The long and sometimes wet road to Moab

Day 1:  Seattle to Boise:  525 miles

Not a lot to say other than it was a long haul.  Once over Snoqualmie pass, it was farm country all the way passing through Yakima, the Tri-Cities, then over the river to Umatilla and through eastern Oregon.  Good weather, easy traffic, no complaints.

Day 2:  Boise to Provo:  410 miles

I brought up the radar image of the region on my phone before I left.  The forecasts were iffy with a lot of moist, unstable air, and showers popping up here and there with occasional thunder storms.  I was hoping that I could dodge the major action - especially with 80mph speed limits on the highway meaning most traffic was doing 85-90.  Not fun in the rain.

Things held up well until I reached the southern edge of Idaho.  It was clear in the distance that there was a lot of activity.  I pulled over for gas and donned my rain gear hoping for the best.  Just as I got to the sign saying "welcome to Utah" the torrent started dumping buckets while trying to maintain my 80mph to keep the yahoos behind me from running up my exhaust.

Middle of nowhere, S. Idaho

Fortunately, these cells are pretty localized, and after 10 or 15 miles, things started to dry out and the sun broke through.  Going down through Salt Lake City, it was amazing how much snow was still on the Wasatch mountains to the east.  I heard there is still skiing at Snowbird, but not sure how usual that is for late May.

I had a few more showers going into Provo, but was glad to finally get there.  These first two days were the "getting there" part of this trip - like taking a long haul flight on your way to someplace good.

Day 3:  Provo to Moab:  185 miles

As soon as I left Provo, I got to get off of the Interstate and spend the rest of the day on a really nice 2 lane highway with incredible scenery and pretty limited traffic.  This was day 3, but was really day 1 for the part of the trip that I had been looking forward to.

Colorado River

I remember coming through here 22 years ago with Megan and Max (my kids) way back when they were kids.  We were awestruck back then at the red rock formations as we worked our way south, and came up the road where the picture above was shot to camp out along the Colorado River.  

Being Memorial Day weekend, I knew it would be busy, and Arches National Park was actually "full" and closed to new visitors when I got there.  Too bad, but I was okay not going in with pictures of long queues of cars in my head.  Instead, I went down into town and found some coffee and some lunch.

I actually drove south another 60 miles before settling onto a cheap motel to get some rest and write my blog.  I'm in a town called Monticello that is at a windswept crossroads and has seen better days.  I came down here because hotel/motels in Moab were running $200+ and were mostly booked out for the holiday weekend + it gets me an hour closer to Taos, which is still 300 twisty miles away.  Should be a really nice but long ride tomorrow.