mill creek moments

 One of these days we'll go somewhere besides Moab for a vacation or a long weekend.  The past Labor Day weekend was not one of those.  We scooted out early Thursday to take Friday off as well, making it an extra long long weekend.

Old dirt roads are the best

Friday morning, while H did a 21+ mile road ride on the bike path, Milton and I went to Mill Creek Canyon.  We got there right around 7 a.m. and there was only one other car in the lot at that point.  We went out and up along the rim trail, then dropped into the canyon, turning left when we got to the creek and heading back downstream.  The water is definitely lower than last time, which is to be expected because it's fall and all.  On the way out, we saw a few people and met some nice dogs, including a sweet pocket pitbull (she was so small) named Mama and a cutie mini-Aussie pup named Bodhi.

Creek time

Later that morning, H and I did over sixteen miles on the bike path on our town bikes: first up to the entrance to Arches, then out to the end of the bike path on the river road, and back.  We swung by Josie Wyatt's on the way home (it's literally right on the bike path so we couldn't not stop) for a quick beer, then met friends for dinner at Antica Forma.  The pizzas were really good and it's a big space, but it was quite loud.

Prickly pears everythere

Milton and I went back to Mill Creek on Monday.  (We had planned to stay all day that day anyway and go home really early Tuesday morning to avoid the post-weekend traffic.  It was a good thing we did because there was a flash flood in Price Canyon that washed out the road, closing it for hours and hours until they could temporarily patch it with gravel.)

Maybe I've not noticed them before but

there were so many prickly pears this time

In any event, this iteration of the Mill Creek hike was very much like Friday's, except that we went right and went upstream a little ways when we dropped into the canyon; this day's friendly dogs were Mila (Chihuahua mix), Rocky and Rusty (heeler mixes); and we got rained on, just a bit, as we made our way out of the canyon.  

Rainy skies and wrinkly eyes

The rain was just passing showers, however, so H and I were able to get in our town bike cruiser ride (same as Friday), plus a quick ride through town for a fare-thee-well beer at Woody's.