• 11 : 58 P.M. AZT
  Whee

We went back to arches today to bike or hike or something. We thought we'd wake up all early and do a short ride (and the I could go around telling people I've biked in Moab, which is a big mountain biking destination, I understand. Or at least I've been led to believe by the eXtreme sports related products named after this place. Everyone here, in fact, seems to have a bike attached to them, or their car, or their awning. Seeing what kind of terrain they live around, I can see why. It's making me want to get my own MTB, especially after seeing one woman negotiate the escalator-like inclines over the course of 22 miles from entrance to "Devil's Garden". Then she passed me as I walked the Double-O arch trail, along rock fins and slickrock boulders.

this is about as extreme as i get unless tighropes are involved

There were also some blonde teenyboppers whose exclamations of awesomeness echoed up from a shallow arroyo as they climbed the rock face. One of those had the Chinese character for "woman" tattooed on her shoulder, but it had already blurred and dissapated to the point where it more strongly resembled an agitated penguin. Some people are just more eXtreme than others, I guess.

Viewing the arches from close up proved to be well worth a short hike. Most of the formations are made of red sandstone, which gives a great foothold as long as it isn't covered in loose sand. The possibility of slipping and falling down a 100 meter drop makes walking around on rocks a little more exciting. Another element of risk is the arches themselves - the fact that they exist at all is due to wind erosion and gravitational collapse. This is still going on, so from time to time, huge slabs of rocks come loose and smash down to earth. The last time this happened was 1991, when a 70 foot span of rock broke loose from Landscape arch. Hikers resting below it had a few moments warning, as they were pelted with cinder-block sized chunks and serenaded by unearthly cracking and rending noises. No one was killed, as far as I can tell.

The scenery can leave you awe-struck. Don't try and drive while sightseeing.

We ate at "Bandito Grill", a mexican place with food good enough to bring us in twice in 24 hours. Their logo is kind of a tough, mexican version of Mr. Doinksquirt. We ordered more food than we could eat on purpose so we could have some on the road. Note to self: when in Moab, eat at Banditos. We picked up ice at "Boomers" grocery and left town.

We drove to Monument Valley, which is hard to describe. If it were a person, it would be a movie star. In fact, one of the mesas is featured in many movies that require a southwesty sort of environment. Once you know where it is, those movies make a lot less sense.

here it is, wearing an expensive designer sunset

We sped towards Arizona, in the non-state territory of the Navajo Indian Reserve. Signs warned of range animals, but placed the speed limit at 65. I had passed a geo metro-like vehicle a mile or so back and was advancing up on the next vehicle in the one lane of the highway going in my direction when it suddenly swerved violently off the road, into the red dirt ditch, and in the other lane, coming in the other direction I saw a large approaching SUV shudder and emit clouds of smoke, transformed by its headlights a into an opaque haze. In this haze I saw a human sized body being violently wrenched and tumbling into the center of the road. My first thought was that the SUV driver had either hit someone or, illogically, wound up in front of his own vehicle somehow. I floored the brakes, bringing us to a stuttering halt 20 feet from the body, and all our stuff shortly thereafter. In the light of all the stopped cars I could see that the victim was donkey, not human. And it was still alive, but far from okay. It tried to stand up over and over, flopping around sickly in a traumatized delirium. I pulled over and hit the hazards, as did all other traffic on the road, which was now obstructed by a large donkey as well as the many twisted fragments that had come off the SUVs crumpled front, which was just now emitting a gentle braid of smoke from the exposed radiator. Soon, but not before the donkey had managed to stand up and reveal that its right front leg was swinging loosely like a pendulum, a carful of local Indians arrived and helped the donkey off the road and began to pick up the pieces of SUV. I assume they were the donkey's owners, as their car bore no official-looking markings. During this time, the unhappy owner of the SUV had been pacing outside his ruined vehicle, talking on his cell phone, as was the owner of the car in front of me (which was still in the ditch). About ten million years later, traffic pulled back onto the road and we resumed travelling, very, very slowly. 10 minutes later, police cars and ambulances passed us heading back towards the incident.