In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors. ~William Blake

Moab, UT

What was going to be a Labor-day Weekend filled with good ol’ BYU football, drastically  transformed into another trip down to Moab. I know my last Moab post I said it would probably take 10 years before I revisited the desertlands…well, it was more like 2 months. 

Amy (the aforementioned trailblazer), Julia and I went to the BYU Women’s Soccer game on Friday night where Amy invited us on a Moabian adventure with some people she didn’t know, except for one Jocelyn. An excuse to escape Provo and be in the blissful outdoors and sun? Count me in. 

We woke up early Saturday morning to find Amy entering our old apartment (University Villa apparently doesn’t change the door key code from year to year, NBD). We met up with our camping group at the Glenhood and were off to Moab. I passed out on the entire ride down there and woke up refreshed to hear Amy complaining about a mocking Green River temple structure (there are blocks in a pyramid shape with a yellow box on top, nothing to get worked up over).

Eventually, we pulled into Moab’s Denny’s to discover the “reserved” campsite we were told we had, was not reserved and that the other campsites they looked into cost $80 something. Fo realz? This is why you don’t let men plan trips. Time and time again I have had to learn this the hard way. Luckily, Amy’s familiarity with the area was able to find us a campsite along the riverside. It’s amazing what a difference having any form of water near you in the desert makes. Amy, Julia, and I tromped down to the riverside and walked around in the cool, muddy slop. 

We returned to the campsite to see everything had been set up and we headed off to Arches. Being that I had done Arches not too long ago (in a very nerve-racking, but wicked fun way) I did not feel the dire need to climb atop every boulder, etc. I took it easy and enjoyed the views. At the window preview to Delicate Arch we met some people and their Aussie Collie mutts! SO CUTE! They totally reminded me of Maxie and Princess and made me wish they could play in Utah with me. I honestly would have such a blast if Max and Prin were here, drat student housing and the no-pets policy. 

Delicate Arch was still rockin’ (pun intended, haha) and we had a good hike even though we went in the heat of the day. Unfortunately on our way back, all of the watering holes we had found Taddington in had dried up significantly, so there was no Taddington 2. *R.I.P. Taddington Tadpole the Third. He lived in a dirty water bottle for 2 months and doubled his size, but unfortunately was thrown away by my new roommates who must’ve thought his home was trash. He will forever live in our memories.*

After a little bit of Arches, we went back into Moab to get slushies=]. My kind of people. We also went back to Moab to ask rock climbing stores where we could do some climbing. We got directions and took a very long, windy, downhill sloping road to get there. We got there around dusk and only had one rope to climb with, but I can now say I have rock climbed outdoors! It was my first time climbing outdoors and it was awesome and addicting all at once!

The next morning we headed off to an LDS sacrament meeting at a Moab ward. Since it was Fast Sunday, the sacrament meeting was a testimony meeting and boy did we hear some once-in-a-lifetime testimonies from the pulpit. The chorister (who made us sing all 6 verses of the opening hymn and used a baton to lead) got up and bore a really intense testimony and after she bore her testimony she got back on the pulpit and said she felt prompted to sing Hymn #255 and for everyone to turn to the page in their hymnbooks with gusto. The bishop kindly told her that we wouldn’t be doing that and she shook her head 'Ok' and said we would sing it next week. The next couple of folks got up and bore their testimonies in between weeping and the final lady to get up to the pulpit bore her testimony about how in the course of a week 2 of her family members had fallen 18 ft off of buildings or something and how her grandson got run over by a car, but everyone was in perfect health and only had scratches and hurt feet. It was definitely a weeping ward.

After church, we went back to Arches to do a Sunday nature hike and have a group scripture study. We hiked up to Landscape Arch and found an out of the way crevice-like joint where we had a really good discussion on 2 Nephi 9 in The Book of Mormon. We decided to do some more nature hiking after our devotional and Amy and I came to the realization that we had never actually been to Double-O Arch before, we thought Partition Arch was that. Fun story, it isn’t.

Surprisingly, finishing up Arches took the majority of the day so by the time we were done it was time to drive over to Goblin’s Valley. We reached Goblin’s Valley around dusk and found this humungous campsite. In the dark it looked like just a huge campsite for one large group of people because you could only see one fire pit. In the daylight, however, we came to find that there were several fire pits within the site we took over. We camped out under the stars and had leftover tinfoil dinners and soup. We attempted to play card games, but with 1 deck and 9 people, even Go Fish was a disaster. 

In the morning we headed off to Goblin’s Valley, where Galaxy Quest was filmed to resemble Mars’ landscape. Wicked tight. It was the largest playground I’ve ever seen/played on. These random ‘goblins’ are everywhere just waiting to be climbed on. We played Sardines, which was fun for a little while but we really wanted to go to the side of the bowl and climb the walls. Climbing these mud structures was fun, but I didn’t feel confident enough to go very high because I like knowing my handholds won’t crumble away whilst I’m in the air. I did manage to climb past my limit one time and ended up having to jump down from the ledge I was on…I may have miscalculated the height of the jump and I may have somersaulted into a rock. Just maybe. 

Literally right down the road from Goblin’s Valley was Little Wild Horse Canyon. Holy mackerel my absolute favorite place in all of Moab. I’d never been in slot canyons before, I’ve actually never even heard of them, but basically they were once underwater canyons and they were so bomb! I love water and to see the power the ocean can have on the environment was incredible. Twisting through the smooth canyons, you could just feel the power, smell the ocean, and just picture what kind of world used to exist underwater. It was mesmerizing. And going through the narrows was super fun. I’d never done anything like that before.

When we were back in the parking lot from the slots, the Jeep next to our car had a massive flat tire so a few of us helped out the guy while the rest of us offered support from afar. He was German and his name is Wolfgang Regel and he was in town for an IT conference. He’s been to the slots like 20 times in the past 15 years or something crazy like that and he loves Moab. He does photography as a hobby and he showed us some of his prints and they were unbelievable. He uses old school film and prints his pictures from his home printer and the quality and the shots were honestly inspiring. 

I honestly have never been so mesmerized by rocks before. Those slot canyons were truly incredible. While the scenery was beautiful, the climbing of rocks and goblins was fun, the best part was that Julia and I got to share one last trip with Amy before she heads off on her LDS mission to Argentina for the next 18 months. Oh, that roommate love. 

Peace and Blessings