reruns but the desert so it's okay

We were back in Moab for Labor Day weekend, and delighted that it was slightly cooler, as in highs only in the mid 90s.  The fact that we were "delighted" by those temperatures means we have truly given up our east coast cards.  Truly, though, the weather was great with mostly clear skies, which allowed it to cool off overnight.  Good stuff.

A Millcreek morning

Also good stuff: our neighbor is home from her summer commercial fishing in Alaska!  She bought a new boat this year, so it was a bit of a learning curve with the engine and mechanics and new fishing gear.  But she learned a lot, is set up for next spring, and both she and her sweet dog made it all safely.  We spent several hours over the course of the weekend in her shady backyard, drinking beers and hearing her stories while Milton and Moscow did dog stuff.

This is where Millcreek flooded by the Youth Garden Project

Outdoors/exercise-wise, our activities looked a lot like they have all summer.  On Friday morning, while H did a five mile trail run, A and M went to Millcreek.  The monsoonal floods have made a mess from the confluence on down, dropping lots of sand and actually making the lower creekside trail pretty flat to walk on.  Later that morning, A and H did a sixteen mile bike path road ride - H was on his MTB because we hadn't brought his road bike with us, planning for him to use his cruiser for bike path rids, but his cruiser had a flat tire so MTB it was.  Unfortunately, the flooding has completely taken out the part of the path by the vet's office - and if I were the owner of the house next door, I would be getting very, very nervous.

Circle O morning

Saturday H had planned for a longer trail run, so we all piled into the car and drove out to Moab Brand Trails.  H and M did eight+ miles while A did her Circle O loop (across the parking lot cutover to Bar M, to Circle O (counterclockwise), back to Bar M, back to the cutover).  A then did a solo bike path ride (21 miles) because H didn't feel like lugging his heavy MTB all that way.  Can't blame him.

Nervous but festive

For Sunday, while H recovered with a 4.7 mile trail run on Pipe Dream, A and M went up to Sandflats Recreation Area for a quick practice loop walk.  We met a couple of nice dogs and found a very interesting (if you find scat interesting haha) poop out on the rocks.  It was full of prickly pear fruits and too big to be coyote ... could it have been a bear?!!?  There are definitely bears in the La Sal mountains so it's not out of the realm of possibility that a bear wandered down towards town.  Later, A did another 21 mile solo road ride.  Sure do like that little Cannondale - super glad that I bought it.

Moody Sandflats morning

Finally, on Monday, H did a short three miler while A and M went back for the Millcreek loop.  Then, after much debate about avoiding traffic (leaving before noon on Monday or leaving at 4 a.m. on Tuesday so H didn't miss an early meeting), we opted to leave early to hopefully get ahead of the holiday traffic.  We got held up less than half an hour coming down into Spanish Fork, so I guess we did get ahead of most of it, and were back in Sandy with enough time for a long holiday weekend beer perched on the tailgate of the truck.  As one does.

Scat photo below.  Apologies for those who think it's gross - just keep scrolling.