Utah’s guardians watching over the land.

It’s Hot! Damn Hot! Real damn HOT!

—Robin Williams, Good Morning Viet Nam

So what do you do when it tops out at 106º? You go on a road trip in an air conditioned vehicle. South of Moab on Highway 191, which doesn’t have a long byway name as far as I can figure, is Wilson’s Arch.

This is an impressive arch looking right down on the highway. We stopped at the small turn-out and climbed about 200 feet straight up to the base of the arch. We met a Ranger up there looking for a particular piece of graffiti to eradicate.

Wilson Arch and rock formations. It was strange how this majestic arch was just nonchalantly standing next to the Highway 191. There wasn’t any fanfare. No Park designation. Just a small parking lot and one plaque.

A few miles further down the road, Highway 211 takes off from Highway 191 and heads west. This highway does have a byway handle - The Indian Creek Scenic Byway. I guess it follows the dried up Indian Creek bed. There must be some water close to the creekbed as the valley is lush with trees and green bushes. It ends up at the southern unit of Canyonlands National Park, called The Needles.

On the way, we stopped off at an impressive bit of 2000 year old Native American artwork called The Newspaper Rock. We saw pictures of guys trick riding on their horses, shooting deer-like animals with bows and arrows from horseback, and lots of deer lined up like Santa’s reindeer.

NEWSPAPER ROCK. The info plaque stated that some of these etchings date back 2000 years. They can only speculate as to the story being told. No one has figured out what all the figures symbolize. Some are obvious, like hunting from horseback. Since Native Americans didn’t have horses until the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, those drawings must have been added later.

Where the road followed the Indian Creek bed, trees and bushes contrasted with the desert.

The Needles section of Canyonlands is far less grand. It doesn’t have the deep, double levels of canyons that the Eye in the Sky section has. Even though it’s beauty is more subtle, it isn’t any less gorgeous.

My favorite hike was through, around, and over a cave-ledge that cowboys-of-old used when out herding cattle. All the hikes we took in this section were in the 3/4 mile length, but with the temperatures topping 100º, they felt like 10 miles. The temperature, as brutal as it was, wasn’t the main culprit. It was the ceaseless sun and the breathless air that amplified the effect tenfold.

The Cowboy Caves.

After walking through the caves, the trail heads up on top of the rocks, aided by two sets of rustic ladders.

Cairns were needed to guide us along the trail on top of the rock formations.

It was on the drive back to V-Jer that I noticed the van’s thermometer screaming out 106º. When we pulled into the camping area, it was 7:30 pm and still 99º. I am beginning to re-think hanging around in the Moab area. This re-thinking process became stronger when I consulted with the Dark Skies app and saw that the town of Price, where we were heading to next, was projected to be 10º cooler than Moab. We’ll sleep on it.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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