The first few days mostly consisted of getting situated. On the first day we went to brunch in Ogden and I took a nap lmao. The stress of flying had me whooped but it was nothing a nap couldn’t solve. Adjusting to the altitude change wasn’t too bad, just a few days of headaches but by now I’m fine. The next day though we went on a very pretty hike through Mule’s Ear with Kaya in the evening (see photos below) and picked up some art supplies I didn’t bring with me earlier in the day. We actually made out with a steal on the supplies end because most of what I needed was half off—hell yeah!
On the following Friday, Becky had to work so I got some of this website figured out. Big ugh. But during the afternoon I worked on some cloud sketches. I’m not the best in pencil to begin with and I had never done clouds before, but the storm coming in had a cool energy that matched my high irritation from attempting to set up this damn blog. It’s not normally this rainy this late in the year so it’s been neat to witness the abnormal weather. We keep joking that I brought the PA weather with me.
We THOUGHT we were about to escape the rain on our trip to southern Utah scheduled for that weekend but… little did we know that was not the case, more on that later. On Saturday we decided to get a head start on the half a day of driving by splitting it up into two goes. In the afternoon we set off for Price, which spoiler alert doesn’t actually have much in it. The ride was absolutely beautiful though (sample of the photos below and a short timelapse on the link). In the first one you can see the storm clouds we thought we were leaving behind, the Devil’s Slide which are giant ridges shot out of a smooth hillside and then finally the red dirt and the beginning of desert.
While it took a bit of searching to find anything other than a major chain, we found a cute little restaurant with paintings of fruit on the walls and got some food as we were ravenous. Afterwards we embarked on an after dinner stroll that led across a parking lot and onto a trail along the highway? but also supposedly following a river despite losing it within ten minutes. It was cute and we returned to our motel ready for some quality sleep to prepare for the other half of the trip.
That day was also the beginning of an ongoing pattern of weird coincidences which you may or may not know have been a thing with me as of late. We had been having trouble booking our room the entire drive, but about an hour away we managed to find service and get set. When we checked in we were surprised to learn the room number was 104, which happens to be the address of our childhood home where my grandma still lives. On top of that when we turned on the weather channel it was showing PA’s weather. Thanks Grandma for thinking of us. These may seem like little things but that’s how these coincidences go. They just start piling up once you notice them.
On Sunday we trudged on towards Moab through the desert though as I had never seen anything like it I was fascinated. There were beautiful green stripes on some of the hillsides and the land was so flat. It changed quickly from the flat to what seemed like moments later to towering red walls on either side of the road.
Once we got to Moab the plan was to walk through Main Street that afternoon looking at some galleries and take a sneak-peak at the massive red rock plateaus. There were a ton of galleries along the strip with plenty of landscapes within. Most of the pieces were pretty realistic and oil but there was an occasional pastel in there. I started a little collection of business cards in my purse for later reference. Somewhere in there we stopped for some lunch salads. Something fresh tasted pretty good in the 90 degree weather but Becky’s had a little surprise hidden in the form of a fly so our lunch got cut a bit short… That was alright though because it just made us more excited for our dinner. We got some banging curry
Before the fly 
After but we’re very happy
That afternoon we were greeted by yet another surprise but this time in the form of a storm! The clouds were pretty dark and the wind was blowing hard but we figured we’d go for it and walk down the trail along the river for a bit. The wind was way more intense than we thought. The trees were shaking and the river was churning; it was pretty cool to watch(link to a video from the bridge). Anyone out on the water was having a real tough time getting to the shore. It wasn’t raining though so we continued down the trail anyway, but we didn’t make it too far until we were getting pelted by raindrops. The rain wasn’t too heavy at first but the wind made those drops fly sideways and they STUNG when they hit. We started to run for the car back up the trail but the wind was blowing head on so it was real tough to make any progress. By the time we made it back to the car we were soaked, but it dried off quick and the rain was actually nice since it cooled everything off.
We both actually had thought about bringing a raincoat but I didn’t think of grabbing it out of the closet because it was supposed to be nice and Becky didn’t have the one that was normally in the car since we had a rental. Sitting there for the rain to slow and started driving into the canyon anyway. At least in the car we weren’t get soaked by raindrops sent from hell.
Coddiwomple With A Canvas 