Moab – Arches and Canyonlands

Mesa Verde is close to “Four Corners” where the state borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet. Thus heading west on US160 soon took us into Utah where we drove north on US191 to Moab where we booked into the Bowen Motel.

According to the guide book, in the Bible Moab was a Kingdom on the edge of Zion and when it was founded in 1870 it would have seemed a very long way from the Mormon city of Zion, Salt Lake City. Nowadays Moab is a centre for outdoor sports, particularly mountain biking, but also river rafting, hiking, and in the right season, cross country skiing. However it also has had some past prospecting history -oil in the 1920’s and uranium in the 1950’s!

But when we were there, Utah felt hot. Even going for a short walk away from the car we carried drinking water. A sign in a supermarket warned against leaving alcohol in your car, not that the Utah beer contained very much alcohol in the first place, presumably because of the Mormon influence.

However some of the scenery was quite spectacular, provided you like rocks and desert, which I do!.

Photo Gallery: Entering Utah…

From Moab we visited the Arches National Monument and the Canyonlands National Park.

Photo Gallery: Arches National Monument…

Click for Photo Gallery: Canyonlands National Park…


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