Day 17: Boulder to Moab, Canyonlands NP (#8)

Day 17: Boulder to Moab, Canyonlands NP (#8)

Quote of the day:
How many roads most a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?

The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Pics: Hickman Bridge hike and rest from Hanksville, UT
Breakfast at the place across the pasture from our room at the Boulder Mountain Inn; THB orders the huevos rancheros and hash browns and get a wet breakfast burrito with home fries and DB orders blueberry pancakes that are such a weak imitation of the pancakes at Hell’s Backbone. With coffee, $20.

We drive Boulder Mountain, even more pretty than two days ago as some of the Aspen are now even more golden while others are turning bright yellow. In CR NP, we take the Hickman Bridge hike, a two mile round trip, at around 10:15 in the morning, and it is too hot again, in the low 80s by the time we are midway and mid-to-high 80s by the time we’re back.

Lunch in Hanksville, at Blondies and we order and split the conflicted combo: a veggie burger with cheese and a chocolate chip shake. Yowza, that shake tastes good! $13. And, lots of local info: they are prepping “astronauts” for a Mars Landing outside of town, and the dinosaur digs are just off Cow Dung Road behind the house boat cemetery. Quite a town, they say sometimes the martian guys come into town in their space suits to fill up the tanks of their cars. Yeah, right….if you didn’t believe the moon landing was faked, now you can start.

Make it to Moab, and the heat is up another notch, in the 90s here. THB is nothing if not flexible and accommodating, the heat is winning, so we decide to do what we can in less than 20 hours here and move on as quickly as we can to the Rocky Mountain NP, where apparently fall is in full bloom.

Visit Canyonlands NP (#8), take a few short (and hot) walks, and skip Dead Horse Point State Park, too far off the road and too little light left in the day and too little interest.

Dinner at the Moab Brewery: veggie burger with inedible onion rings (can this no-french fry diet turning us off to fried food?), chicken salad sandwich on rye toast, two beers (in Utah the beer is only 3% alcohol), total $27.