This IS an adventure!

Let’s see… where did I leave you? On the way to Moab?

Moab is the town next to The Arches National Park. Both the town and the park are lovely. My family took trips out West often when I was young, and I don’t recall ever going to Arches. I was excited to arrive and check it all out.

On our way from Salt Lake, we made two stops. The first stop was from HWY 51 to State Rte. 50. We got gas, had a snack at DQ, and stretched our legs at the petting zoo! A petting zoo! Right there at the exit! It was free (donations accepted). We saw peacocks, chickens, emu, goose, camel, zonkeys, alpaca, and two cow types. One was African of some sort with GIANT horns. The guy had run the place for 5 years, “Well, ya gotta give people something to do, to stretch their legs.”

Next we drove a short distance across 50 until we got to 70. We stayed on 70 until hitting 191, then traveled South to Moab. We arrived around 8:30pm on Thursday. The Chinook, who I’m inclined to call “Bessie,” has been slow and mopey through all this. We had intentions of taking her to be inspected by a professional, but first we had some tourist business to take care of.

Friday morning we went to breakfast at Love Muffin. It was organic, local, and delicious, but they still put my coffee in a plastic lined to-go cup. :/ I know that these cups don’t bother most of the population, but they can’t be recycled and you’re drinking HOT LIQUID out of PLASTIC. Plastic melts people, and releases toxins!!! Okay, now you know what goes on in my head every time I get hot stuff in a to-go cup.

Next we went to Moon Flower to get groceries. I think Moon Flower is privately owned, but it has all that good stuff that a good co-op has. We stocked up.

Then, it was off to Arches. The $10 entry to the park was well worth it. The visitors center was informative, and had one of those short movies where a friendly voice narrates the tale of the geological evolution and compares it to human life and death. The road up to the scenic part of the park was up, up, up. Since it was a scenic drive, we didn’t feel too bad about going and average of 35mph the whole way. Matt was tired when we got to the major attraction, so he took a nap while T and I hiked up to the arches and took photos. I really enjoyed myself. On the way back down, I had to take care of some work stuff. Matt pulled over at another scenic spot and walked 1/4 mile to visit Balancing Rock. He said it was “way cooler” than the arches. :P

click any image to see it larger!

After getting all that fun stuff out of the way, we focused on Bessie and her health. After numerous phone calls and 3 visits to various auto support places, we ended up at Arches Auto Repair at 4pm.

We had to beg and pay cash for him to look at our business before they closed. They replaced the fuel filter. We tried to leave town, but Matt felt that things still weren’t right. We paced up and down a hill (for real) in the Chinook for about a half hour before we decided to stay another night in Moab.

This time, we stayed at OK RV. The previous night was at KOA. KOA has it’s benefits, but I felt like the “yellow shirts” were always swarming around… watching… calculating… judging. Signs such as “no working on RVs!,” “do not leave pet tied up outside vehicle unsupervised,” and “no line drying” made me feel unhappy and uncomfortable. OK RV was much more chill, but there were like, a thousand flies. As Matt would say, “half of one, six dozen of the other.”

I stayed up late again working. Remote work is great, but also takes some getting used to. People communicate with you differently. Some act as if you’re not accessible. Some treat you as if you are in the office. And while I’ve adapted to checking email regularly, and staying up late to finish projects, there are still some adjustments I need to make. I need to think bigger when I get a request. I need to review a wider array of problem solving methods an I need to do it quicker. One request that was made yesterday could have been answered right away if I hadn’t taken the request literally. If I had considered what their end goal was, instead of the direct request, I could have helped much earlier in the day by directing them to their need without my support.

The next morning, we packed up. Doug escaped twice, but didn’t get too far. We tried to leave town, but the engine died and we drove back to Arches. And here, we wait…

...with Mitzie, the repair shop dog.

For those of you interested in Tetra’s experience: She’s having a grand time. She sleeps about half the time we are driving. She enjoys our interaction on the road. We read to her, play with her, sing with her, play kalimba with her. She’s no different than she is at home: beautiful, sweet, smiley… meeting strangers and hearing stories of their grandchildren. She’s getting stronger too. I feel almost totally comfortable letting her sit up on her own.

We chatted with these lovely people in the gift store. They have 13 grand and great-grandchildren! He's an Illini. It was his birthday and their anniversary. They were sweet folk.