Day Twenty-six -- to Moab, UT

Day 26 – Provo to Moab, UT

I got up this morning and rinsed dead mayflies off our dishes before breakfast. What a lovely job.
We packed up and hit the road, and it was a relief to drive up through the mountains just beyond Provo – a brief respite from the monotonous desert terrain. On the other side, though, the desert became much more interesting. It’s still scrubby and dry, but the red-rock cliffs and somewhat rolling terrain hinted that we were getting close to Arches National Park.
We pulled in to Moab and spent some time finding a place to set up camp. I didn’t make any reservations for the return leg of our trip, partly because I wasn’t sure which route we would take. We tried to get a campsite inside Arches, but the campground is full there. So we drove through Moab and checked out a mostly abandoned campground near the Colorado River five miles outside of town. It could have been spectacular because it’s so remote, but it also gave us the willies for the exact same reason. We finally settled in town at a dusty RV park with absolutely no scrap of shade. (Come to think of it, there’s no shade anywhere in the entire town of Moab.) Gross, I know, but we chose it for its electrical hook-ups, so I can get up-to-date on this blog. The things we do for you guys. No worries. We just need a place to sleep; we planned on eating dinner in town at a local brew-pub, anyway.
We set up the tent – and found we couldn’t even stake it down; it’s like camping on a dirt road – and then headed out to Arches. In what turned out to be a whirlwind tour, we drove the entire park, stopping occasionally for brief hikes in 100-degree heat. It’s a wondrous landscape with all these strange, whimsical rock formations, but I’m not sure I could ever live here, without relief from the merciless, scorching sun.
I don’t know if it’s the heat or the fact that we’ve been on the road for almost four weeks now, but the kids are starting, ever so slightly, to fall apart. They’re squabling just a little bit more than usual. Clare has pitched two 30-minute screaming/sobbing fits in the car over the last two days. Even Keith and I are starting to unravel, and I find myself counting the days until we get home.