Friday, October 12

Moab

After a busy day yesterday, sleeping in and breakfast were in order this morning. While Steve updated the blog, Carol journeyed downtown to a yarn shop called Desert Threads. It is a cute little shop with lots of natural fibers, handmade gifts, and unique buttons, etc. I was fascinated with the shop, and the owner, Cathy, was very helpful with a pattern and yarn to make a felted bag. She also had a yarn winder (for lack of a better name) which she showed me how to use. If you did a lot of knitting with loose skeins, that would be the ticket!

When I returned to the trailer, Steve was packed to head out on another adventure! We drove north on Hwy. 191 looking for a trail to look for dinosaur fossils. Not a good trail for the Ford! So we headed south and took Hwy. 128 north along the Colorado River and on the southern boundary of Arches Nat'l. Park. Of course there are lots of canyons with Castle Valley to the south. Castle Valley is where the John Wayne movie, "The Comancheros" was filmed. At Dewey Bridge we walked across the second longest suspension bridge west of the Mississippi. The sign said it was used until the late "80's" and is now on the Register of Historic Places. It was completed in the early 1900's and was the main freight route from Colorado to Utah.

We came back to Moab late afternoon and went to see the Gem and Mineral Show which has been advertised all week. I think they said it is the "48th annual"! Well, I was hoping to see some handmade stuff...hopefully Indian. Well, now such luck! There were agate tumblers and rock hounds everywhere. One Chinese importer had piles of beads (I am not sure who he was trying to fool), so needless to say, we won't need a return trip tomorrow.

We had dinner at the Moab Diner and Ice Cream Parlour. Now we are hoping to see those Rockies win #2 against Arizona.

Dewey Bridge over the Colorado River.

The river from the bridge.

This was home for the owners of the trading post at the bridge in 1906. Didn't have to worry much about paint. Shelter was built into the side of a rock bluff.

Where "Castle Valley" got it's name. I can just see John Wayne riding through the bottom land.