Hiking and Wine'ing in Moab (June 13th, 2015)

On Friday after everyone got home from work we jumped in the car and made the ~5 hour drive from Denver to Moab, Utah.  Upon arrival we quickly got settled in to our VRBO.com (Vacation Rental by Owner).  We all then headed for a soak in the wonderful hot tube, which was very nice after the car ride.

Saturday was an adventure day, and of course, we wanted to fit in as many activities as we possibly could. Steve and I woke up before our daughter and her husband and made coffee and sat at a little outside table in the front yard. The rental is right in the center of town, and only 2 blocks off of the highway, but it was extremely quiet, with no traffic noise at all. It was so pleasant sitting out front, drinking our coffee, watching the swallow-tail butterflies float by (something we don’t see much at home), and listening to the birds sing. Once the kids got up, we made some breakfast sandwiches, packed a lunch, and headed out to Dead Horse State Park. 

From the visitor’s center at Dead Horse, we took a very easy 1 ½ mile hike to Dead Horse Point, which has a scenic overlook of the Canyon lands. There were also lots of fun picture stops along the way. 

A beautiful cactus flower

You can see how muddy the Colorado River is from all the rain

A different view of the Canyon Lands from Dead Horse Point

Adventurous Hikers

When you reach the end of the trail, there is a large area, with a huge shade structure. So well thought out, since it gets very hot in Moab in the summer months! After a few pictures on the point, our son-in-law ran back the 1 ½ miles and got the car and met us back at the top where we had claimed a gazebo with a table for lunch. Our duaghter is currently on antibiotics for an infection, so we are trying to not push her too hard. We certainly don’t want her getting sick again. So we sat in the shade and read the Dead Horse pamphlet while we waited about 15 minutes for her husband to show up with the car. 

The reason the point is called Dead Horse Point, is that cowboys used to corral wild mustangs on the point using small branches to block of the entrance once they were in. They would then choose the mustangs that they wanted to keep, and would leave the rest corralled on the point to die of dehydration just two hundred feet above the Colorado River. We all thought this was horribly cruel, and couldn’t understand why they would leave them to die, but I’m sure they had their reasons. Although this state park has a sad story associated with it, it is very scenic, and has several beautiful hikes. I certainly recommend it if you are in the area. 

Once our son-in-law arrived with the car, we made ourselves some hummus, chicken and vegie sandwiches, with cherries and olives on the side for lunch, and sat and enjoyed the shade for a short time more, and then got back in the car and headed further up the road to Canyon Lands National Park.

Since our son-in-law is military, he was able to get a free annual pass, called the “America the Beautiful” pass, which allows him free admission to any National Park for a year. He got it right at the entrance gate to Canyon Lands National Park. It is so nice to see him being rewarded for his service! 

We didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Canyon Lands, so we made an effort to hit the highlights. Our first stop was right across from the visitors Center. We took a very short walk to the overlook, which was a scary drop off. Quite spectacular! 

Father-in-law and Son-in-law.  Aren't they cute?

This was the scary drop off!

Then back in the car to take the scenic drive through the park. At the end of the drive is the Grand Overlook, which offers probably 180 degree views from Dead Horse State Park, around to the north, of the beautiful Canyon Lands. The Canyon Lands are a smaller version of the Grand Canyon, where the Colorado River has carved through the sandstone for thousands of years to reveal hundreds of layers of rock and create a canyon about 200 feet deep. This park is well worth your time, especially if you haven’t seen the Grand Canyon, or much of the desert southwest. Once we finished our drive through the Canyon Lands, we headed back to the rental to clean up for our next adventure.

At about 3:00, we headed north out of Moab on Highway 191 to Highway 128, which is a scenic highway that runs along the Colorado River between the tiny town of Cisco, and Moab. We were heading to the Castle Creek Winery for a tour and wine tasting. It was quite an adventure just to drive along the Colorado River. It is so full that it is spectacular to watch. Much of the road up to the winery is muddy from mud slides over the last few days. There is a lot of “earth moving” equipment all along the road, I’m sure that it keeps flooding over and over, so they aren’t removing the equipment since they will just need it again. 

The Castle Creek Winery is situated in a valley that backs up to the Colorado River, with Arches National Park on the far side of the river. It is a beautiful, rustic setting for a winery. 

We went in, and they started our tour immediately. Chris took us downstairs, and into the wine making room. When the grapes are brought in, they are first put through a machine that separates the grapes from the stems. 

This machine separates the grapes from the stems

From there, the process changes depending on whether they are making red or white wine. Red grapes are put directly into a holding tank with their seeds and skin still intact, but the white grapes are first put through another machine that removes the seeds and skin. 

This machine removes the seeds and skins from the grapes (right away for white wine, a little later for red wine).

Once all of the grapes are in their holding tanks, the yeast is added, and the fermentation begins. After a few days, the red grapes have to be removed from their tanks so that the seeds and skin can be removed (using the same machine that the white grapes already used), then back into the holding tanks for aging. 

The aging time depends on the type of grapes, and the desired outcome of the wine maker. Once the grapes have aged for the desired amount of time, they are put through several filtration processes before they can be bottled. The winery still has an old bottling machine.

The old bottling machine.  Not very effective, but pretty cool looking.

But 4 years ago, they got a new bottling machine that bottles and labels the wine all at once, with almost no waste. They really love their new machine. 

The new bottler/labeler

After the tour was complete, we went back upstairs to the tasting room and gift shop. We were allowed to sample 3 wines each, and then were given one gift basket per couple to take with us. 

It was a really nice tour, tasting and gift basket (some really cool items), and it was compliments of Stephen and Melissa, so we have no idea how much it was, but we do know that they got a pretty good deal on Groupon. 

When we left the winery, we took some time to walk around the grounds. 

There was a wedding going on at the Red Cliffs Lodge next door, so that was kind of fun. We talked about how fun it would be to be wedding crashers, but we controlled ourselves and stayed out of their pictures and their wine. We did go into the lodge to look around. It is a very fun rustic atmosphere. Their restaurant has a huge deck on the back, with tables overlooking the Colorado River, and of course plenty of tables inside as well. 

View from the deck of the Red Cliff Lodge Restaurant

They also have a history museum in the basement of the west lobby that tells about the history of the area, and about all of the movies that have been made in that area. It was pretty interesting for a small museum. When we finished at the winery and Lodge, we headed back to town to get ready for dinner.

Getting ready for dinner basically consisted of having some beer and wine at our little table in the front yard, and opening our gift baskets from the winery to see what we got. Nice and relaxing.

Really fun stuff in our gift baskets!  

Dinner was at the Moab Brewery, which was about 6 or 7 blocks from our rental, so we just walked over. Micro-breweries are big in Colorado, and the food at most of them tends to be pretty good. The atmosphere at the Moab Brewery was fun, and was based on the feel of Moab, with rafts hanging from the ceiling, and a jeep parked in the main dining area. Our food was also very good. 

Steve had a salmon salad, our son-in-law and I had fish tacos and our daughter had a burger. It started raining during dinner, so we waited for a break in the weather before we walked back to the rental. It was dark by then, and the walk was very pleasant; after about a half hour in the hot tub, we all called it a night.

What a fun day we spent with the newly married couple!

Moab, UT (June 12, 2015)

It is now 5 weeks until Steve's retirement! Our son-in-law leaves for his officer’s training in about 1 ½ weeks, so we’ve decided to take a quick little trip with he and our daughter to Moab, UT. 

Moab is a small town in the desert Southwest, known for its natural beauty and its proximity to the Colorado River and 3 National/State Parks; The Canyon Lands National Park, Arches National Park and Dead Horse State Park. June is a very busy time of year in Moab, and Vacation Rentals and hotels fill up quickly. We were very fortunate to find a last minute VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) right in town that was still available, and they even reduced the rate for us, since it would otherwise probably go unrented for the weekend.   The name of our VRBO was Rancho Fandango.

We left for Moab at about 5:00 on Friday evening, as soon as Steve could get off work, and made our way through the beautiful Rocky Mountains on I-70 West. When you live in a place like Colorado, you tend to take its beauty and grandness for granted, but a trip through the mountains always reminds us of how lucky we are to live in such an amazing place. Traffic into the mountains can be quite heavy on Friday afternoons, but we got lucky and sailed right along. 

The excessive amounts of rain the last few days had caused a rock slide in Glenwood Canyon yesterday, but the road maintenance crews had already cleaned it up, and the highway was back open, with only one lane closed where there was still some mud and desbris on the road. We ate dinner in the car, and took a few quick stretch breaks, and found ourselves in Moab at about 10:30 pm.

Since we’ve had so much rain in Colorado this spring, the drive was definitely the greenest we have ever seen it, and the rivers are very full. When we finally hit the Colorado River, right around Gypsum, Colorado, we were happy to see how full it was, with lots of mud and white-water rapids. Since the Colorado River runs on the west side of the continental divide, it is the river that provides water to all of the western states like Utah, Nevada, California and Arizona. This extremely wet year will hopefully help fill Lake Powell and Lake Meade, which have been very low on water for about the last 10 years.

One thing we’ve learned with our little mini-vacations is that if you do something fun on your arrival night, instead of just going to bed, it makes your quick trip seem so much longer. So upon arrival, we grabbed some wine and beer and headed to the hot tub. It was clean and well maintained, and was just what we needed after a 5+ hour drive. 

When we finally got out of the hot tub, we poured ourselves into bed, and slept like babies.