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I Love Moab in November

Jason and I have vacationed in Moab many times but the pleasant weather, breathtaking scenery, and killer biking trails always call us back for more.

This was the view from our cabin's patio. Beautiful!
Our cabin was nestled on the banks of the Colorado River. It doesn't get much more scenic than that.

Although we just went to Moab in June, we weren’t quite ready to acquiesce to winter yet so we traveled down there again for one last hoorah. We typically go to Moab in the spring or fall when the temperatures are about perfect; we had never been this late in the season so we weren’t sure what to expect. The weather turned out to be quite pleasant. Jackets were needed but we stayed pretty warm with them, except when the sun went down. Burr!

Partition Arch is a favorite of mine. It's like a window to an alien landscape.
This rock had a face so Jason thought I should kiss it.

Moab was pleasantly uncrowded, the most deserted we have ever seen it. We were even able to secure a cabin at the Red Cliffs Lodge, a popular hotel that we have found it impossible to get reservations at during the busy season. Now that I have stayed there I can see why it’s always packed. Our cabin was situated on the banks of the Colorado River; we had our own private patio from which to gawk at the majestic sandstone cliffs that broke the skyline. Our suite had an inviting fireplace and a Jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom. I would highly recommend this lodge to anyone fortunate to find a vacancy there.

Jason did his impersonation of a dark angel in honor of the Dark Angel behind him.

We spent our time in Moab doing the usual: hiking and biking. While the day we spent hiking in Arches National Park was lovely, our real adventure was our bike trek. We went biking on a “trail” that we hadn’t tried before: the left side of Tusher Canyon. This was supposed to be only a moderately difficult path but I don’t think I’ve ever feared for my life while biking like I did as we traversed the narrow ledges of this canyon’s walls, ledges that slanted into a sandstone oblivion. The hundreds of feet between us and the ground were not broken by trees or bushes; nothing to soften a fall or hold onto meant that any slip-up could result in an abrupt encounter with the valley floor.

I snapped this of Double O Arch. Way to go me!

But potentially falling off cliffs wasn’t our only problem in Tusher, finding the cliffs that we would then try to avoid falling off was also a big dilemma. Like many of the lesser known Moab trails, the path up the side of Tusher Canyon was not marked and since it traveled over rock it wasn’t as if you could just follow the footprints of those that went before you. Our biking book said that after about 3.4 miles of riding to look for an obscure rock ramp on the right that leads up a passable portion of the slickrock. Earth to the author: how are you supposed to notice an indistinct bank of rocks that slope up when you are surrounded by upward slanting rocks? Needless to say that finding the “ramp” was tricky, frustrating, and involved a lot of backtracking.

Does that look like moderate biking to you? I don't think so. And yes, that tiny dot is me.
I was holding my breath the whole time Jason was riding along this ledge. It made me really nervous.

Was it all worth it? Absolutely!!! The top of the plateau we risked our lives to reach was a slickrock paradise! It was all freestyle riding up there and gorgeous. And since it was off-season we didn’t see a single biker so all that slickrock goodness was ours to enjoy by ourselves. I would gladly get lost and face precipices to bike on top of the world like that again.

Defying gravity? No, it's just the sticky slickrock.

The bottom line? I would recommend Moab in November. You’ll need a jacket but you won’t have to fight throngs in the national parks or on the slickrock and you will have all the lodging options your heart could desire. Do it! Do it!

Rachel November 24, 2010 No Comments

A Squealer

We’ve all passed one of those cars. You know, a car that’s making some ungodly noise that sounds like the harbinger of its imminent demise. I’ve always wondered when I cross such a vehicle why a piece of junk like that is even still on the road. Until…

For nearly a decade I have had a faithful auto companion. The Mazda Protégé Jason and I bought shortly after we got married now has over 180,000 miles on it and yet it still works well. It has required very few repairs over the years, which is quite impressive given the minuscule amount of money we paid for it and its current mileage. Unfortunately, that vehicle, which once made me proud, had become a bit of an embarrassment as of late.

I am not a car person; cars definitely don’t represent a status symbol to me. They aren’t a good investment so I’m of the opinion that spending a lot on one is a bit of a waste. As long as mine are comfortable and reliable I don’t care how old or stylish they are. Frankly, I’d rather spend my money on buckets of shoes and trips to Hawaii than a car payment. So, although I am not prone to vehicular snobbery, I must admit that I haven’t particularly enjoyed driving my Mazda the last year or so; in fact it’s made me hang my head in shame on many occasions.

Most people wouldn't feel that driving this car is a privilege but I do...now that she doesn't announce herself to the entire county by making a noise that sounds something like what you would get if a dying cat and a screaming train whistle had babies together.

Two or three years ago our Protégé started making a high-pitched squealing sound. It didn’t do it all the time, just now and then. Cold, hot, or wet weather seemed to aggravate it. We asked several mechanics about this issue but none of them could find anything wrong or had any ideas what the problem might be. As time went on the squealing became much more frequent and obnoxious, yet we still had no insights as to the cause.

Recently the shrieking had become so annoying and constant that Jas and I were starting to seriously consider buying a new car. After all, with the cause still a mystery we didn’t know if the vehicle was going to spontaneously combust at some point. Plus, I was getting pretty wary of driving the squeal mobile around.

Waking up all your neighbors with an ungodly screeching sound as you pull out of your driveway really adds to the awesomeness of any weekday morning. Yup, there’s no better way to turn your morning commute into a joyful affair than giving everyone within a mile radius the impression that horrible shrieking aliens have taken over the planet.

We thought we would give fixing our Protégé one more try before giving up. We kept note of what set off the racket and went into a mechanic with our full account. Unlike everyone else we had taken the car to, this guy thought he knew what might be the problem: belts that have stretched. Apparently it’s common for engine belts to stretch and become loose over time, which can cause them to slip and screech. He tightened the Protégé’s belts and tadah, no more noises. So all that time all she needed was a $30 belt tightening to be as good as new. Unbelievable! If there weren’t so many idiot mechanics out there I could have saved myself a lot of ridicule and hearing loss.

Rachel November 17, 2010 4 Comments

Boastfulness

This post is all about bragging. That’s right, I’m writing this just so I can sing my own praises. And, since I am longwinded, my boasting is sure to be lengthy.

Last spring Jason and I planted a garden. We have just one 8×4 garden box in our yard but it’s big enough to provide more fresh deliciousness than two people could possibly consume: squash, cucumbers, onions, peppers, and, of course, tomatoes. Although all of our garden plants did well this year, our tomato vines were extraordinarily productive. From two tomato plants we harvest at least 429 tomatoes over the course of the summer. I tried to diligently keep track of how many we pulled off expressly for the purpose of rubbing it in everyone’s faces but I forgot to count my bounty now and then so 429 is a low estimate. And don’t you be thinking that that quantity was only possible because our pickings were pathetically small; no way, these were big juicy babies. Yum!

This is just one of the many pretty perfect tomatoes our plants supplied.

So what’s our secret? Did we spray our tomatoes nightly with mutant growth hormone? Make sacrifices to the great tomato gods? No and no. Though maybe we should have tried one of those proactive approaches so we could take credit for our tomatoes being awesome because, honestly, they pretty much did it on their own. We filled our entire garden box with a special soil blend from Olson’s Nursery specifically formulated to make garden box plants happy. It was well worth the $100 or so it cost us. We also, purposefully, built our garden box in the perfect sunny spot on the south side of our house. And that is pretty much the extent of our gardening labors. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Sunshine + nutritious soil = more tomatoes than we know what to do with.

So what has become of those nearly 500 tomatoes? Salsa, salsa, salsa, salsa, some pasta sauce, salsa, salsa, salsa. And, now that the weather has gotten cooler, tomato soup has become our new favorite way to use up lots of tomatoes. (I would highly recommend Tyler Florence’s recipe.)

That brings me to the sad part of this post; the part where I whine instead of brag. It is now time to pull up those hardy tomato plants that have provided their fruits so faithfully for months. Goodbye good fellows and thanks for all the fish…I mean veggies. I will morn your loss forever, or for about 7 months, whichever comes first. After said time I reserve the right to forget all about you and pursue my latest vegetable fling; I’m so fickle.

Rachel November 10, 2010 2 Comments
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