Cross country trip: Into Utah

Every evening of our trip we unloaded the truckbed into our hotel room and then in the morning we'd reload the truckbed. We have a nice bed cover, but since the items were important enough to carry on the cross-country trip with us I wasn't going to let them be left in the truckbed where sticky fingers might get a hold of them while we weren't watching. This morning was no exception. We drained the water from the cooler and loaded our possessions back into the bed. Got the children comfortable in their carseats and set out on I-70 again. We greeted the Colorado River a few more time in the 15 of our drive before it turned off toward the south. From Grand Junction, we stayed on the highway just about an hour before finding our first detour. We wanted to go to Arches National Park, but we didn't want to do any backtracking along the same roads if we could avoid it. Both of us feel that if we have to back-track we have wasted our time. We'd studied the map the night before and the only major route to Moab from I-70 that we could find was Rte 191 so we looked for a minor one instead. Exit 202 to route 128 is pretty obscure. You could easily miss it if you aren't paying attention. Try not to though! The road takes off through the desert almost due east about 2 miles before turning toward the south. It goes past a few widely spaced ranches and has some great views of Mt Tomasaki. About four miles after turning south the road connects with the Colorado River inside a canyon cut through some really pretty redrock. (I wish I could give you more geologic info about this!) We saw something interesting around every bend and stopped to take picture almost as often. Of the entire road trip, this portion was my favorite! I was a bit towrn about whether to write of this road or not. It doesn't appear too promising if you look at a road map. It's a two lane, narrow, winding minor road but it was my favorite part of the whole road trip. It wasn't very busy either. I hope that it continues to have light traffic. We followed the road down to Moab, stopping at ocassional recreation areas to watch a few rafts go by, take some picture, admire the beauty, or skip some rocks across the water. In Moab we stopped for some beef jerky snacks and to talk to some locals at a bike shop. My husband used to ride the midwestern mountain bike race circuit in his late teens and lots of the teammates talked of riding the slickrock in Moab.(Moab is something of a Mecca for serious mountain bikers.) It's been years since he's done any competitive riding, but he still likes hearing about what's going on in the sport. He gathered the info he was looking for, mentioned that he'd like to come back some time, and then got back in the truck to continue our trip. The next stop: Arches National Park. I'll write about this one in a day or so. I'll leave you with a few more pictures from along route 128. My kids in front of a large rock formation; everyone trying to skip rocks across the river; and my son finding a large rock that he wanted to skip.