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Unlike the previous place, I have definitely been here before. You may have heard a few things about the strange scenery of Southern Utah—aside from its being the location for filming EVERY WESTERN EVER, it also tends to get typecast as The Distant Planet Zargon, or Mars, or that one planet with the killer Teletubbies from Galaxy Quest, or Spaceman Spiff's haunt, etc. And there’s a reason: Southern Utah is weird enough to look like another planet.
It’s something that I can’t really convey with pictures, but I’m trying here anyway. But I highly recommend that if you’re ever in the area, join me on a trip to Moab. Liz did, and she didn’t regret it at all:
It really is red rock!
I was terribly stupid and forgot to take pictures of the actual town of Moab, which has the sort of Main Street you always find in a tourist town: restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops. But there are a few places I want to tell you about:
-The Slick Rock Café, which over the years has had its ups and downs in food and service. Highlights include killer nachos, that one time our waitress was COMPLETELY PLOWED, and their current amazing dessert: a deep dish cookie a la mode, which really winds up being half-baked cookie dough. It is DELICIOUS.
-Miguel’s Baja Grill, which sells excellent tacos and fried ice cream. It’s actually positioned in a brightly painted alley. The proprietor knows my family, but he didn’t really recognize me outside of that context. Which is fair enough; he was still a pretty pleasant guy.
-Back of Beyond Books, a pompous shop that sells all the Edward Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams you can want. Dad likes to visit this tiny store for hours on end to ponder the mysteries of the desert. I'm just glad it has now merged with the other bookstore on Main Street, which sells commercial books and, temptingly, pulp sci-fi paperbacks from the Golden Age.
-The Shop That’s Never Open. Nobody knows what the story is with this shop. For years there have been dust-filmed prisms hanging in the window and cardboard boxes piled against the door. Rumors that the place is owned by a crazy cat lady are the only leads we have. It’s become a bit of its own tourist attraction.
-Our motel, which was one of the many hotels in the area, but it was nice because it had air conditioning and wireless internet. This was good because we could spend our downtime watching Dexter on Netflix. Liz had never seen it before, which was a travesty because Liz is a huge fan of crime dramas. “You know, everyone who watches this show tells me they think of me,” she noted. “Perhaps this is a sign,” I said.
Anyway, I didn’t get pictures of those, but I did get pictures of the national park surrounding Moab: Arches!
The sediment here created layers of rock with many different densities, which is why they tend to weather so unevenly and create these weird mesas and plateaus.
Balanced Rock is a good example of this weird difference in densities, where the softer stone is worn right out from under the denser stone. Someday this big old rock will fall off its perch, and you just know it'll be all over Youtube.
( Delicate Arch, Petroglyphs, and Panoramas! )
It’s something that I can’t really convey with pictures, but I’m trying here anyway. But I highly recommend that if you’re ever in the area, join me on a trip to Moab. Liz did, and she didn’t regret it at all:
It really is red rock!
I was terribly stupid and forgot to take pictures of the actual town of Moab, which has the sort of Main Street you always find in a tourist town: restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops. But there are a few places I want to tell you about:
-The Slick Rock Café, which over the years has had its ups and downs in food and service. Highlights include killer nachos, that one time our waitress was COMPLETELY PLOWED, and their current amazing dessert: a deep dish cookie a la mode, which really winds up being half-baked cookie dough. It is DELICIOUS.
-Miguel’s Baja Grill, which sells excellent tacos and fried ice cream. It’s actually positioned in a brightly painted alley. The proprietor knows my family, but he didn’t really recognize me outside of that context. Which is fair enough; he was still a pretty pleasant guy.
-Back of Beyond Books, a pompous shop that sells all the Edward Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams you can want. Dad likes to visit this tiny store for hours on end to ponder the mysteries of the desert. I'm just glad it has now merged with the other bookstore on Main Street, which sells commercial books and, temptingly, pulp sci-fi paperbacks from the Golden Age.
-The Shop That’s Never Open. Nobody knows what the story is with this shop. For years there have been dust-filmed prisms hanging in the window and cardboard boxes piled against the door. Rumors that the place is owned by a crazy cat lady are the only leads we have. It’s become a bit of its own tourist attraction.
-Our motel, which was one of the many hotels in the area, but it was nice because it had air conditioning and wireless internet. This was good because we could spend our downtime watching Dexter on Netflix. Liz had never seen it before, which was a travesty because Liz is a huge fan of crime dramas. “You know, everyone who watches this show tells me they think of me,” she noted. “Perhaps this is a sign,” I said.
Anyway, I didn’t get pictures of those, but I did get pictures of the national park surrounding Moab: Arches!
The sediment here created layers of rock with many different densities, which is why they tend to weather so unevenly and create these weird mesas and plateaus.
Balanced Rock is a good example of this weird difference in densities, where the softer stone is worn right out from under the denser stone. Someday this big old rock will fall off its perch, and you just know it'll be all over Youtube.
( Delicate Arch, Petroglyphs, and Panoramas! )
