Runnin' Iron Inn Monticello

... 30 feet down from the road. So Silas climbed down, got the tire, and we were on the road again.
When we got to Beef Basin cabin T showed us where everything was located and how to turn the gas on and off and all that. We also decided that we would wait to unload the trailer until they came back the next day since the only place to put everything was right in the middle of the cabin. AND before they left we made a plan for them to get ...

... so stay tuned for that entry!
Yesterday (wow, it's been a long time since I've been able to say that in an entry!) we really wanted to hike- we hadn't done anything more than about a 3 mile hike in Durango since Memorial weekend. So we decided to do the Kane Gulch hike on Cedar Mesa. It was about 4 miles in to where Kane Gulch met up with Grand Gulch and there are some ruins right there where they meet. It ...

... bad timing on our part, we also met another unexpected kink in the road - so to speak. We rounded a corner to a stunning view and a sheer drop off the edge of the mesa down onto the plains, accomplished by a series of very extreme hairpin bends. The road down was graveled, but fortunately, not wet enough yet to be slippery. But still hair raising - something like 1100 feet down. The speed limit was 5 miles an hour, and every time the speedometer happened to inch up to 6 ...

We're in Monticello! Finally! It really felt like a long trip here- probably because we were driving in seperate vehicles. I guess before I go into the details of the trip down here I should explain WHY we're here. About a month ago Silas was offered a job with the BLM here and he accepted it. At that time we had about 2 months before they wanted him down here to start work, so we decided that the first week of March we would come down here and look for a ...

Moab to Monticello 52 miles starting elevation 4500 ending 7100 total ride time 6 hours Is my bum sore...... YES! Today was a ride of trying to catch some other riders. There is a family riding from Alaska to South America and I heard, by a drunk trucker in a bar on Saturday night that they had left that same day down south. I looked up this family who I have heard about multiple times from different sources, I figured ...

... that coveted rest day in Montrose . Show Your Support for EyeRide for Sight! For every $25 donation, EyeCare America can provide sight-saving care and valuable eye health information to someone in the US. Visit this link to make a donation and support EyeCare America's commitment to the preservation of sight! https://secure.eyecareamerica.org/onlin edonate

Day 24 In the last 2 day we have driven about 300 miles. I have never driven as far with little or no civilization. Towns listed on the map include a service station, church, a few houses and some less than this. I have no idea where they do their real grocery shopping. Again we drove through miles and miles of beautiful desert, high plateaus and rock formations. Our goal today was Natural Bridges National Monument. There are three natural rock bridge formations in the ...

... Handle Arch. We saw the road sign pointing right then a few hundred feet later another sign for the parking area. The trail was actually a road that had been washed out by the 5 inches of rain that Moab received the few days before. Nathan's car didn't make it very far so we walked for 5 hours. We never found the arch! I thought it a cruel joke to make us hike hours without even a little arch to look at. I was mildly upset about it but the view from the top ...

... Sun's Eye' though to John Waynes Boot. Our tour started at Gouldings Lodge, set up by the Gouldings in the early 20th Century. The site was originally a trading post formed by a bond with the Navajo tribe. The tour passed through Mystery Valley with it's amazing rock formations and arches. A race of man existed here before the Navajo known as the Ansiacs - they lived within caves high in the rocks. Their walls still exist and we enjoyed climbing around looking at ...

... friendly strangers, and talked with them as we awaited the sunset to begin. At one point, one member's bright yellow Nalgene water bottle toppled down the sloping cavern beneath us to a lower valley, with Kelly Szal making a frightening leap towards it but failing to grasp it. Two small girls of a family from Florida scrambled down to follow it, and shockingly enough, they followed ...