The Grand Circle: Part 2

When I last left off, we were still in the early stages of our Moab stay. I have to say, I am so glad that we decided to go to Moab. It was the furthest point east on our itinerary and made for the longest driving days. We did consider leaving it out of the loop in order to spend more time in other locations, but it really did provide the best activities of the whole trip, along with some of the best scenery. It was also our longest stay of the whole trip. We were in or around Moab for a total of 4 nights which was a nice long stay without any packing/unpacking required. We took the opportunity here to fit in a lot of downtime, swimming, relaxation, and a few loads of laundry to boot.

After we did the Fiery Furnace on our second day, and spent some time at the pool, it started to cloud over. We decided to forgo the hike to see the Delicate Arch that we'd planned on for that night because you're 'supposed' to see it at sunset and we figured there wouldn't be much of one. Instead, we spent that night at our resort, checking out the stables and having dinner on the deck out beside the river.

On our third day, we had an early-morning appointment at The Ice Cream Parlour, which is a rock climbing site in Kane Creek Canyon. We met our guide in Moab and she shuttled us out to the site. Here, we all tackled a 5.6 pitch. 

(I found this picture on the internet. The pitch we climbed is the one called, uninterestingly enough, "5.6".) 

The kids loved this - Liam in particular. He was a natural.

On the way back to town we stopped to see some petroglyphs at an old Native American settlement.

That afternoon, the sun blazed and despite having had an early-morning wakeup for the rock climbing, the conditions were perfect to see Delicate Arch. It was also the last possible chance to see it so it was now or never! The hike there is all uphill and Mallory complained a little, but she made it in the end. (This was also our first taste of the steep drop-offs that would become par for the course over the coming week. The last few hundred meters of the approach to Delicate Arch are on an exposed ledge hewn out of the rock. We did lots of hand-holding and barking orders at the kids to stay to the inside of the path.)

Luckily, we all survived the trip to Delicate Arch and were able to find our way back to the car after the sun set. We went right to bed when we got back to the hotel because the next morning we had to pack up and leave Red Cliffs Lodge. We parked the car at a beach along the river, and were then met by Red River Expeditions, with whom we did an overnight rafting trip on the Colorado River.

Mixed reviews for this part of the trip. The rafting itself was the most fun thing I think we did the whole time we were gone - but the first day of rafting was really short. We were at the beach setting up camp by 2 p.m. and had a lot of time to kill for the rest of the day as a result. The conditions on the river change every day, so the guides are always making judgment calls in terms of where to put the rafts in and where to set up camp... and I get that this is hard to do... but in hindsight, I think we would have chosen to do a daily river run instead, and put that extra day of vacation time toward something else. Nonetheless, the kids loved it. The scenery was spectacular. We passed lots of landscapes that have famously shown up in movies/music videos and I am now looking forward to seeing the upcoming movie where Johnny Depp will play Tonto from "The Lone Ranger", which just finished filming there.

We pulled out of the river on the second day around 3 p.m. and hit the road for our next destination: Monument Valley, a remote little outpost on the Navajo Nation. We knew we were getting close when we passed the famous Milepost 13:

Fast forward to 5:09 to see it as you have probably seen it before:

Monument Valley was the sleeper hit of the trip. It was only meant to be a convenient overnight rest stop, but we were blown away. First of all, the view:

The hotel there (which is pretty much all there is in Monument Valley - not even so much as a gas station for miles and miles), actually called The View, is only a few years old. Every room faces the valley and has a little porch overlooking it. It doesn't look like much to pull up to it from the front, but the view out the back is unreal. The restaurant serves authentic Navajo food:

 the Trading Post is extensive:

and every night after dark, they project John Wayne movies shot in the valley onto the wall of the hotel.

The following morning, we were up for a beautiful sunrise.

 

And with that, we were on our way from Monument Valley, driving through the Navajo Nation and eventually turning out into Arizona, home to more free-range animals than you can shake a stick at.