April 27, Moab, Utah
Hi, everyone, it’s DeeBee, fully recuperated from my short term bout of lethargy. I don’t know what exactly caused it, but I just wasn’t feeling strong or competent enough to do much of anything yesterday. But today I’m good as new! I have to thank Don for filling in for me yesterday, I think it worked out well ‘cause he was involved in everything that went on and I wasn’t.

We got another late start today, turning into a bunch of slugabeds. But we made up for it by hustling through the rest of the day. Just before noon, we headed up the road to Arches National Park. Geri and Don had been there once before, about 13 years ago, but hadn’t spent a lot of time in the park. Today, we took the time to see everything (that didn’t require an inordinate amount of walking), take a lot of photos, and do the full tour. The scenery really is incredible, and would make the place worthy of Park status even without the arches. The geology of the area is mind-blowing, particularly to a Golden Retriever who loves the subject, but doesn’t understand a bit of it. I know that the area here was once part of a huge sea, which deposited salt on the bottom of it, and then sand was deposited on top of the salt in many layers, and that this took millions of human years. I think that’s where I get hung up, translating this process into dog years, and not being able to work with such huge numbers. Anyway, the end result is beautiful to these eyes, and I love the smells from all the strange plants in the area. At one of the view points, we met a Bulldog who was only eleven months old, but was very friendly and courteous. His human said that he was being trained to skateboard, like our Tillman, who we met at our skate park one day a couple of years ago.

After we left Arches, we went into downtown Moab, parked, and walked around a bit. Geri and Don say that they think the town is thriving, there are new motels and restaurants all over the place, lots of other new businesses, and a lot of visitors every day. We visited a very attractive park in town, where I was able to get in a few rolls and runs and take care of some other business. Don had noticed on one of our maps that thee were some ancient Indian petroglyphs on a road next to the river, somewhere north of town; so, we had to go hunting for them. We found the right road, and about five miles down it, there was a sign that said “Indian Writing”. We parked, and Don went out looking for the inscriptions. Couldn’t find them. It took Geri’s sharp eyes to locate them, inscribed about 15 feet above the road. Apparently, nobody knows what these writings mean, but they obviously meant something to the people who put them there about 1200 years ago.

There were a bunch of people along the road engaged in climbing the sandstone cliffs that lined the highway, using ropes and other equipment that I couldn’t make sense of. I was wondering why they wanted to climb these rocks, since there wasn’t any food or anything else at the top. Don said that it was their idea of having fun. I’m proud to say that dogs don’t think that way. We continued down that road, still running alongside the river, past several campgrounds, until we reach the end of the pavement. There we found a huge potash plant, which was harvesting the “salt” that had been deposited millions of years ago. Looked like they were doing a good job of it. It was getting late, so we headed for home and dinner. Well, dinner for me, ‘cause Geri and Don weren’t that hungry, so I didn’t get any plates. I didn’t mind, I’m just glad I feel so much better than I did yesterday.

We’re off tomorrow for Monument Valley, down by the Arizona border. I hear it’s pretty spectacular! I’ll give you a full report. G’nite!