November Get Away!

Call us crazy!  We think the kids thought we were - are.  We'd had a lazy morning and decided to have lunch at our favorite Chinese Buffet.  Getting in the car was our first mistake.  We love that car.  We love being together in that car.  You'll see why if you scroll down on this blog.  We've spent hours and hours together in that car and enjoyed (nearly) every minute of it.  If you scroll way way down you'll see our ll,080 mile trip to Newfoundland, for example.  Lots of hours together in the car on that one.

Any way, as I was saying, we got in the car and some kind of spell overcame us and before we'd driven the few blocks to the restaurant it was decided.  It was just too good a day to be sitting at home.

While at lunch, we bumped into our old friends Walt and Val and I guess they sensed the excitement, so we told them and they too, looked at us like we were crazy.  If you know Walt and Val then you'll know how very qualified they are to make such a judgment.  I couldn't help noticing that Val, Walt and I have similar profiles these days.  Maybe all three of us should quit visiting all-you-can-eat restaurants for a while.  Maybe when Sweetie and I get back.  I'll take it under advisement.

With clothes to pack, prescriptions to fill, books to mail and other loose ends to tie up, we didn't get out of town until two-thirty.  Then I made a quick stop in Jensen to get a notebook.  My Cocklebur Canister Cache has been neglected lately and was in sore need of a new log book.  I knew I wouldn't be any closer than I was today for a while so I stopped by and took care of my most popular Cache.

I love the desert this time of year.  The grass in the flats has gone blond and adds a bright, mellow aspect to the rocks and brush and sky.  Too late for the maroons of the Russian Thistle and the sea foam of the Desert Buckwheat, the scenery was still breath taking.  Cliff Ridge escorted us into Colorado and as always, displayed her majestic cliffs and crannies for many a pleasant mile.  I love the way the shadows play upon her weathered face in the autumn light.  I should have taken a picture.  I have hundreds of them, none the same.  But we were too excited to be together, on the road again, to be thinking of much else.

Sweetie hooked up her iPod and we enjoyed a Louise Penny story of Inspector Gamache solving yet another murder, actually two, in the little town of Three Pines south of Montreal.  We imagined Three Pines to be as picturesque and charming as Knowlton, a favorite from our trip through southern Quebec.  Fatal Grace is set in Mid-Winter and that has somehow made me glad we're heading south instead of north!  Quebec is so wonderful in the summer, I'm not so sure how we'd feel about her winters.

And so with glad hearts, a wonderful mystery and pavement rolling beneath us we journeyed to Moab, Utah.  We like to leave I-70 at Cisco and drive down the Colorado River canyon.  It probably takes a little longer, but the scenery is so wonderful.  From the photos of the moon you can see that most of our canyon time was spent in the dark.  Too bad we weren't equipped to take photos of that, because with the full moon and sharp clear horizons, it was one of our most memorable drives through the gorge.

I think this was the first time in my life that I had a balanced horrizon and could see the full sun and full moon, both perched on the horizon line at the same time.  It would be fun to have had a mirror so I could have taken a photo of them facing one another across the deserts of eastern Utah.

We checked into our motel and headed for Main Street to find something to eat.  Eatery after eatery had empty parking lots.  Then we passed the Moab Brewery.  The parking lot was crammed with cars.  That was a pretty good indicator that we'd found the right place to eat.  The food and atmosphere was fun.  All about adventure, with rafts hanging from the ceiling and mountain bikes on the wall, the place draws a crowd that looks to be pretending to be Edward Abbey and would utterly disgust him. Today's Moab would surely have him turning in his grave. If we could find his grave and connect a turbine to his feet we could provide electricity for half the continent by showing him videos of Jeepers and bikers and climbers and rafters tromping the daylights out of his beloved desert.

Back at our room, we poured over the map and pretty much decided on the Burr Trail for tomorrow.  We'll head that way, unless we don't.