Final Day in Moab

We took off early to do the La Sal Mountain Scenic Loop, a road high, high above Moab with fabulous views to circle back around to meet Nancy and CT for lunch at the Moab Brewery.  You have to drive about 21 miles up along the Green River to get to the loop, then we are greeted with signs that say road closed 18 miles ahead.  We checked our map and it looked like we would be able to take a detour prior to the closure and still loop back in time for lunch.  So off we went.  The road starts climbing from about 5500', up we went beside Castle Rock, and incredible promontory way above us!

Castle Rock

A little farther away

We kept on climbing, went through the road closed sign, and ran right into the men and equipment that had the road completely torn up, and we couldn't reach our detour.  So now we have to go back around the 42 miles to meet for lunch.  Oh well, after lunch we'll just go around the other way.
We had an excellent lunch at the Moab Brewery, sitting on the patio with just absolutely perfect weather, mid 70's and not a cloud in the sky!
After lunch we resumed our drive from the other side.  Although this new Jeep has incredible range, our rule is to not go off road with less than 1/2 tank.  I know there is a gas station south of town where we will pick up our road, so we go by several stations in town.  Well the station we had planned on was $.25/gallon more than the stations in town.  That pissed me off, so I blew it off and we headed out with 3/8's of a tank.  We go about 7 miles and see the new sign, road closed 11 miles ahead.  We stop, peruse the map very carefully, and determine we can detour around before the closure, sound familiar?  This time we were able to detour, so 11 miles down the road and at about 8500' we turn off on our detour.  Before we did we stopped for the view of Moab far below.

South end of Moab

We keep climbing and climbing until we are over 10,000'.  We are in and out of aspen groves that are just getting past their peak, although still magnificent.  We are getting further and further from Moab on our detour, but the road works its way around until we come to an intersection from which we can go straight ahead, join a paved road in a few miles, then drive a mere 37 more miles back to Moab, OR we can cut up and over La Sal Pass and go directly to Moab in about 15 miles, oh yeah, we are a bit below 1/4 tank of gas at this time.  Easy decision right?  Of course!  We go up and over.  The pass is supposed to be in 7 miles and the road is fantastic, winding, narrow, in aspens most of the time, up, up we go, and get to the pass.  So where did the road go?  There is a little rough, narrow, what looks to be an ATV path in front of us, more work with the map, looks like the right way, but........  We stick our nose down and go about 200 yards, it's very rough and narrow, and we have less than 1/4 tank now.  What an idiot I was for a lousy $.25/gallon!  We have a 4WD guide book with us, but we hadn't looked at it since it rarely has just dirt roads in it versus trails.  We opt to turn around, go back the 7 miles to the intersection, and the 37 plus miles back to Moab on the paved road.  Jan for some reason grabs the book as we turn around, and lo and behold the La Sal Pass road is in it.  It says the east side, the side we had just come up was easy, but the west side is a rough, narrow, moderate 4WD trail and crosses several areas of fairly unstable scree.  WOW!  Glad we turned around.  The trip back was uneventful even watching the gas gauge go under 1/8.  

Still beautiful, but losing their intensity

Looking through the trees

Western fall colors

It was a great drive that unfortunately was made a little anxious because of my stupid gas decision.
We said good bye to Nancy and CT yesterday morning as they headed for home and we headed for Ridgway State Park in Colorado, mainly so Jan could get her hair cut in Montrose with a stylist that she really likes from when we were here for a month.  With winter approaching, and the night temps in the 30's, the bustling busy state park we experienced in July is quiet and dark with only about 10 of us.  Jan got her hair done yesterday, ran a few errands in Montrose, so today, our anniversary, we are taking a drive down towards Telluride, having a picnic, then a special dinner tonight.