the cabin and cooked out.

On Friday and Saturday, we stayed closer to the cabin and hiked trails down to the Clear Creek. On Friday, we had an area to ourselves and I was brave enough to swim even if I wasn’t prepared. We got rained on and found some cover under a rock outcropping. As we were leaving, I kicked our camera into the water – it was only partially submerged so I thought it had a chance but it seems to be fried. Today I had to use the back-up video camera for still shots but it doesn’t have very good resolution.

Saturday, we went back to a similar spot. There was more of a crowd but we found a nice spot next to the creek and laid around all afternoon reading and swimming and getting sunburnt.

Otherwise, the pictures speak for themselves. It was a great stop.

Carlsbad Caverns

Monday Morning we woke up and got on the road about 10 am. As we left San Antonio, west texas in all of it’s expansive glory greeted us. Oil pumps, vast emptiness and an 80 mph speed limit. We added 4 mph to that and set cruise at 84 but still got pulled over. The trooper looked at the rig and asked if we were moving. He gave us a warning and we moved on. We got to Carlsbad and dropped dee off at a kennel in town. Then we drove to the national park to see what we were in for on the ranger guided tour we had signed up for on Tuesday afternoon. Some of the ranger guided tours require knee-pads, multiple sources of light, grippy gloves, etc. Ours required a ½ mile hike up a desert mountain at noon and a source of light. So Monday night we drove around the park and then went back and set up camp in the middle of nowhere. Sky was clear and the stars were as clear as I’ve ever seen.

At this campsite, we saw deer, peccary, raccoon, skunk and our neighbor claims to have seen two tarantula. I asked the ranger the next day about the possibility of seeing tarantula (I didn’t trust the original source). She said yes but their numbers were down because the tarantula hawks that catch the males and then lay their eggs on them so their young can feed on their live, paralyzed bodies have not been as active.

On Weds, we went into the main Carlsbad cavern to do the ~3 hour self-guided tour. The mountains around the ‘natural entrance’ are not that impressive but when you get to the entrance it is clear. We were there at 8:30 when the park opened so there were only 10 or so other folks walking through with us for the most part. We walked through the amphitheater where the nightly ‘bat-flight’ can be observed and then walked down a series of switchbacks into the cave mouth. The 100 degree day gave way to the 60 degr

ee temperature inside the cave and the natural light of the entrance was swallowed by the cave. The route is

paved and well marked. The cave is very dimly lit to expose the depths of the corners and ceilings. The cave is massive. The trail snaked through rooms and down ~1,000 feet before we got to the great room. Along the way, it is clear that you’ve entered another world.

Off the great room is a mini-cafeteria, a gift shop and a couple of nice clean shit-houses. This seemed to me a show of US force along the lines of going to the moon.

From the great room another 1.5 mile trail winds through another portion of the cave. Around each dip and turn there are additional formations, pits, domed ceilings, and cave pools that are mesmerizing. As to be expected, light isn’t great for pictures, but a few are attached. Without much in the line of expectations, we were both blown away.

We took the elevator out of the cavern (theymade us otherwise we’d have walked out). Then we had a 20 minute drive to Slaughter Canyon. This was to meet the ranger at the mouth of the Slaughter Canyon Cave which is the only guided tour away from the primary Carlsbad Cavern (there are an additional 114 identified caves in the park but most are off-limits). From the parking lot at Slaughter Canyon to the cave entrance was a ½ mile hike up the side of a mountain. Our tour started at 1 pm so this meant climbing in the noonday new mexico sun.

It was a chore. Our group was small (8) and we got prepped to go into the cave. It is notably different than the cave we spent the morning in because there is no artificial light or electricity in the cave. It is an abandoned guano mine that is not as impressive as the primary cave. We had to do a little bit of scrambling and it was an intimate group. Unfortunately the guide was king of an asshole. She yelled at Christine to spit out her gum and then barked at us as if we were a class of third-graders.

About an hour into the tour, the guides had us sit down and turn off our headlamps. It was dark. As intimidating as the darkness of the cave was, there is some solace in the blunt fact that nothing other than bats, crickets and a few spiders are in the caves. So the darkness is a void of light and therefore life so you know there is nothing to eat you but your imagination.

We got back to our camp and ate dinner and then went back to the visitor center at sunset to watch the estimated 2 million Mexican free-tail bats emerge from the bowels of the cavern. The swarm started slowly then picked up and kept up like a reverse tornado for about 15 minutes. After getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, we both hoped each bat would exact some revenge. Then we went to sleep.