brief desert interlude

 The first real storm of the season came in Wednesday evening into Thursday morning.  The mountains (Alta, et als.) got 8-12" and it even snowed a bit in the valley, but - thankfully, because I am not ready for winter yet - did not stick.  The storm moved out of the area by midday on Thursday and when we got underway to head down to Moab, the road was clear and dry and you wouldn't have know that it had snowed, except for the mountains' frosty tops.

"Holy moly is that a squirrel?" - Milton, probably

It was definitely cooler in Moab than it has been, but we really lucked out on the weather.  Friday was gorgeous, mostly sunny with highs in the mid- to upper 60s F.  Milton and I did a short hike up on the Slickrock Trail.  This was his first time back out on the slickrock since he injured his paw and I cautioned him to take it easy.  He did not take it easy.  But he also didn't reinjure anything, so it all worked out.  We did the Practice Loop ("just as hard") and went out just a little way on the main trail for the views.  It was medium busy, mostly MTBs.  Milt also met a very nice New Mexico rez dog named Cholla in the parking lot; she was a sweetie.

"Are you coming?" - Milton, definitely

From the weather forecast, both H and I were sure that Saturday was going to be a washout; he did hear the rain in the early hours of the morning and had to scurry around closing windows.  But the rest of the weather held off, allowing us to do a hike at Moab Brands in the late morning where I spotted what was either a coyote or a coyote-looking dog up on the ridge, so Milton had to be leashed for a portion of the hike for his own safety.  That afternoon, H and I walked to Josie Wyatt's for a beer.  I thought about bringing my raincoat ... but didn't, and later regretted it somewhat when we got lightly rained on walking back home.

Sunday morning was nice and clear.  We'd planned to head back to SLC midday so we three only did a town walk.  There weren't too many folks on the bike path through town but Main Street was bustling, especially the breakfast places.  I suspect the local businesses appreciated the mild weather as much as we did, hoping to make bank before things slow down for the off-season.