ATVs and Moab

Hot Air Balloon in Vernal

Wednesday night as we were watching the sunset something huge and red caught my eye - looking down the roadway out of the campground towards the main street there was a hot air balloon preparing to take off.  I told Dave - lets grab our cameras and go see.  No sooner had I gotten up out of the chair and started to grab the camera when the balloon took off - womp - and fast!  Oh well - best we could do is a quick picture through the window.  Seems Golden Corral had some sort of promotion going on.

Yesterday morning we did our thing, packed up and took off south on Route 191 towards Moab, Utah which is in the south east corner of Utah - not far from Colorado and New Mexico  and we will be here for 10 days - to see Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  We are camped right near the road that leads to Canyonlands on our right and the view we have is unbelievable.  And we are 2 miles north of the entrance on our left for Arches.  How convenient is this?  We are also glad we are out of Vernal, have forgotten what it's like to be in a city park.  Very noisy and about 5:15am to about 6:30am all the worker-bees start their diesel trucks and leave.  Other than this morning interruption - would have to say that this campground was very quiet - except for the time in the morning when they all go and also being in town - you heard the sirens, the loud trucks, but - it's done.  Won't go back there.

View out our living room window - Canyonlands NP

The ride was great - very desolate. We thought the road to Vernal was a tidge hairy in terms of descents - well, we drove the RV over the highest pass - called Summit, at 9115 feet getting here.  Going up wasn't a problem - it was gradual and didn't notice how high we were climbing, we drove through  Book Canyon - had to stop for cattle in the road but again, desolate.  Then - on top of the mountain - and the ride down, well, the truck screamed really big time holding the RV back.  We travel a bit, then a sign says, 20 miles an hour ahead - hairpin turn - Yikes.  But.  Truck did great, it turned over to 55,000 miles while going up that mountain.  

We are in a premier sight - we look out towards the "islands in the sky" formations of Canyonlands.  We deserve this place - it's beautiful!  Seems most RVs here have ATVs - there are tons of off-road trails here and all over Moab.  Fun to watch them go and then see them come back in the early evening.  Seems Razor brand of ATV is the most common here.  No - we aren't getting one!