Utah: People Get Stuck On Rocks Here

Here are some other fun things to do in and around Moab:

1) drive into the mountains and do the Manti La Sal loop road-- 100 degrees in Moab but up at the Squaw Springs trailhead it was 77-- the hike had phenomenal views of the red rock valley, but once we entered the gate, there was a fair bit of cow poop on the trail, and we saw one cow ahead in the brush, but she ran away-- the rest of the drive was incredibly scenic but also hair-raising, narrow switch backs and no guard rails . . . we ate lunch at the bottom of the loop at Lion's Park and watched a youngish girl get stuck on top of a climbing boulder-- her siblings were up and down in a flash, and left her there, crying, wearing flip flops on her hands and feet, and it took her parents twenty minutes to coax her down;

2) hike up to some Allosaurus tracks on a tilted slab of rock and view the nearby petroglyphs;

3) read a Tony Hillerman mystery-- I finished my first, A Thief of Time . . . it's full of four corners topography, Native American mythology, pot hunting, shady archeology deals, wild places, anthropology and murder;

4) hike the Mill Creek Trail . . . it runs past several swimmin' holes, and though the signs warn that the water is contaminated with giardia and e coli bacteria, this didn't stop the locals from diving right in-- we mainly waded through and across the stream, until we made it to the waterfall, which is in a beautiful spot protected by a sandstone ledge roof . . . there is a rope which the locals use to scale the falls, and then they jump down into a rather shallow pool-- as a bonus and fitting end to the day, we got to see a college-aged tourist climb the rope and clamber to the ledge . . . a local girl gave him advice on how to get up, and then, like the little girl earlier in the day, he didn't really know how to jump down-- and his mom started freaking out a bit-- and finally, another guy told him a side route down and he disappeared . . . but then we saw plenty of locals jump off the cliff, and no one broke their neck, and then-- a double bonus, a windstorm rolled in just as we got to the car, sand started flying, tumbleweeds actually tumbled, and the entire neighborhood came out of their houses to enjoy the show.