Betty Abroad: Moab, on the Road

So it's been a couple of years since I've been to Moab. It's an incredibly beautiful town, surrounded by mountains, canyons, and desert. It's a mountain biking mecca and an awesome place to road ride as well. I had some time off of work (between jobs, really) so I decided to head down for a long weekend with some friends.

Sabrina and I headed out Friday morning, and of course we got about 2 hours away before I realized I had forgotten my bike helmet. D'oh. I was not surprised; that's what I do. Fortunately Sabrina has a friend who lives in Eagle, about an hour down the road from where we were, so we stopped by to borrow a helmet from her. I also realized I had forgotten my headlamp so we borrowed a flashlight as well which subsequently got taped to my head at the campsite that night.

We pulled into Utah around 4 pm after enduring some hellish road construction on I-70 which made our trip 7 hours instead of 5. Down the old highway to Moab and Sabrina made an impromptu stop at a local winery. We bought some bottles and the nice guy at the counter gave us a free corkscrew since we were camping.

Then the search started. Ugggggh. Free camping in Moab does NOT exist anymore. All the previous free camping spots were either paid now or had "no camping" signs up. We must have stopped at 10 places, it was getting dark, we were sick of driving, and there were no free spots. We were walking around contemplating our next move when a guy walked up to us and said that we could stay at his site with him and his friend. Eric and Sloane were from California, on their way to Denver, and it was fun to share the site with them for a couple of nights. Thanks guys for saving our tired asses. =)

The next day Sabrina and I set out for a road ride. We had decided to do a 70 mile out and back to Dead Horse Point, which overlooks Canyonlands National Park. 35 miles of climbing. =) I soon found out my tender bum was not conditioned for that long of a ride, even though I've been riding all summer my time was limited to rides of a couple of hours, not 7 hours. It was incredibly beautiful and felt great to be out on my bike all day long.

Sabrina

About 4 miles before the top we decided we just had to stop and stretch, so we did... right in the middle of the road. A few cars holding tourists with befuddled looks on their faces went around us, and a few stopped to ask if we were all right or needed a ride.

We had cooked spaghetti the night before, and I decided it would be perfect ride food... only I forgot an eating utensil, so I ate spag-from-the-bag. It was delightfully yummy and kept my legs going throughout the ride.

The view from the top was pretty amazing. I haven't seen many canyons, not being from the desert and all, and this was pretty spectacular. We kicked around at the top for awhile before heading down, knowing we would lose daylight quickly and although the way back was predominately downhill there were still some significant climbs we would have to do.

We made it back into Moab at sunset, with about 20 minutes to spare before the desert would be plunged into darkness. We stretched a bit so we would have some hopes of being able to walk (or bike) the next day, and then it was off to the grocery as I had developed an intense craving for tuna about halfway through the ride and decided I had to have some. Meanwhile Sienna and Jeff had made it into Moab earlier in the afternoon, and we met up with them for the drive back up the canyon to our campsite.

Sabrina chasing shadows