fall break

We three took some time off at the beginning of October and spent the week in Moab.  There was hiking, MTBing, road riding and beer drinking involved, plus we cooked dinner every night and read a bunch of books.  Photo-taking was intermittant, however, so to maximize visual content, I'm going to post each hike and the MTB separately, but group the road rides into one post.  We tried to alternate activities too: road ride, hike, road ride, hike, road ride, hike, road ride, road ride and finally, MTB ride.  The weather was stunning the whole time, probably the best vacation weather we've had in the past twenty years.  It did rain once, Sunday night overnight into Monday morning, but after that it was clear and dry, with daytime temperatures maxxing out in the high 70s and overnight lows in the 40s.  Perfect!

This dog loves his slickrock

We drove down Friday afternoon, stopped in at Woody's for a drink, and then headed home.  Saturday was my first ever road ride on the new bike (more on that later).  Sunday, Milton and I went for a hike (while H recreated the previous day's ride, only much, much, much faster).  We went up to Sand Flats Recreation Area for a Slickrock Practice loop/Abyss viewpoint hike.  Being a pleasant Sunday in early October meant that it was busier than I've seen it in a while.  The campgrounds were full, there were lots of MTBers and plenty of jeeps/4x4s out on Hell's Revenge and Fins 'N Things, so we sat for a while at the Abyss overlook to watch the off-road shenanigans.

Kind of moody out over the La Sal mountains

Milton charmed a group of riders out on the Practice loop with us, strolling right through them when they stopped for a break.  The lone woman in the group was last and struggling a bit.  When she apologized for being so slow - "I'm a little freaked out here," she admitted - I just told her that I was so impressed that she was doing it at all.  That trail is so far outside my MTB skill level and comfort zone - she was a bad ass for just trying it.

I don't like PBR but I do for $2

That afternoon, we left Milton at home and took our road bikes to Josie Wyatt's to see our favorite bartender and drink some $2 PBRs.  That's another 2.5 bike miles to add to the running total.