Time to move on…

At the end of our ride on Thursday, Michael turned to me and said, “So, was that epic enough for you?”

We left from our camp that morning and rode this route at Navajo Rocks: Big Mesa -> Rambler -> Rocky Tops -> Middle Earth -> Big Mesa. A lollipop loop of almost 16 miles.

That ride was, in fact, epic enough for me. I was very glad that camp was waiting for us at the end.

I don’t think I’ve put up any pictures of our Lone Mesa campsite. Behold:

This was after our epic ride, so those are our riding clothes hanging off the doors. The view to the east is even better.

That view of Big Mesa is why we keep coming back to this site. The sunsets here are incredible. (I’ll let you know about the sunrises if I ever see one. Generally I don’t get up until the sun hits the tent, and that’s been around 7:30am.)

Other adventures this week:

On one of our recent forays to the City Market, we found the coffee selection pretty picked over. Michael found a bag, but it was whole beans. So he opened it and dumped the contents into the coffee grinder they have there. He set the dial to “drip,” but when I went to make coffee the next morning, I found grounds so coarse that they’d have to steep for extra time in a French press.

Luckily, I had an ace up my sleeve. I used to belong to the Longmont Writer’s Group – they meet every Sunday at Ziggi’s Coffee on Francis. At some point, four of us started our own critique group and got to be friends. Right before Michael and I began our trip, my friend and critique member Marc Sobel gave me a couple of gifts. And one of them was a coffee grinder.

This bad boy had been sitting in the container we call the Kitchen, waiting patiently for us to need it. And I’m happy to day it worked like a champ! I was delighted to not have to break out the Starbucks Via. Thanks, Marc!

We took the day after our epic ride as a rest day and went for a drive, up into the La Sals. We even found a side road for a little off-roading. Taco Negro is a high-clearance, 4WD vehicle. We don’t have locking differentials and we’re not looking to take it out on anything gnarly, but Michael does enjoy his time on the jeep trails. So when we passed an anonymous-looking two-track, he turned around for a closer look.

Like I said, we’re not taking the truck where you’d take a rock crawler, or anything. Just some easy off-road stuff. And Taco Negro is pretty capable.

We ended our drive at Arches NP again. Michael’s favorite spot is the Windows area, so we went for a late afternoon hike over to Double Arch.

Yep, that’s one good-looking man.

And the whole, “time to move on” thing? We’re heading out from Moab on Monday the 10th. For real. Of course, we’re just heading down to the Needles District of Canyonlands…