Day 17

It was nice to sleep in until 8 today.  We got up and ate breakfast and then it was time to go.  We got to the ATV place about five minutes early.  Another couple was waiting.  That was good.  It meant that we got back $70 of our fee because we didn't have to pay for a second driver.

They put us in a van and drove us about 15 miles north of Moab.  We parked off the highway and got into the vehicles.  The other couple and us had RAZR's.  The guide had a quad.  We loaded up (including Lucy) and headed out.

We started off on a one and a half lane graded road.  It quickly changed into a path, and later into rock.  Some of the rock areas were pretty rough.  The RAZR handled it all well.  Lucy had some trouble adapting to the low back rim of the cargo area.  In one rough section she slid out the back.  I stopped right away and no harm done.  After that she learned to set on her haunches and brace against the back.

We road for quite awhile and then came to Uranium Arch.  It's an arch that they dug uranium out of the ground below it.  It was very cool - see the pictures.  Then we did some more driving over to the Monitor and Merrimac formations.  Those are formations that we took pictures of from afar last year.  This year we drove up to the base of them.  Very cool.

We then drove over to another formation.  I've forgotten the name.  It was a vertical column with shear sides that people free climb.  That's crazy.

The next stop was a formation where water had eroded a tunnel through some rocks.  The tunnel was big enough to stand in and maybe 50 yards long.  The far end opened up into a bowl kind of formation with interesting walls and a view of the mountains.

Several times during the trip we ran through areas where the track was sandy.  It was a lot of fun bombing through the steep banked curves and the whoop-de-dos.  There were a lot of people on the track.  There were jeeps, quads, UTV's, four seaters, motorcycles, and one pair of girls in an xTerra.  I wouldn't have taken that on the trail.

All in all we had a great time.  It was well worth the money.

When we got back we went to lunch at Milt's hamburgers again.  Then we walked around downtown a little.  I got a pair of sandals with arch support.  We also got John a t-shirt for Christmas.

We've decided to go to Flagstaff tomorrow.  There's no way we can make it to Ben Avery before their 3:00 closing tomorrow.  In Flagstaff we'll decide if we go on to Ben Avery or to another club east of Phoenix.