first stop: sego canyon

It's spring!  That means we get to go to Moab!  And off we went, leaving the house at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning.  We tried a couple of times to get ice on our way out of town, finally managing to score some in Spanish Fork.  It got cold as we drove through Spanish Fork Canyon - down to a very brisk 24F! - then warmed up as we continued to drive south and east.

Ute Historic panel

We passed the Moab exit off I-70 and continued one further to the tiny (2010 census: population 39) town of Thompson Springs.  There are only a handful of houses and an abandoned (but awesome-looking) motel, currently for sale for $225,000 if anyone is interested, but little Thompson used to be hopping.  Back in 1910, a rancher found coal up in Sego Canyon, cannily bought the property and proceeded to build up a coal mining operation, complete with a small town.  The Denver & Rio Grande railroad ran a line up the canyon to bring the coal down to Thompson, from which it was shipped all over.  The water started drying up by 1915, however, and production ceased for good in 1955.  Most of the houses were brought down out of Sego Canyon and taken to Thompson, Moab or Fruita.  Now, all that is left is a ghost town and some wonderful native rock art.

Barrier Style

It was cool and sunny when we parked in the lot for the rock art.  There are both petroglyphs (drawings carved into the rock) and the rarer pictographs (painted onto the rocks) in the three main panels: the Ute Historic Panel, likely from the 19th century, white pictographs with red detailing; the Fremont Style Panel, with men, bighorn sheep and geometric designs; and the impressive Barrier Style Panel, with life-size, alien-looking figures.

Seriously alien-looking dudes

There are a couple more panels across the road, behind a cattle corral.  Those pictograph figures there were huge - the biggest I've ever seen.

Continuing up the road, we made our way to the ghost town, first stopping at Boot Hill Cemetery.  This is a small cemetery, where people have placed coins on every single grave.  Like, lots of coins.  There is also one grave in the southwest corner for a man who served in the Vietnam War: it has two headstones, one ornamented with a Christian cross and one with a Star of David.  Maybe he converted?

Boot Hill Cemetery

Up at the ghost town, there are several roofless buildings dug into the hillside.  The stone company store, roofless as well, dominates the landscape, the calls of the resident canyon wrens echoing off its walls.  There is a collapsed wooden building - likely the boarding house - surrounded by cottonwood trees, and the road continues on, up to the actual mine.  We poked around for a while, imagining what the place would have been like with 500 townspeople, then continued on our way.

Sego ruins

On our way into Moab, we stopped at the Moab Brand Trails to do our two loops of Rusty Spur/Bar M.  We shortened it a little bit, finding our way back on a much pleasanter double-track instead of the gravel road.  Ride stats: 16.73 miles; 1 hr. 34 minutes; avg. speed 10.6 m.p.h.; H's max. speed 23.1 m.p.h.

Interior of the company store

After that, we checked in at the Kokopelli Lodge and were greeted by resident dogs Pearl and Mei-Mei (sadly, one of our favorites, Frank, had been killed by some other dogs last fall).  We cleaned up, worked on a plan for the next day and walked ourselves down to dinner at the Moab Brewery.  Even though it was a Friday night, we got seats at the bar immediately - always a plus.  We also bought a bottle of the new Moab Distillery's Spot On Gin to take home with us - always a plus.