After a couple more hours, we arrived in the Moab area sometime after 11 pm and drove around looking for a camp site. We knew the hotels were full due to an annual bike race that week, and the hostel was booked, but we figured camping (which is what we wanted anyway) would be more available. There's no shortage of camp sites in the area by Canyonlands and Arches, but after probably 2 hours of searching and shining headlights into far too many camp sites, we resorted to a cramped spot in the hostel grounds at the Lazy Lizard where the attendant said he'd let us stay for $6.53. And it was worth...well...every penny. We were too tired to care, at that point, that the place looked not unlike a refugee camp and included a couple of shady characters lurking in the shadows. Dallin kept saying we were going to die. I told him that may be, but it was a place to sleep. He agreed. Sleep was worth risking death at that point.
The next day, after freshening up in the remarkable sketchiness they call a restroom, we were off to Canyonlands. We had a day full of sight-seeing, hiking, rock-throwing, talking with cute park volunteers, meeting a cool German lady who was touring all over the U.S. with her husband, watching a tiny Asian woman try to stand upright under the teetering weight of a camera bigger than she was (I'm sad I missed that), a random old biker bearing his hairy all while changing at the visitors' center (not sad I missed that), and wondering how far we'd get on the fumes of gas we had left while trying not to ask for emergency fuel because the park "is not a gas station," as one park ranger reminded me at least 5 times.
In the evening, we ate at Pasta Jay's, where Ryan and I partook in a Roman Orgy (relax, it's a pizza), then we ("we" meaning everyone but me) grabbed some ice cream and perused Moab's main street. We checked out a used book store and a CD/video exchange store, where we bought a couple of movies and went back to the hostel for some laptop movie-watching before crashing (see last picture for more on the hostel experience).
The next morning, we all freshened up and put on our Moab Sunday best (non-filthy casual clothes), said good-bye to the hostel we'd grown to love, and went to sacrament meeting at the local ward. A few surprisingly tolerable emergency preparedness talks and a lovely musical number later, we headed back home.
It seems like a pain to go camping and make such a quick trip, and that hostel was sketchy, but y'know, I'd do it again. Next time, though, I think I'd like to see Goblin Valley and the Needles area of Canyonlands.
OK, a few pictures from the trip:
Standing on Mesa Arch. I took this at entirely the wrong angle, but hey, I'll get over it. Nothing says "I love and respect nature" like standing on top of it. It just has to be done.
Funny how you look at things from a different angle and realize exactly how precarious your situation was.
Greg giving me his best "Why do you take so many pictures?" look, Dallin posing for his glamour shot (he claims he was laying down to deal with his height-induced panic attack, but we know the truth), and Ryan...being Ryan.
It really is an impressive expanse beyond Mesa Arch.
The tree troll.
Classic Mesa Arch shot. That's what we were standing on.
When the face perked up, and the tongue came out, we all knew Ryan had found another lizard to hunt. Finally, someone who likes to harrass wildlife as much as I do! Except, I prefer to call it "connecting with nature". I was going to take a picture or two of this cool, gnarled piece of tree, but lizard-hunting took priority.
First catch of the day! It was a small one, so we threw it back and kept looking for one of legal size to eat.
An attempt at scale. It's kind of impossible to capture.
Another pic for scale. We later climbed up that mound, of course.
I think this was supposed to be our "hot" shot, but I'm afraid it's not quite what it was supposed to be. I look more like a dull-headed guy who doesn't get the joke, Ryan's kind of "I'm here to fix your broken appliance", Greg appears to be trying to scratch his butt without anyone noticing, and Dallin appears to be in the middle of a drunken hiccupburp.
Take THAT, protected national park!
Dallin and Ryan throw bits of Canyonlands into the vast valley while Greg, now penitent from his rock-throwing ways, says a prayer over the rocks as they fall to their demise.
I like to call this one "assisted erosion".
There's something deeply satisfying and primal about throwing big rocks off of high cliffs and listening to the sound of impact, not to mention the cool whooshing sound as they fall through the air.
Ryan got bored throwing rocks off the cliff and started throwing them at people, starting with me.
Dallin contemplates his own insignificance...
...then pees off a huge cliff 'cause it's just fun.
The road to the hostel. Imagine our trepidation driving down this little alley at 1:30 am. I won't lie, I was a little giddy.
The Lazy Lizard. This place was pure magic, from the drunken lady two tents town to the hippie cleaning lady to the permanent mini Mexican colony...beautiful hostel sketchiness everywhere.
You can tell by the sign that this is a luxurious establishment. International, even. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you too could stay here for just $6.53/night split four ways.
Our camp site in the corner of the hostel grounds. The kid across from us wandered around in the shadiest way in the middle of the night, like he was seeking his next victim...or something. The Mexicans had B-movies blaring from next door and yelled a lot of terrible Mexican slang, and one of them sounded decidedly gay, which when I think about it is kind of an oddity. I never saw the next-door neighbors on the other side--nobody went in or came out. They were ninja campers. Then there was the drunken lady shouting for Daniel late at night, followed by moaning in the most awkward way (we were trying to figure out if she was about to throw up or if she had a "visitor"...it was kind of hard to tell, but neither option was exactly palatable). Add on top of that the dog over the fence who seemed to have a penchant for barking at the wind and slurping up large quantities of water on what must have been the point just on the opposite side of the fence, and you have a delightfully bad hostel experience. I'd do it again.
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