An escape to Utah

Christa and I have a plan to be fully mobile humans. As much as we love our little home in Boulder, it's nice when we can escape for a bit and see the wild beauty all around us. Living in the west of the US, we have a huge expanse of countryside to explore. Too much for one lifetime. We did a trial run of mobile-living this week in Moab. With WiFi and coffee, Moab was chosen so we could actually be productive, while spending the 6 hours a day we didn't have to work doing something other than sitting on the sofa. We joined the hoardes of adventurers that fill up this desolate landscape in the spring.The American vacation style really encourages "hot-spot" tourism - pre-selected sites of interest that are driven between and marvelled at, then checked off the list before moving on to the next one. I don't like that style. I like the British style of tourism: find a destination, and spend your holiday there. Do everything you can in that one place. Do everything until you find the things that the locals would do, that you wouldn't find on your first scratch of the surface. I've never really tried doing this in the US, simply because every other trip I've done has been a road trip, a predetermined scratch and drive experience. Although Moab is still a super popular destination, our four days there, plus previous trips, made me feel like I was finally able to explore a little deeper. Rather than head straight to slickrock and porcupine rim trails, we could actually sample some of the recently built trails.

That put me two hours of sweat ahead of her for the day, and allowed us to enjoy the rides back to town together. Since Christa got her new bicycle (27.5 inch wheels and enduro colour scheme included), her confidence has increased hugely, and we can now do rides I knew she was capable of. It's fun.