Meandering in the General Direction of the Point. ~>

Okay. So. What was I talking about?
Ah yes. Moab.

Should one live in a vacation destination, how does one celebrate the end of $ earning season?

Well, my honored Vail co-workers flung themselves off a lip of snow in an effort to then skim across a pool of water. Sidney glided. It was incredible. I found a towel to commemorate the event.

Then where does one go to replenish reserves?
Well, when your trade in snow, go for warm places. Naturally.
Winters are long up here.
There are two [2] months on record when it has NOT snowed down in Denver. July & August.

For example, this season. As coined by my pre-parturient co-worker:

April showers brings May  .  .  .  snow plowers.

On our mid April intended departure date to the aforementioned destination, the skies went about the business of having a seasons worth of backed up, beautiful Spring snow diarrhea. The quantities were untoward. I mean, after a lean (in the snow department) season, after we’ve all given up and moved on, then comes the surfeit. Thanks Ullr; your snarky sense of humor is duly noted.

All imposition-of-human-will-on-the-Universe aside, and not being one to turn down a challenge from the skies and an invitation from a friend, Busted-Magic, Nanuk, and I went out to play on Hoosier Pass.
Well, plow was more like it. I had forgotten what it felt like to ski powder. How to settle back and float. Ah yes, THIS is what was supposed to have been happening REGULARLY these past 6 months. This season, it only happened when special people came to visit. (Holla @ Poppa, Reeves, etc.)

My foray cost us the tiny window of possible departure that day.

tick tock. Tick toc. tic Tock. Tic Toc.

On the second day, we loitered about the old white country house, waiting and hoping it would ease up. At 2 pm Google maps revealed Trough Road, a way around the I-70 Vail Pass closure.

Dusty, The Fauve, and I departed post haste. The dirt road was wide and relatively well plowed. Certainly well traveled, but only by those familiar enough to know of it, thus, able to handle it. Dusty was a pro and we made it to the Barnes & Nobel in Grand Junction in time to browse relaxedly for an hour or so.

Since The Fauve was the smallest of us, she got to play stow-away in our 2 person hotel room. Burt, my handsome new bike, slept at my bedside.

The next morning, mountains gave way to mesas which, at a jolted cliff of contested hundreds feet high and which runs as far into the distance as an imagination cares to take it, plummets into infinite webs of water divets burrowing into lose rock which spread into vast, red desert. The Fauve was pasted to her window.

My friends back home aren’t going to believe this!
No, you don’t understand.
There aren’t Rocks in Florida!

We camped on the Colorado River, who had escorted us nearly the whole way down from our mountain-top home. The canyon walls were spectacular. Rain tested our wills and fire building skills. I am proud to say, all three of us excel in these and various other handy areas. For example, The Fauve, (who deserves a proper introduction [Fauve likes sharks. and meat. but not shark meat.]) turned out to be our demolitions expert. On that first dampish afternoon, after arming ourselves at the Moab Rock Shop, she sat contentedly at a stone slab, pulverizing what rocks Dusty brought to her. Only after satisfactorily smashing the slab itself did she turn it into a replica of Pride Rock from Lion King. Which she then neatly lined with twigs. And set on fire.

One overcast day we found an ‘unmaintained jeep track’ into one of the loneliest expanses of wilderness I’ve had the privilege of experiencing. Turns out, it is a shared sentiment, as the mesa at whose hem and gullies we were hunting rocks, was called Lone Mesa. I will admit, it is nice when you have the option of vehicle and thereby quick escape from said desolation. Particularly when heavy clouds are loitering.

When the skies cleared, we took to the rocks for a day of scrambling in the sun. Impressive feats all around. The Fauve holds video of the most and least successful moments of the day. Such activities remind me of the concept of upper body strength; more of a ‘theory’ in my usual world of hiking pursuits. Though, watching a fellow dangle from an overhang, then somehow launch his body upward (against gravity, mind you!), through the air, to stick, by bare finger tips to some minute crevice; well, that makes me suspect, it might be more than theory. Looks more like lots of hard and dedicated effort. And falling.
So I did some of that too.

Arches National Park demanded her due. Traffic was relatively light and the day was relatively cool, so it was perfect. We must give Kudos to those who designed the park. The initial drive up the wide red wall of teetering rocks and hoodoos and caves, where forms stand out from every surface always in peripheral vision; well, if you can, you should go and see it yourself.

I’ll leave it at that.