DJ Takes a Break

I'm sitting in my hotel room at Zion National Park while my wife, The Hotelier and Janet tour the park. My legs are a bit leaden today, so I took the day off.  I saw Zion yesterday during our drive through and I'll get to check it out further tomorrow.

Our first destination was Moab, which will be the most hopping place we'll be until we arrive in Vegas on Saturday. We made a stop at the Utah state liquor store before arriving at our B and B. They spare expense by not refrigerating the beer. The place was busy and some patrons had caked mud on their Jeeps. The B and B was comfy and all rooms had an Italian name. I believe ours was Cielo something, but you already know I'm a lousy blog note taker. I just referred to ours as number three. I was able to memorize the access code however, so I'm sometimes useful.

Our first mistake was going to the Moab Brewery for dinner that night. The Hotelier got the steak sandwich special, which was not special at all. I got the pulled pork. Besides for being room temperature, it reminded me of dirty mop head. I also felt the ABV of their house IPAs was a tad low. The ladies fared better with fish choices. 

The next day was Arches. We did some hiking and saw many arches, including Double Arch and Sand Dune Arch, which was my favorite. I had to scoot through a small crevice at Sand Dune. It took this geezer some effort, but I made it. Once in there, you feel like you are on another planet.

We hit the road Monday to Capital Reef Resort in Torrey, with a stop at Canyondlands on the way. That place made me feel real small. The various colors and the towering monoliths tend to run together in my head, but all are impressive. What was not impressive was the level of service we recived at the Capitol Reef Resort. My wife called to see if we might get in around 2pm, as opposed to their 4pm check-in, and got a non-committal response. We got more of the same when we arrived. After sitting by the pool for a bit, we brought out the big guns: The Hotelier. He patiently explained he had a little experience in their business and suggested they touch base with housekeeping to move things along, to no avail. We ended up getting into our room around 4:30, for which we received a 10% discount.

Torrey was a pretty small place but we managed to get some pretty good meals. We walked into the Broken Spur the first night and were told the wait was two hours, so we headed to the Rock Reef Cafe. I did not expect much but my enchiladas were good and the two waitresses with a ton of tables did and excellent job. I'd be pulling my hair out if I was in their shoes. The next night we planned better and hit the Broken Spur at 5pm and only waited 20 minutes. It would have been nice to have a bigger table but many were occupied by two people. The food was good though. We also patronized the Wild Rabbit Cafe for breakfast and lunch, which were great, the Shooke coffee roastery for our morning joe, and the Chuck Wagon to get our traveling sandwiches.

Tuesday was Capital Reef, which is described as "a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes, and bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles." I couldn't have said it better myself. We did a bit of driving there, including a few miles on a dirt road. I sat with a group of Japanese tourists as the others took a hike. We encountered tourists from many countries at all the parks. I feel that welcoming people from other nations is a good idea. We also stopped at the Gifford House, which is famous for their pies. We snagged a couple right before they ran out. On the down side, we couldn't locate the Capitol Dome, which The Hotelier was hoping to see.

We spent a bit of time on the road yesterday, with a stop at Bryce. It was pretty crowded, but we got to see a lot. One of the benefits of traveling with DJ, and probably the main reason The Hotelier and Janet joined us on this trip, is that I have a handicap parking placard. Even those spots were filled at our first swing through Sunset Point, but we found a parking place on our second time through. My fear of heights kicked in there and at times at the other parks.

OK, I'm off to grab a sandwich and do a brief walking tour of Springdale. Don't be too harsh when reading this post as I do not have access to my Word editor.