SUNDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2023

(Moab, UT – Grand Junction, CO)

It doesn’t feel like day 12. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been here in Moab for five days, either, except for the fact that we’re both a bit worn out from all of the activity!

The clocks went back an hour last night, so it was an extra hour in bed, not that it helped, because it meant that I woke up at 0718 rather than 0818… I read my book until gone 8am, and then went to make the coffee. After I was dressed, I nipped downstairs for a yoghurt to go with my banana as a mini breakfast, to tide me over while we pack up and leave the hotel. We were pretty good at that. Despite having stayed here for so long our stuff was reasonably contained and we were packed up and checked out by 1030.

You won’t be surprised by now that we headed to Gloria’s for our breakfast. Yes, we know the menu by now, and yes, we already knew what we wanted. After a brief moment when they brought me the wrong meal (not veggie) they brought the right one over and we got stuck in. It was, as ever, slightly sad to be leaving Moab. We had a final trip to City Market, and then drove up to Arches.

There was a small queue to get in, of about 15 minutes, but then we drove up to the Courthouse Towers, and parked where we had at night. This is located at the northern/lower end of Park Avenue, one of our favourite locations. We took our time, walking slowly and making the most of the views, and enjoying the peace and quiet. Very few people walk up between the towering cliffs, especially from this end. They typically just look at the view from the south and move along through the park.

Eventually we had to leave, and after leaving the park we turned north, taking the faster route up UT-191 and onto I-70 east. The views were of the wide valley, the Book Cliffs and the La Sal mountains, which had less snow on now than when we arrived. The trees were less autumnal and more winter-looking as we got closer to Grand Junction, and the cloudy skies made it look cold, although it was still around 64F.

The roads were quiet and we arrived at REI (yes, again!) with time to browse and make another purchase or two. From there it was only a five minute drive to our hotel for the night, the Holiday Inn Express. This is not the same as our main stay here, but is slightly on the outskirts. It seems newly built, though, and very nice. It’s also near to City Market and some shops and restaurants. We moved all of our stuff in (these one night stops are when it would be good if it was all packed away again, but that makes hiking etc very difficult) and relaxed for a bit. Andrew did a good job of cleaning our ‘posh’ shoes and removing this morning’s red dirt and sand (our posh shoes are just trail shoes rather than hiking boots, but they’re the only thing we have for going out to restaurants!).

We drove to an Olive Garden restaurant, which was only a few minutes away. It’s been quite a while since we visited one, but they are always reliably good, at least in our experience, and tonight was no exception. (I realise this is in danger of becoming a food blog, rather than a holiday blog!).

Then it was back to our hotel room and time to watch the Grand Prix on ESPN. They take the sky F1 feed, so we still get Crofty and Martin Brundle’s commentary. We haven’t quite finalised tomorrow’s plan, so we’ll see how it goes.