One of the first stops is always Sand Flats road. Not only is it the road to Lion's Back, the fins, as well as a great way to get up to the La Sals, it also takes you past the Moab Dump. This is another reason we like Moab, the folks there have a sense of humor! The sign, unfortunately, has been retired and is now in a museum. Ahh, the good old days when you could call a dump a " dump. "

Woody's Tavern is world famous. Just look at the sign, it says so. Besides that, it made it on this web page, didn't it?? There are always characters there. This one decided to do some " wheeling " off the back of Woody's into the creek, at least 10' down. This made for a lot of interesting comments the next morning! I've got another photo that shows how stuck he really is, but this one, with the sign on the side of the bar, has more effect. Welcome to Moab!

Couldn't resist this photo. This is Hey Joe Canyon and yes, that's dust! The trail was fun, especially Frenchie, our trail leader. He explained how, during the pre-run, a rock fell off the cliff, came through his roof and landed on the passenger seat. Now anyone that knows Frenchie would surely realize that this unlikely story could not have been fabricated!

We went off on our own a lot. My favorite place is Dead Horse Point. The view here far exceeds, in my opinion, the view of the Grand Canyon. Perhaps it's the fact that there are not three million people pushing and shoving you. Most of the times we are here, we're alone. We've been here in a snow storm - that was spectacular. We've camped here and ridden bicycles out to the point. We've looked at the stars from here. I think I like it!

Here's the sad part. We've also done extensive wheeling in the Needles District to the south of Moab. One of our favorite journeys is up Salt Creek about 15 miles to see Angel Arch at the end of the trail. Most of the time the trail is right up the creek through a most spectacular canyon. We've given people rides who have tired of the hike. We even helped an Outward Bound group one time.

Now, in 1998, thanks to the efforts of a few selfish bastards (the Sierra Club and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance) you or I will never see these magnificent sights again. They are now reserved only for those that can hike the 15 miles in and 15 miles out again. Yes, these idiots have managed to convince a Judge and the Park Service to close this trail to vehicles. May these same folks who closed the trail hike in, sprain their ankle and hobble out in pain, because it would destroy the environment if we were to take a vehicle in there to rescue them. There --- I'm off my soapbox, dammit! Click here for more information about these random acts of closures.

This is Angel Arch. We've seen it like this, we've seen it with snow on it. We've picnicked here. I've sat and reflected on the beauty of this world that can be had for free (well almost!) Too bad we can't see it anymore - the selfish bastards have taken it away!

In the shadow of Angel Arch
here's our 11 year old being - - - an 11 year old!
Oh to be young again!

On to Goblin Valley. This is another favorite, undiscovered, place. It's a long ways from no where (30 miles or so) to the nearest town. It has spectacular hoodoo formations. Walking through this is like entering another planet. This is a great place! But haven't I said that about all the places out here? Hmmmmm. Photos can't do this place justice - you ought to be here at sunset - WOW!

And now on to the next installment of the close encounters with Muddy Creek. In our last installment , we missed flash flood by only a few minutes. This time we made it to the " Big Muddy " and drove upstream to find an old mining camp. We got about a mile and bogged down in quicksand - really bogged down! ! Here I'm trying to figure out how to get unstuck. There is nothing to winch to so we had to jack each wheel up out of the quicksand about 18 " , put debris under the wheel and do it all before the stuff settled again. We got out, I backed up into a " safe " area and as we were congratulating ourselves on a wonderful rescue operation (about 3 hours), my daughter pointed out that the Jeep was sinking again! I love wheeling !