Dust, Famine, Chaos – another strange day

Sleepless and groggy, we faced even stronger winds and blowing dust the next day. It wasn’t hard for Jim to coax us out of that rockin’ noisy coach and off for some sight-seeing.  Unfortunately most of the sights were severely obscured by dust/rain storm combos.  We headed up to Dead Horse State Park and Canyonlands hoping to get out of the weather – we could see blue skies over there so we had some hope.  We stopped at the Monitor and Merrimac overlook on the way out and didn’t realize that the wind was at our back as we walked out.  When we turned around to return to the car we were blasted with wind gusts, rain and sand so strong that when I peered through my tiny eyelid slits to see Storm he was nearly horizontal behind me and we were both losing ground.  We made it back to the car, decided to skip Dead Horse and head to the sunnier skies over Canyonlands.  At the 2nd Canyonlands overlook we realized that we were too tired, windblown and starving to sight see anymore so we headed back to town.  An hour’s ride back to Moab put us right in the middle of a traffic jam due to a non-functioning traffic light. We manuevered around the bumper to bumper cars and stopped for lunch at the first restaurant we saw only to be informed that everything in town (yes EVERYTHING) was closed due to a power outage.  Thank Goodness Jim knew a back way around the gridlock caused by the signal outages in town or we would have perished before we obtained nourishment. Since our coach has multiple sources of power and FOOD, we hunkered in there and waited for the blackout and storm to pass.  The culprit behind the outage was the wind (at least that was everyone’s best guess).  We took a nap and followed it up with a good night’s rest.  Sunday was so pretty, we headed to South Canyonlands for some light hiking and picnicking.  Since the wind and dust had abated, I could actually open my eyes and was able to get these pics.

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• About the Author

About Sunny Weathers

Pilot, motorcyclist and full time RVer. Follow me as I travel all over the US in my Country Coach RV volunteering, making new friends and pursuing a constant outdoor temperature between 70F and 80F. I'll share the fun and the tribulations and any great survival tricks I learn!