earlier is better

 Saturday I totally overslept my alarm.  Milton and I managed to get out of the house at 6:40 a.m. and were at the Moab Rim trailhead by 6:45 a.m.  There were five or six other cars there - all locals, I presume - and we met several parties on their way down as we churned our way up the Moab Stairmaster trail.  We made it to the top in fifty-five minutes.

Nice day out there

It was pretty warm because we were later than I had hope, plus no shade once on top, so I made Milt wear his white t-shirt to try to reflect some of the sun's rays.  We headed out along the 4x4 road, and went left at the start of the loop, heading down into the wash.  There was a little bit of shade down in there, the sun not having come over the sandstone cliffs yet, plus Milton found a good-sized pothole with lots of water in it.  He splashed around for quite a while - which was good, because not ten minutes later, after launching himself into the prickly desert shrubs after something small and furry, he came back out sans t-shirt.  I gave him some water and tucked a long-sleeved white shirt that I had in my pack into his harness, then put him on the leash.  He wasn't thrilled with that but he was really panting heavily after chasing the squirrels and I needed to keep him from overexerting himself.

Woohoo water!

We slogged our way up Sand Hill (that was awful) and then, after pausing to dump the sand out of my shoes, continued around the loop.  We didn't see anyone else out there until we got back to the front descent.  We went back down the Stairmaster trail, instead of the 4x4 trail, because it actually still was in the shade under the cliffs.  When we got back to the car (a little after 9), we sat in its shade for about half an hour, watching the traffic and the river and listening to all the bird song.  Also: drank a post-hike beer because it's the weekend.