9:00am Sunday morning, in the gravel parking place we found not 9 hours previously we had a knock at our bus door. Ranger Steve was there to write us some tickets- awesome. Andrew was the only one really awake, I was still in my sleeping bag on the couch. Andrew went out to talk to ranger smith politely and professionally. He could have really gotten us hard. Camping in the packing lot, camping with-out paying, and there were 5 of us, but Andrew was polite and told him our story and he gave us 1 ticket for $75 still annoying but could have been much worse.
Today was mountain biking day and the weather was perfect. Sunny, high of maybe 70 degrees. So we struggled up the crazy mountain rode that somehow we had gotten safely down the night before and headed to the first mountain bike rental place. There were bikers everywhere around Moab. Tons of cars with Colorado license plates with loads of bikes attached to their Suberos or Jeeps. At the bike place we could hear accents from all over the world, and dogs running in and out of the shop, there was even a coffee bar. The Nice lady at the counter told us the perfect place for us beginners to go bike and helped the boys all get their bikes and gear checked out. They were out of small bikes for people like me, but reserved me a bike at a near by shop. We picked up my bike and were on our way out to Bar M trails, back out near Arches National Park.
Moab is know for a certain kind of mountain biking called slick rock. Its large spaces of open “slick” rocks that you can do all kind of technical mountain biking with minimal up hill work. It was perfect to learn on. This was my first time mountain biking ever and I have no ide
a why or how I have not done this before. I loved it. A great work out with amazing scenery and great air and down hill thrills. Bar M specifically had all the canyons surrounding the slick rock, you could even still see the arches from the National park and then throw in all the white capped mountains off in the distance and you have one hard time trying to stay focused on what’s right ahead of you while you
ride and getting distracted with how amazing everything around you is. And oh the people we met. Mountain bikers are great- always encouraging each other, ready to chat and just enjoying life. There where people form all over the US who came to Moab just to bike. It was incredible time. And exhausting. After just a few hours we were spent and sore and ready for beer.
We turned in our bikes and went to a local brewery. So now for a little information about the state of Utah and their alcohol laws- they are kinda screwy. Due to the high population of Mormons in Utah, they have some interesting ways to discourage drinking in the state. #1 beer is only allowed a max alcohol level of 3.2%, any higher levels of alcohol and it goes on the liquor list making it very expensive. #2 you can not order any kind of alcohol without also ordering some kind of food. #3 all liquor stores are owned and operated by the state- they are not advertised well at all, signs for them can only face in toward the parking lot. They are rarely open past 6pm and have pictures of life size kids everywhere reminding people the hazards of drinking around minors. #4 people in Utah complain a lot about the liquor laws when they aren’t the end of the world. So given all that we had an interesting time at the Moab brewery.
From there we headed out toward Canyon lands and found one incredible place to camp. It was high on a platow overlooking all the nearby Canyons. It made for an incredible sunset. We made a fire, had smore’s and talked the night away enjoying each others company.
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