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Sunday, January 20, 2013
It's inauguration Day for Mr. Obama. We slept in again. Gee, eight mornings and eight evenings at the Grand Canyon and not a single dawn/early light or sunset/evening light photo session on the Rim for me!!! What kind of trip is this??? It had a different purpose.
We had breakfast at the lodge. The hostess seated four tables for our waitress back to back. She got overwhelmed. It was a confusing breakfast, but patience saw us through.
I checked email sitting by the large fireplace in the lobby, then picked up a ceramic tile to put up some place in the house. Then, I went back to our cabin to finish packing and to load up the car.
I checked us out and spotted Joy at the Phantom desk as I was leaving. She had been such a big help for us a week ago, so I stopped and told her my run over by a mule story. In the meantime, Carl got the car warmed up.
We were finally on our way. We headed off towards the east end of the park and the exit at that end. We stopped at Desert View for a potty break.
We also stopped for lunch at Cameron – the Trading Post there. When we walked into the place, we realized we had stopped here once before, on another trip. We had a decent lunch. And I picked up 2 t-shirts and a miniature Indian pot. I spent more than I intended...
It's a beautiful day today. Mid 40s and sunshine and no wind. Much different from our last time through that area.
The three photos above were taken from the car along the road today. The photo on the left is Hat Rock, right outside of Mexican Hat, UT. The center photo shows the La Sal Mountains as we neared Moab. The photo on the right shows an interesting sandstone formation with the La Sal Mountains in the background.
We pulled into Moab about 5:30. We're staying at the Canyonlands Best Western for the night (or two, depending on how we feel in the morning). The clerk upgraded us to a suite sized room. Nice! I don't know how much was my run over by a mule story, how much was because this is the slow season here in Moab, how much was because he was in a really good mood, and how much was embarrassment at how long the registration process was taking because he was looking at the wrong year... He had just taken a reservation for 2014 and hadn't remembered to change the date on the computer program and couldn't figure out why he was having problems getting us a room for the night!
We ate dinner at Zax's, about a block from the motel. Pizza, salad bar, and beers. Perfect!
Now, to explain that timing comment. After hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, hiking around the area at the bottom for three days, then hiking back up, the strolling around the Rim overlooks that we did on Saturday were the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. My body went on strike. The left knee decided it didn't want to work right – it's now got the knee brace on. The right shin decided to throb a bit. The head aches. The G/I tract has decided it's had enough strange food. If I don't feel better in the morning, we're heading home in the morning.