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On Friday, April 24, we had a short haul of about 100 miles to Green River from Salina. We quickly located our pre-booked site at Green River State Park RV, and awaited the arrival of our fellow travellers from Whitefish, Montana – Bob and Alice Padgham. As we began to settle in to our site the State Park Ranger came by in his golf cart. The sun was quite warm, but we moved out of the shade to have a brief chat with him. An inadvertent and innocent question elicited a lengthy and far-ranging answer that kept us captive for the best part of the next half-hour. As we stood in the sun, from the shade canopy of his golf cart, he provided opinions on a wide array of historical, political and social events. Well, he was very friendly!

The Padghams arrived an hour or two after us, and we planned our next few days together. Our original plans of meeting with our friends (including another couple) in Santa Fe, have had to be abandoned. First of all, we learned that the Haafs, still back home, had had to cancel their travel plans because of an eye injury sustained in a pickle-ball game. Now, we discover, that the Padghams’ time table has had to be shortened because of travel document meetings that have been scheduled much earlier than they had expected. So, we will have two more days with them when they will turn west towards Zion and Bryce before heading home, while we continue heading east to Santa Fe on our own.

Meanwhile, although the RV Park didn’t have its full complement of RVs, we suddenly realized that there was a city of small tents being set up right next to us, and within the hour, a number of college-aged young ladies were busily running around with clipboards and organizing large numbers of back-packs around each tent. As one young lady came by our site, I asked her what was happening. Apparently there were 21 counsellors from a college running a special outdoor program and they were just waiting for their clients to show up – 70 grade 7 girls! Sure enough by 4:00 there were hordes of young teens gathered into groups with counsellors, and being organized into tents and given sets of rules. Tomorrow morning, they are off  “for 5 days hiking in the canyons”. They were all well behaved, and we got a kick out of 70 girls all with braided hair, trying to get ready for a 5 day outdoor adventure. During the night, it rained quite heavily, but by morning, we woke to sunshine and blue skies.

We watched as the young girls were being given final instructions for packing (no make-up bags), but we were on our way in two vehicles headed to Arches National Monument before they were ready to leave. We arrived at Arches about 3/4 of an hour later to see a long line of cars waiting to enter the park. We were finally into the Park within about another 1/2 hour, then we began the switch-back climb up towards more geological wonders! This was a 2-battery day for my camera, and once again stunning vistas and amazing rock formations had us pulling off into all the lookout areas.

Sandy and I are just about rocked out! Rolling hills, and green farm fields would provide a nice respite from the eye-candy of cliffs, mesas, canyons, hoodoos, and arches! As we made our way through the Park, ominous dark thunderheads piled up to the west of us, and since there was a weather warning for Arches, and Moab, we hurried to complete the tour. On the road to Delicate Arch, we crossed over an arroyo that had water in it from a storm from the previous day or two. I mentioned that I would rather be on the “safe” side of it before this new menace broke.

The La Sal mountains – with fresh snow.

Lineup for Arches!

Storm clouds gather over Arches

Sure enough, by the time we reached the Visitors Centre at the end of our Arches visit, we watched some lighting, and rain drops were starting to splatter our windshield. Back at Green River, it was raining steadily. We joined the Padghams in their trailer for appies, while the rain bucketed down outside, and later, during the night we listened to it drumming on our roof for most of the night.

This morning, Sunday, I checked the weather forecast for Moab, and learned that the road to Delicate Arch in the Park had been closed last night, and I had visions of the drenching that the young outdoor adventurers must have had last night. They will have a tale to tell their school chums! It was very chilly here, but Sandy and I rode our bikes to Silver Eagle Gas and Coffee Shop to get Wifi. By the time we returned, the Padghams had exercised their Springer Spaniel, Ike, and the four of us headed out on a 10 mile ride to the Green River Airport – a building out in the desert at the end of a deserted paved road.

Sandy, Bob, Alice and Tony at turn-around to 10 mile ride

The sky cleared, and back at the campground, we were able to sit and read outside in our lawn chairs. The forecast for the next week shows increasing sun and warm temperatures. This is what we came for!

Monday, April 27…On our way just shortly after 9:00 with Mesa Verde as our destination today. Since the Park Campgrounds are not open for another couple of days, we opted to book Mesa Verde RV Campground just outside the Park. Once again we headed on the road towards Arches and Moab, and as we travelled we listened to NPR (our only radio choice when in the US), and a broadcast talking about top books to read. One of the program guests owned a bookstore in Moab – “Back of Beyond”, and one of his strong recommendations was a book about Edward Abbey – the author of the book I just finished – “Desert Solitaire”. Since I have very mixed feelings about the author, I decided to try to find the store in Moab. I parked on Main Street, and Sandy got out and disappeared into a bookstore right beside Truck House. I looked up and sure enough – it was “Back of Beyond”! I went in, pointed to the man behind the counter, and told him, “I just heard you on NPR a few minutes ago!” He was thrilled, and I ended up buying the book that he recommended on Edward Abbey. He wins!

At Monticello (pronounced here as “mon-ta-cell’-o”) we turned east towards Colorado and within a mile or two, there were the landscape scenes that I dreamed of yesterday when I mentioned the “rocked out” comment.

For a while today, the temperatures got up near 20 C in Moab, but now, we are once again in chilly air with threatening black clouds. Perhaps they will by-pass us! Tomorrow, we will explore the Mesa Verde area as we “rock on”!

Much love and best wishes to all of you! We begin to feel the pull of the quilting cutting table and whirring sergers, workbenches and whining table saws!

Q and Q