Livingston, Montana

We arrived at the "Yellowstone's Edge" RV Park on the banks of the Yellowstone River north of Yellowstone National Park, just south of Livingston, Montana in the Paradise Valley today. It's a nice RV Park, though we like to call it "Highway's Edge" since it is as close to the highway as to the river, and the highway makes more noise. We ~could~ potentially, put kayaks or rafts in the water here and float to Livingston to visit Josh and Nikki, but we just drove the Jeep in, successfully dodging leaping deer and unsuccessfully dodging the prodigious hatches of stoneflies and other bugs - no wonder there are so many flyfishermen in the river! Leaping Trout, Batman! But I digress... the bugs were so thick on the highways at times that we had to refill our washer fluid, since we had to continually use the window washers to be able to see at times! At least they weren't mosquitoes or deerflies.

Josh, of course, gave us the Grand Tour of Livingston - he is so proud of his little town and loves to show it off in all its western classic glory. It IS a great place, with just enough culture to be really interesting, but not enough to make it snooty. It's a real place, a railroad town with the railroad still the centerpiece. But also with some great restaurants, cafes, shops, and theatre, downtown right alongside the Montana classics like The Stockman and Bob's Outdoor sporting goods. The light was especially good because of a fire in Yellowstone making the sky a little smoky, and giving everything a beautiful glow in the late afternoon light. Lest everyone think of moving there after seeing the pictures and hearing about the town, it does get cold there in the winter!

After we were settled in, we went on a drive in the Jeep - Josh took us up to the Bridger Mountains over Flathead Pass, and we explored almost every side dirt road that led up the mountains on either side of the road. Josh was funny, getting all excited every time we saw another road that looked promising! We found a few really nice little side roads that led up to meadows or views, and some "interesting" dead ends where we all got out to help Devin get the Jeep turned around safely. At one place, an open mountainside meadow with a view of the surrounding countryside, Josh tried to fly a kite, "tried" being the operative word there - ha. There were so many deer flies or meat bees Devin and I stayed in the Jeep to watch, laughing hysterically at ourselves sitting inside watching Josh and his pitiful little plastic kite fight the bugs between small gusts of light breeze - ha. The bugs weren't as bad at all on the other side of the pass, where we found a great road that led up to a fantastic view in the other direction and had a tailgate picnic lunch. Then we went across a little creek where we had to stop and wait for a deer who was getting a drink. Devin and Josh had a laugh coming back on that trail, as they went up the steep side of the trail that I wouldn't "let" them go down - ha. Lots of beautiful scenery and a little Jeep adventure and of course good company - it was a fun day!

Click here for more photos of Flathead Pass

The next day, Devin wasn't feeling well on the day of the parade for the annual Livingston roundup - Josh had told us how great the parade was, and how everyone in the town is either IN the parade or watching it. Sadly, we didn't make it this year, so we'll have to come back again someday.

We did, however, make it to see the Livingston Roundup Rodeo! Devin had never been to a rodeo before!! The rodeo has been a 4th of July tradition in Livingston for something like 75 years. Nothing like going to a big rodeo in a small Montana town to celebrate the 4th! It was one of those all American experiences that take you back to younger days and simpler times. We got tickets for July 3rd, or rather, Josh got us tickets, which was great. The clown was also really funny and sort of like the emcee for the rodeo. For a small town, Livingston puts on a pretty great rodeo, but even more than the calf roping, trick riding, barrel racing, bronc and bull riding, their fireworks display eclipses every other fireworks show either of us has EVER seen! The Pasadena Rose Bowl bills its display as the largest in Southern California, but the one in Livingston was MUCH bigger and better. It just kept going on and on and on... spectacular! We enjoyed it quite a bit! Since it was dusk and we were sitting behind a fence, our photos didn't turn out all that great, but you can still get the feel for the excitement - we were so close that we had to watch out for dirt clods getting thrown from hooves of bucking broncs and kicking bulls! Click play on the slideshow below to see more bronc bustin' action:

Engineer Pass/Cinnamon Pass/Animas Forks

This was another great day of Jeep adventures!

We took more wedding photos at Oh! Point (above Engineer Pass, which is 12,800 feet in elevation) - there were some other people there to help this time, so they came out a bit better. I thought Devin looked a bit like a marmot in the photos from yesterday!!

We had been up over Engineer Pass before, the last time we were in Colorado, and it was a definite highlight, so we enjoyed going up again earlier in the year, when the snow was still all around. This time we didn't go all the way to Lake City on the other side, but went another way and explored Animas Forks, a very well-preserved ghost mining town, and Cinnamon Pass. We drove a ways down the other side of Cinnamon Pass in search of Handes, Sunshine, and Red Cloud Peaks, where I had been 30 years ago on a College trip! I climbed several "fourteeners" on that trip, and one of them was Handes Peak. It was impressive looking up at them from below - I think I found which ones they were from the pass, but since we were low on gas, we didn't drive all the way down to the trailhead area.

At the end of a spectacular day high in the San Juans, we descended into Silverton and a band was playing for us in the street! Well, they weren't really playing for us, but it sort of felt like it.

Rather than try to describe this day, below is a slide show, or go to our Picasa Web Album at picasaweb.google.com/devinandmaggie/EngineerPassToSilverton

Wedding Day - June 15, 2007

First, a little background: Devin proposed to me at the Grand Canyon in November of 2005. It was a beautiful snowy day, and we saw a Condor right after I said "yes"! We meant to get married sooner than this - we kept coming up with ideas about when and where, we have friends and family who wanted to play guitar or do photography at our wedding, we even scouted out some places around southern California, like Table Mountain campground where our friends Loren and Michelle got married up by Wrightwood, and parks around Pasadena, like Descanso Gardens, the Arboretum, etc. Timing and planning never came together, though (in other words, the "wedding fairies" never showed up and made it happen for us - ha) and so we just haven't gotten around to it! Occasionally Devin would say something like - "there's something missing - oh yeah, my wedding ring!" or "Did you know we aren't married yet?" We started joking about "common law in-laws" and such, and it would have been easy to just forget we weren't really married yet. We even got a marriage license from LA County Courthouse and had it for the 90 days - a day or two before it expired, we were in the area (Norwalk) getting work done on the RV (new tires, tune up) and thought about just getting married at the courthouse, but when we drove by, the long lines and setting were rather uninspiring, so we went to Jack in the Box for lunch, instead - ha. We decided we would look for a neat little county courthouse somewhere on our trip and get married there, taking our "reception" on the road.

When we found the Ouray County Courthouse, we knew we'd found the place. Built in 1888, this historic wood and brick building is very picturesque in its setting on a quiet side street of Ouray, with the San Juan mountains rising up behind it majestically. Not only that, but in Colorado, you don't need an officiant or even a witness to get married! You can marry yourselves. And it only costs $10 for the license! Not only is it beautiful, it's also easy, AND cheap!! What more could you ask for? Well, to suddenly materialize all our families and friends would be nice, but they will all be happy enough that we finally did it, even if they couldn't be there.

There was no waiting, the clerk was really nice and helpful, we filled out the paperwork, she hand-wrote out the old-fashioned certificate, and we were married! Here's our wedding announcement: my395.com/devinandmaggie/wedding.html

Then we remembered we didn't have rings, so she recommended a jewelry store in town, where we went and picked out simple gold bands for our wedding rings. Then we took the Jeep and drove up Corkscrew Gulch and up to a pass (probably about 12,000 feet) to take "wedding pictures"!

It was a lovely day, the snow still deep in places and clear in others. We crossed a creek, climbed up to the pass and found the roads were blocked by snow the rest of the way, so we took photos and came "home" to the RV as Mr. and Mrs. Riley!

We officially announced our marriage to Devin's dad on Father's Day, as we thought a fitting Father's Day gift would be a new daughter :-) He was ecstatic and so are we!

Click Here for more photos of Corkscrew Gulch Jeep Trail, Ouray, and our wedding day!

Colorado

We left Moab and drove up the Colorado River on a back road to Colorado. At Grand Junction, we decided to get our tires balanced to see if that would fix our 40mph shudder, so we found a Big O Tire store that could do it, and they found that one of our front wheels was out of true. That could be the problem! By the time they had finished with the tires, a storm had caught up with us and we had a downpour and thunder and lightning excitement! The back door of the Big O Tires suddenly turned into a waterfall, as water poured off the roof and into the store! This is why awnings or porches are nice! We had the Jeep tires rotated and alignment checked at the same time, and the guy drove the Jeep around front close to the door so I wouldn't have to get drenched. They were very nice and inexpensive, too - I'd recommend them if you are going through Grand Junction.

Now we had to find a place that sold propane, as we were pretty much out and heading up to the mountains where we expected cold nights. The helpful folks at Big O spent some time looking up propane places in their phone book and we found one place that was open still (it was after 5pm at this point) at the Junction RV Park. We got there just as the storm let up - perfect timing! Again, people were very helpful and friendly, and it was a nice park, but we had reservations at another RV Park up in Ouray, so we didn't stay. I found a postcard with a poem there, though, that summed up some of my good feelings about the region and the people:

Out Where the West Begins

Out where the handclasp's a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
That's where the West begins;

Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where the friendship's a little truer,
That's where the West begins;

Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there's laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts with despair are aching,
That's where the West begins;

Where there's more of singing and less of signing,
Where there's more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying,
That's where the West begins.

--Arthur Chapman

Isn't that nice?

After the storm, everything was gorgeous with parting clouds and evening light. Delta and Montrose looked like great places to live, and Ridgway was spectacular. We continued up the Uncompahgre River valley, past lovely rural scenery of farms and ranches to Ouray, which feels like the gateway to the Rockies.

Ouray is called "The Switzerland of America" for good reason - it is a lovely little historic town nestled in a valley surrounded by waterfalls and snow-capped peaks. The thing that "saves" Ouray is that it doesn't have a ski area, so it retains its old-timey flavor without pretension. It has a wonderful public hot springs pool, and as we drove in at dusk in the light rain, it looked very inviting with the steam rising up. We turned off of the main street to a dirt side road and 4J+1+1 RV Park, right in town, and right on the river.

Everything smelled wonderful and the air was crisp and clean after the rain. The sound of the rushing river right next to us ensured a good night's sleep here in the mountains. I had to go out for a walk! I walked into town, found a New Orleans restaurant that sold beignets right around the corner - oh boy, can't wait for breakfast! Also found a variety store that sold everything under the sun, and lots of other neat shops. I wandered up to the community center and the courthouse, built in the 1800's. Great views of mountains, waterfalls, and the river. Ouray is quite wonderful!

The next morning, after a peaceful night's sleep, I walked over to Papillon, the "N'Awlins" style home cookin' restaurant, and picked up some beignets and bread pudding, and coffee with chickory, and brought them back to Devin. OMG. This place is a real treasure! We had to stop there for lunch before going out to do some exploring - crawfish enchiladas and a muffaletta sandwich - yum!!

We decided to explore some of the surrounding communities before going up in the mountains further, and went back to Montrose to drive around the neighborhoods and check out the town. It has a neat historic main street section, some nice neighborhoods, and lots of surrounding farmlands and horse and cattle ranches. Some of the new development we saw looked pretty nice, too - not just slapped together strip mall style, but it seemed more like planned and zoned growth. We decided we should add Montrose to our list of potential places to settle, someday. The growth predictions are huge - so investing in real estate there would probably be a good idea either way - if it stayed the kind of town you'd want to live in, or if it grew too much and prices skyrocketed. It's also close to the San Juans (Southwest Rockies), and not too far from Moab and all that southern Utah country we love so much.

Montrose is the "gateway to the Black Canyon" which is a national park. The Gunnison River cuts right through a mesa and has created the Black Canyon - you drive up to the mesa top and it's just gently rolling countryside and all of a sudden, this huge gash is opened in the earth - must have been shocking for early explorers and quite a barrier! We drove around and took some photos from various viewpoints along the south/west rim of the canyon and headed back up into the mountains.

That night I decided to make beef stroganoff for Devin, since he had mentioned he liked it. I've never made it before, like most things, so I searched online for recipes, and once I figured out the basic principles, got down to business with what I had on hand. Here's my recipe:

Recipe - Black Toad Beef Stroganoff!

Basic ingredients, in whatever proportions suit you (all the recipes I checked first had portions for 4 or 8, so I cut down and just guestimated what would be enough for two): Beef, Onions, Mushrooms, Noodles, (Light) Sour Cream, and ingredients for sauce - butter/olive oil, flour, broth, sherry/wine/beer, seasonings.

• Sautee onion and mushrooms in olive oil/butter
• take out of pan and add meat - brown in more oil/butter and remove
• add flour and brown and mix well with oil in pan to make roux
• add broth and beer or wine, cook down to half
• correct seasonings - most original recipes call for sweet sherry, so since I used Black Toad Beer, which is a bitter dark ale, I added a little raw sugar to get that slightly sweet flavor. I also added salt, pepper, a dash of worcestershire sauce, a dash of apple cider vinegar and a little balsamic vinegar to get that nice sweet-n-sour balance that makes beef stroganoff tasty. Also a little rosemary and thyme.
• Cook the noodles (wide egg noodles)
• add the meat and onions/mushrooms back into the sauce and cover, simmering on med-low for about 5 minutes
• turn off heat and let it stop simmering before folding in sour cream - if it's too hot, it will curdle.
• Serve over noodles!

HINTS: if you end up with a slightly lumpy sauce like I did, I used our Bamix Hand Blender with the whisk blade attached to smooth it out while it was cooking down - worked great! Also, obviously, beef broth would be the best broth choice, but I used chicken broth and a little "better than bullion" added in to give it more body. The beef you use should be super tender - I used stir fry beef, which was a little tough, but okay since it was in small pieces. Vegetarians could use Tempeh or Saitan (or even firm tofu, just braise it nicely). If you don't like the taste with wine or sherry or beer, just use broth, but I think that slight alcohol flavor adds to the stroganoff. I think it might be nice with red wine, too. You can use green onions or shallots, or yellow onions, if you prefer. You can add finely minced garlic, or other seasonings, to your taste.

This was my first time making stroganoff - I made it because Devin mentioned it the other day, so I thought I'd try it. He loved it! My sauce was a little thinner than I've had, but it was so tasty nobody cared. The only negative was the tough stir fry meat, so next time I'll get some tender cut and slice it thin. Not too hard to make in an RV as it only used 2 pans - one for the noodles and one for everything else.

See more photos of these places in our web albums - click here

Elephant Hill

Our work on the inverter done, Devin all better, and having spent almost two weeks in Moab and hardly been out exploring, Devin chose us a Jeep trail to increase our level of adventure. He he.

Elephant Hill is rated as the most difficult trail in our book on 4WD Trails: Southeast Utah, which is a book for SUV's and stock 4WD vehicles, so we knew our stock Jeep Wrangler JK could do it, but also knew it would likely be challenging. Oh yeah. It's amazing what our Jeep can do, is all I can say! And, of course, its driver :-)

First we had to drive south of Moab to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park - quite a beautiful drive, which took us past great views of the La Sal Mountains and redrock mesas, Wilson Arch, "Hole-N-the-Rock," ranches in beautiful valleys surrounded by red cliffs, and Newspaper Rock on our way to the National Park.

The trail takes off from a road that starts in a campground and is a 2WD dirt road to the Elephant Hill picnic area. The Jeep trail starts with a clear indication that this is a serious 4WD road! The climb is immediate and extreme over slickrock, some of which has been cemented in the gaps by the NPS. The first switchback is so sharp there is a turnaround for it, as you are climbing straight up the side of the cliff, it seems. Over a few more large and steep and rocky obstacles, and you are at the top of Elephant Hill, rewarded with great views, and an easy drive across the mesa to the other side, which, of course, you have to descend. Gulp.

The downhill part is even steeper (and longer) than going up was, and we have to come back UP this hill! I scouted ahead (which is really my excuse for being too chicken to be inside the Jeep when it feels like it's going to tip over - ha!) I could barely hang onto the "road" in my Chacos, which are pretty sticky on slickrock, generally. Wow. And around each bend it seemed to get even steeper and more crazy! But I had faith in our Jeep and in Devin's driving skill, and we also had, at that time, one of the few other vehicles we would see on this trail, pass us and head down the trail. It was an older Pathfinder driven by some Europeans, I think. French or Italian was my guess - we saw them at Newspaper Rock and I thought they were speaking French, or possibly Italian. Anyway, all three passengers got out to take photos while the driver careened down the hill, bottoming out and scraping at several points, apparently not caring - maybe it was a rental - ha! After that demo, we (and by we I mean Devin) finessed our way down the hill with grace, not scraping a bit. One part of the trail is a steep switchback with no turnaround, and a sign saying to "pull in and back up" - Devin had to back down part of this hill! Fortunately, it was only a short section, to the next "back in and drive forward" sign. Then we were down and the drive was a "normal" 4WD road through sandy washes, slickrock, rocky trails, and incredible scenery, wildflowers, rock formations, caves and crevices.

Devin said something very telling while we were out there playing - "I don't want to do anything to risk our lives or risk damaging the Jeep, but I want to everything right up to that point!" OMG. I laughed pretty hard - I mean, how do you know you've reached "that point"? I've certainly been nervous out on some of these trails, but never felt like we were truly risking our lives, and I do trust Devin - with my life apparently!

Our next challenge was the infamous "Squeezeplay." I had talked to a woman at the RV park in Moab who told me about how they took their H2 on Elephant Hill and had mere millimeters on both sides in the Squeezeplay, with both mirrors pulled in, and the passengers still had to haul big rocks to the road to make the bottom even (since it was such a tight fit, being even slightly off-camber made it a getting stuck situation). I can't believe they got a big Hummer through there! It was really no problem with the Jeep, even though the JK's are a little wider than older Jeeps, they are still narrower than most SUV's.

More beautiful scenery, past backcountry campgrounds (another time!), redrock towers, formations that looked like mushrooms and UFOs, neat caves and windows in the cliffs. The next challenge was the "Silver Stairs" which was again, no problem, but we took them slow and easy. And by "we" again I mean Devin, as I was again out "scouting." Actually, I was helping, since when you are going down a steep hill in the Jeep, you can't see what is below you well enough to pick out the best line always, so we used our two-way radios and I guided Devin down some of the steeper sections. It was nice to be out walking, anyway.

We then came to a junction to a side road that lead to an overlook of the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers. We thought that would be neat, but on the map, it looked like there was a trail at the end of the road, so maybe Devin wouldn't be able to see it, and it looked like a long enough trail that I wouldn't necessarily have time to hike it while Devin waited, either. It would be a 6 mile round trip, on a slow 4WD road, and it was late in the afternoon and we had a 60 mile plus drive home to Moab after we got off of the Elephant Hill trail, so we decided not to take it. Later we talked to some guys in the picnic area who we had seen coming back from the Confluence Overlook at the junction, and they said it was a very short trail to the viewpoint. I looked it up on Google Maps using the satellite view and it looks neat, but it would have meant getting back so much later, we really couldn't do it. Our constant battle is to leave earlier in the day for our adventures, but we both like relaxing mornings too much (especially me, ahem).

The return trip up and over Elephant Hill was exciting - the book we used really warned people to consider that they'd have to come back up before deciding to go down, with good reason! The Jeep gave us a scare on a steep incline near the bottom, and stalled for no apparent reason, just as Devin was getting his foot aligned over the brake, "just in case." Just in case came a little soon, and we slipped back a few feet - really scary with the drop off!! It was probably only a few inches, but it felt much farther! No further problems with that, but it was disconcerting to say the least. Devin thinks we just bumped so much on the rocky trail it stalled, and we had the stereo blasting at the time so we didn't hear when it stalled, making it worse. Needless to say, we turned the stereo off after that! I don't know how the hill could have felt steeper going up, but it did! I "scouted" the whole way, talking Devin up hills where he couldn't see anything but hood and sky.

The last obstacle we faced was the first hill we had climbed, and for some reason, THAT one was steeper going down than up! I scouted and guided Devin down parts where he couldn't see the trail at all because of the steep drops, and again, we made it no problem.

Back through the Canyonlands National Park, with views of neat formations like "Wooden Shoe Arch" and all the beautiful country we had passed through on the way here, which in the late afternoon light, it made for some great "drive by shooting" style photography!

Another fun Jeep adventure!

Gemini Bridges - Shafer Trail

Gemini Bridges (or "Jiminy Britches" as Devin called them ;-)

This Jeep trail starts north of Moab just south of the turnoff for Canyonlands. It starts out going along a ledge on the side of a cliff, offering nice views of the surrounding countryside. Moab area certainly is beautiful, and quite varied, with different types of sandstone/limestone formations, cliffs, mesas, spires, hoodoos, and the La Sal Mountains towering in the distance, their cool green slopes and snowy caps contrasting with the reds, yellows and creams of the desert below - add to this the Colorado and Green Rivers, with their corridors of shimmering green Cottonwoods meandering through the redrock desert. Again, Utah lives up to its reputation as a "promised land" - in natural beauty, anyway.

The valley on the other side of the "entry cliff" was lovely, and had a cool rock formation called "Goonie Bird Rock" near the end, when we climbed up another mesa and continued along the top. One thing I really like about this type of landscape is the changes between valley, cliff/canyon, and mesa top. It is like three different worlds, all around one mesa. The mesa top gives a feeling of wide open spaces, like the prairie, with long views, while the valleys are more homey, wide, yet enclosed by encircling cliffs, while the canyons and cliffs are wild, with views and close ups of rock formations, sometimes narrow and dark, sometimes with rivers or creeks along the bottom and surprising oases of cottonwoods at hidden springs - secret worlds in which you never know what to expect around the next turn.

On the top of this mesa was a side road that led to a trail we wouldn't be taking today - "Metal Masher"! Lots of Moab Jeep trails which are designed for folks wanting to test the limits of their machines have names like "Cliffhanger," "Widowmaker," "Metal Masher" and the like. We avoided those trails, as we were more interested in getting to scenic spots than trying to see if we could tip the Jeep over. To each his own!

When we got out to the Gemini Bridges turnoff, most people were parking and walking out, so Devin parked and I started walking, carrying a radio. When I realized it would be too far for Devin to walk, and also when I saw the route painted on the slickrock (a white dotted line marked the trail), I radioed him and told him he could make it and drive out. I walked, and helped him scout the route, and it was again no problem for Devin and the Jeep. We could drive right up to the Gemini Bridges viewing area, close enough for Devin to walk right out to the edge!

Apparently, that wasn't close enough for some people, because I found a plaque dedicated to Beau James Daley, who died there. I later Googled him, and he had driven off of one of the bridges trying to drive his Jeep across it. I was nervous enough just walking across! We were at the level of the tops of the bridges, and it was a long way down to the bottom. What an awful thing.

A young family walked out at the same time as we did, and the woman was so terribly acrophobic, she couldn't stand to see her husband and son sitting on one of the bridges, far from the edge, and being quite safe. Poor thing was practically in tears, and her husband and son were so patient with her. It reminded me of my mom and dad - my mom was always cringing and saying "Ge-eene!" when we drove on roads with drop offs and got too close to the edge at viewpoints. Somehow I managed not to pick up the irrational part of that fear, but I am very rationally nervous about getting too close the the edge when the edge is sloped, or gravelly, like it was in places near the Bridges.

While we were there, a group of kids on mountain bikes came riding up - they were all pre-teen boys, and I was SO grateful when one of their chaperones made them get off their bikes and didn't let them ride out onto the bridges!! Of course, they wanted to, boys that age being little daredevils with absolutely no sense of their own mortality. I didn't want to see a horrible accident! This viewpoint was busier than I would have expected, especially for a Thursday, but it is a popular place, and we saw more Jeeps, and highly modified ones, in Moab than anywhere else we've been.

I met a couple out there who we had passed on the road on the way out, who turned out to be a brother and sister from near Park City: Cynthia and Kent Dinsdale. They were great - she was a retired teacher and he was a retired school bus driver, bless their hearts!! After my year of teaching middle school, I bow down before teachers who go the distance - she went over 30 years!! We got into teacher talk and she understood everything I talked about immediately, and had experienced much of it herself. Not that encouraging to think about getting back into the classroom when a 30+ year veteran had the same misgivings about the profession. People really have NO idea how hard teachers work, and how hard their jobs are. People talk about summer vacation, but that is necessary recovery time for a punishing workload the rest of the year. Anyway, boy did we talk! Funny to get into that sort of animated conversation out in the middle of nowhere off 4WD roads at some natural bridges in the Utah desert, but we definitely connected. They were both really nice and I wish I'd gotten more information from them - she said she had a blog, and I thought I'd be able to find it, but I haven't.

It was difficult to get a photo showing the two bridges, since they were so close together, but I tried from a few different angles.

On the way back out, some people took a picture of us in the Jeep as we crawled up the rocks back to the main road - I guess we may be in someone else's blog now - ha.

Shafer Trail

Next we drove out through Canyonlands National Park to the Shafer Trail, which leads down the cliff face in a series of many steep switchbacks to the White Rim Trail. I kept wondering why this road was built, and it turns out it was for a uranium mining haul road. It's hard to imagine that it would be easier to haul ore up to the top than down along the river, but I guess it was. Before it was a haul road, it was a cattle trail - Mr. Shafer wintered his herd in the basin below and drove them to the mesa top for the summer. I suppose the pre-existing cattle trail made it easier to create a road. The top part along the rim and going down the switchbacks was spectacular, and it only got better and better. This is some of the most beautiful country on Earth! I actually asked Devin if he could drive closer to the edge going down the switchbacks, so I could shoot down - that's how steep it was - and how scenic.

When we reached the bottom of the cliff, we were on the level of the White Rim trail, which follows a rim of white sandstone around for miles and miles. We had hoped to do a multi-day trip on the White Rim trail in the Jeep, but it was a bit hot for that, and also you couldn't complete the loop as there was a slide near the end. We had seen the White Rim trail from Grandview Point in Canyonlands the last time we were here, and now we have to come back again to do the whole trail. And again and again and again to explore this incredible area deeper and deeper. There are so many neat "backcountry" campsites maintained by the BLM in the area, it would be wonderful to someday just go out and stay out for longer periods. But today was not that day, and we turned off of the White Rim trail and took the Potash Road back toward Moab instead.

Immediately the road dropped below the white rim and the landscape changed again. Rocks that looked like crops of white capped mushrooms rose up from the valley floor and canyon walls. A Campground was near the junction, with no one in it. We continued down an arroyo until the canyon walls rose higher and we found ourselves overlooking the Colorado River, in a huge gooseneck far below. We saw kayaks far away on an island in the river, and saw a jetboat turning around near there.

At the gooseneck overlook, we met Ray, who was very friendly and very happy to be discovering the desert and life in an RV - he had a 4WD truck camper and was recently retired form Denver. We got the feeling that exploring this country had given him a new lease on life. We told him about Baja California, gave him a whole bunch of useful links and told him about some other desert places to explore and he ate up this information. It's nice to be on the giving end of advice and information when we've learned so much from others to prepare for and plan this trip!

After we left the river, the scenery changed again and widened so much I got the theme from "Big Valley" going through my head! It was just classic western scenery, and I half expected to see circling wagons, attacking Comanches, and John Wayne riding up. I guess this was Butch Cassidy / Hole in the Wall Gang territory. At least back in Capitol Reef, there was a "Cassidy Arch" and more than a few formations out here are named for them.

Some of my favorite formations were a perfect square pyramid with a lone Juniper on top, a mesa that was a curved amphitheater, various pinnacles and spires, and a rock that looked like the Mount Rushmore of funny cartoon old men!

"Thelma and Louise Point" is out there somewhere - pretty near to where we were, but we didn't drive out there. Another reason to go back.

Soon we came to Potash, and the evaporating ponds where potassium salts are dried. "Moab Salt, LLC" is one of the largest employers in Moab, and one of the main sources of potassium in the country. The evaporating ponds were bright blue, perfect reflections of the bright blue sky, and looked unearthly against the backdrop of redrock mesas and the La Sal Mountains.

We hit pavement soon after, and then the Colorado River. Moab Salt maintains a river put-in open to the public on their river access, and we drove the Jeep down to wet its tires - ha. The road followed the river all the way back to Moab, with the afternoon light putting a magical glow on the cliffs, petrogylphs, arches and climbers, this little byway was much more scenic in itself than we had expected and we would recommend anyone drive out that way as a worthy side trip. Of course, for anyone with a 4WD vehicle, we'd recommend the entire Gemini Bridges/Canyonlands/Shafer Trail/Potash Road loop we took today, as it was incredibly scenic and varied!

Another day in Paradise!