Wednesday 1 September: Salt Lake City Visit, Arches & Zion recap

I'm EXHAUSTED!!! Went tripping all over mountains and rocks and miles & miles of rough country.
Warm, windy, amazingly out-of-this-world, the entire southern Utah.

Again, some pictures of Zion:



and some pictures of Arches National park:



Today I'm spending time in Salt Lake City - went on a death-march up a mountain in the morning with Weasel and Gina (oh yes it takes some time before I learn my lesson...).

The hill that killed my pants!

 The last steep part, I slithered down on my bum. It was fun :-)

Weasel and Gina then drove me around and showed me their favourite cycle routes (all I can say, is hello Iron Man competition!). Later we were in a restaurant, having lunch, when I felt unwell, as if I was going to be sick & faint at the same time. Altitude catching up with me, I had not given my body enough time to acclimatise to the altitude and level of activity. The rest of the day, physical activity was kept at a much lower key - the mind may have been willing, but the body not able. The last visit was to a very eccentric little garden where Gina spent a lot of her naughty youth.

I had planned to exchange the Kia for another car at the Airport National this afternoon but it was dark by the time Gina and I got there. They advised me to fill up the car at a nearby gas station, their own rates were prohibitive. That's what we did, drove off to find a nearby gas station to fill up the car. The attendant was very flirty with me, and once I got back to the car I understood why: Gina was cracking up, my right arse cheek was half hanging out of my pants!!! This morning's mountain descent had destroyed the seat of my pants!

Back at the airport, Gina shielded my bum from lecherous eyes while I filled out the paperwork and signed for the new car - a Chevrolet Hybrid.

This was a much bigger car than the Kia, but drove easy as pie. On the way back to the Weasel home I gave Gina a near heart attack: she had been chiding me that I would not turn right on red, and that I was not staying in my lane at right turns. At a stoplight near her home, I saw the light was red, I needed to go right so I smartly swung into the right-hand lane. I heard a small squeak from next to me and saw Gina with eyes as big as saucers... another car had also turned into the same street, on the left lane, together with me in the right lane. I had seen that car but assumed this would be okay. It was, but apparently, it's best to let such a car go ahead in such a situation - at least, if one wants Gina to keep breathing!! That's when I decided I really did not like the American "turn right on red" rule (and by the end of the trip, I still didn't).

That night, I tossed the poor abused black pants into the garbage.
(there's a picture of those pants floating around somewhere, once I find it I will post it here)

Gina has nerves of steel, tomorrow we drive to Cheyenne and then all the way to Omaha, she in the co-pilot seat!

Tuesday 31 August: Arches to Salt Lake City

Broke camp in the morning, on our way out the park we went exploring in a pretty little (box) canyon that Weasel had seen the day before on a sunset GPS trek with the girl. I did not go in all the way back, I was feeling a bit broken... but I explored the front bit and enjoyed the brilliant luminescent effects of the early morning sunlight on the ancient red rock.

Fine, fine sand.

Glimpse of the world outside

Narrower and narrower, until in the end the only way further was up.

Found the tracks of a predator big cat (fairly sure this was a mountain lion),
tracked it's path through the canyon and where it went up and away.

Sitting where the mountain lion had been a few hours before.

More wildlife!

After this little excursion, we drove towards Salt Lake City. Gina was my co-pilot for the trip, and was telling me all about Mormon culture as we drove along. The world of Southern Utah, driving up to Salt Lake City was rather bleak at times, very isolated and for the most part, not suitable for any kind of agriculture or human habitation. I enjoyed it nevertheless, a wonderful, hostile but beautiful country. We drove straight through to the Weasel home, not making any "tourist" stops along the way.

My car lights were still malfunctioning so I called National when I arrived in Salt Lake City. They offered me another car: I would have to drive to the airport to exchange the Kia for another, similar car.

Monday 30 August: Moab area and Arches

Today we had our first true Weasel Death-march™. Uttering blatant falsehoods like "just around the corner", "almost there", as well as truths "best thing evah", he lured us all up steep inclines, treacherous rocks, hazardous scrambles and death-defying ledges...

View from the campsite

Tenacious plants

Pristine sand dunes, right behind our camp site.

Kia Soul, a bit unsteady in high winds but not a bad little car.

The tent, at this point still standing... ;-)

A little gully behind the campsite, heading to an awesome sand dune

Wind-shaped

Juniper berries, I believe. Wonderful scent.

ouch.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! all the way down!

Amazing vistas in every possible direction!

Seems a very basic urge in humans, to make little rock piles.
I came across them all over the states.

Nature makes some pretty impressive rock piles as well.

Just..... wow.

Mineral colours (green), I still need to look this up.

Wildlife

Slogging up this rock was really HARD WORK.

We came from back there.

Heading that way!

And onwards. Just a little bit further....

Pictures don't show howling winds, do they.

At this point I lost my nerve and decided I'd gone as far as I wanted to go.
Delicate Arch, thought I, was probably lovely but so was the scenery right here.

This handsome black bird came right up to the girl.
Within touching distance, unafraid. Watching us.
According to Vangie, this is a raven, a spirit bird.
Someone's checking on the girl, watching her grow.

As we were looking at this little rock pool a man came over
and told us all about the biology and geology of this little patch of water.
He was talking about urine and such impacting this life, it was quite fascinating at the time
but obviously not a lasting fascination because I don't remember it all.

Many delicate arches in this area

At the end, I walked another mile or two (am I a masochistic madwoman??!!??)
to look at this rock art.
It was worth it though, amazing images and really a surprise that
they lasted this well over the ages.

Then we hopped in the car and went to a parking area, where we had a clear view
of the delicate arch we almost killed ourselves over, on the approach from the other side.
hmmm.

...under a burning sun and seemingly hurricane-force wind. The latter proved true when we came back to the campground with the last neurons firing intermittently, to find that my tent had been blown over, flattened, the outer tent torn to fluttering ribbons.

The Weasel tent was still okay.

We set up my tent again with help of duct tape and I slept relatively well because the wind had died down.

Both evenings at Arches were spectacular. There's something about the high desert in the dark, that's pure magic.