Yes, We Went to Moab… Again

So, here’s the deal, I simply love Moab… If y’all couldn’t tell. There is something about this Mars-like desert landscape that has just stolen my heart. Utah in general, is where my first memory of travel love occurred. I remember at 9 standing at the start of the Narrows, in Zion National Park, staring up at the vast canyon walls and recognizing, woah, this is so special. I have loved the southwest so deeply since that trip and that love leads me back there again and again.

In 2012, my dad and I stopped briefly in Moab on one of our father/daughter trips and I don’t think I’ve ever fallen harder or faster for a destination in my life. We went in the peak heat of summer and only scratched the surface of the two parks in the area, but I felt something there. An ancient sacredness that seemingly vibrates off of the canyon walls and ripples down the rivers there. A place that all at once was so visually exotic but also had a feeling of home to it.

In the 12 years since I visited the first time, my dad and I made another quick visit and Matt and I have now made three trips of at least a week in this desert wonderland. We have also made a point to explore something new in Colorado on each visit as well, and this trip was no exception. This time, though, we had 4 Moab-newbies with us (my in-laws) and we were tasked with showing off my favorite place to explore. So, I thought before I dig into some more detailed posts, or update old ones, I’d give a fun little relatively quick recap of our most recent trip to Moab.

But First, We Stopped in Colorado…

We decided to join my FIL and MIL just outside of Vail in the town of Avon. They were stopping there, and we’re always going to jump on any chance to explore somewhere we’ve never been before. So, we drove late into the night to get partway into Kansas the first night and that gave us a pretty full day open to explore a little a bit before meeting up with them in Avon.

After seeing my first Thomas Dambo trolls in Kentucky on my most recent falther/daughter hiking trip, I’ve become obsessed with looking through the Troll Map to see if we can find any more. The week before we left, I discovered that there’s a troll in Breckenridge, CO that would only be about an hour round-trip out of our way to see. Matt, ever-encouraging of my latest obsession that I’m trying to squeeze into a trip, agreed that we could absolutely hop down to Breckenridge and check it out.

So, our first travel stop on our road trip was to see Isak Heartstone – the fifteen foot troll patrolling the Illinois Trailhead. It’s a really short walk that’s completely flat to get to see Isak. As a lover of art and nature in general, but specifically of Thomas Dambo’s art, I think this alone is well worth the stop, but there’s so much to see and do in the area too. However, our kids chose this moment to take their first naps of the day, so that meant Matt and I separately walked out to see the troll while the other stayed back in the car for the kids to rest. Don’t worry, I’ll have a more detailed post on the Dambo Trolls I’ve seen this year coming soon!

On our way back toward I-70, we couldn’t resist stopping off at the Dillon Reserve. We saw a lake and some mountains and we were like, yes, sold. Let’s stop there. So, again, we took turns taking 15-20 minutes to walk around the paths along the waterfront, smell flowers, and soak up that crisp mountain air.

It was definitely dinner time by this point and my in-laws were having an anniversary dinner in Avon, so we sprang for something a little less fancy but totally our style. We popped into a Whole Foods, grabbed food from their hot food bar – shoutout to some of the best meatloaf we’ve ever had – and sat at the picnic tables outside with the most spectacular view I’ve ever seen outside of a grocery store. And I have to say… we spent the next three days daydreaming about a month spent in the Frisco/Breckenridge area next summer. Time will tell.

We Only Had One Full Day in Avon/Vail…

Being the outdoor lovers we are, we knew we wanted to try to get outside in the mountains a bit. We struggled to find a hike that we felt really good about doing with a 3-year-old and 1-year-old in higher altitude and not wanting to do a lot of overgrown trails that we thought might be harder to do with the littles or ones that didn’t require a $50 ski lift ride. So, we opted for a really easy, really short but also really beautiful little trail to see East Vail Falls up close and personal. It was really nice to see something different in Colorado this trip. You can actually see this waterfall from I-70 if you know what to look for. I’ll write a more detailed post on getting there that I’ll link here eventually.

After doing this hike, we went into Vail to walk the town. The town is absolutely beautiful. The mountains surrounding it are breath-taking and the town center has a beautifully manicured walking area that feels straight out of a Hallmark movie. I’d love to see it again in the winter some time. We popped into a few shops, some touristy, some outdoorsy, before heading back toward Avon to eat at the West Side Cafe. It was far enough from town that the prices were a bit lower, but still scenic and incredibly delicious. They have a stunning patio with a mountain view and I cannot recommend the short rib mac n cheese enough. It was insanely delicious and was big enough for me to share with both kids and I still left a couple of bites behind.

While at lunch we were trying to decide what to do and Charleigh kept telling us she was so sad that she missed seeing the troll. And, well, we loved the very little we saw of Breckenridge, so we decided to just go and explore there for the day because we loved the look of the town when we drove through. It felt a little more our “vibe” and, man, we were right.

First stop was the troll, obviously. And we hiked around that area a bit just to move a little more and be in the trees. We passed a really cool-looking playground while coming into town, so we decided to give the kiddos a chance to be outside even more and play. If you’re traveling with kids aged 1 to whenever kids stop having fun on playgrounds – I personally still love playing on playgrounds haha – I would highly recommend River Park and Playground. They had so many cool and interesting options of play equipment and even had a little mini-mountain bike park for kiddos who are into that!

After letting the kids burn off excess energy in a fun-for-them kind of way, we went back into Breckenridge and walked up and down their main street. We popped into all kinds of shops, got a massive cookie for us to all share from Mountain Top Cookie Shop and eventually made our way down to Highside Brewing where I had a couple of tasters and Matt had a half pint. It was a great little afternoon into evening in Breckenridge and, afterward, we spent a cozy evening in our beautiful AirBNB in Avon with the family.

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Killing Time Along I-70

We were only a few hours from Moab, but we couldn’t check in until 4pm. So, we had quite some time to kill along the way. Having driven through the area a few times, we had a couple stops we knew we wanted to show Dale and Monica, and then sprinkled a new one in for me in Utah.

Glenwood Canyon is kind-of like the gateway between the Rocky Mountains and the red rock that begins afterward. Carved by the mighty Colorado River, this canyon is drastically different than what you see in Canyonlands and the Grand Canyon, but is truly spectacular. I never get tired of this drive and it will forever remain a highlight of any drive across the state for me. There’s a paved nature trail that follows along the Colorado (Glenwood Canyon Recreation Path), that we have done sections of before. We thought we got off at the same spot this time, but we definitely didn’t so we got to see a little different path. It’s beautiful, well-trafficked and even has nice, clean bathrooms if you get off at Grizzly Creek.

The stop after this was Rifle Falls State Park. Matt and I visited there on our May 2022 trip to Moab. It was a beautiful stop and we wanted to share it with Dale and Monica. It was a short little jaunt up to the falls, up to walk behind the falls and down around to the crazy caves just beyond the falls. After this, we had a quick lunch in Grand Junction, CO.

Our last stop off of I-70 was over the border into Utah. It was my fresh new thing to see. I’m obsessed with seeing petroglyphs. I love getting to find new ones and I had read about these shortly after our last visit to Moab and it was high on my list: the Sego Canyon Petroglyphs. There’s a small parking area with a sign that says Rock Art. From the parking area, there is a sandy/rocky path that leads up to a fenced off area. There are some petroglyphs with what looks like anthropomorphic shapes, some shield-shapes, and even some horses. They’re harder to see because they’re a decent distance from the rail. The little path continues and there are some more petroglyphs overhead. These have triangular anthropomorphic figures, big horn sheep, perhaps a beaver and a lot more graffiti. Don’t turn around here, though, because the largest and, in my opinion, most impressive panel is last. It’s a barrier-style panel that is actually pictographs because they’re “painted” on instead of etched into the rock. I audibly gasped when I saw this last panel on this section. I want to go back here on my next trip to Moab and take my time a little more.

Finally in Our Beloved Moab

I’m not going to detail our time in Moab day-by-day, but instead quickly outline some of the things we did during our week in one of my favorite places on the planet. Before I get to that, though, it was really amazing to get to see my in-laws all see this place that is so special to me and to Matt. We all stayed together and it was just a great time to all be together. We had a great combination of new adventures, experiencing old favorites, pride at how well our kiddos did and just family time spent together.

In the Town of Moab…

We always have to eat at our favorite places when we go to Moab, and we found some new things on this visit! For us, musts are Moab Diner, Thai Bella, Gloria’s (for smoothies), Doughbird and my new must is Snake Oil Coffee! It’s the best coffee I’ve had in Moab, in my humble opinion. We ate at Moab Diner three different times. Their breakfast is just unreal. It’s some of the best brekkie food I’ve ever had. Matt will disagree, but you have to get the ham as your meat, and don’t sleep on the sourdough toast. Gloria’s Watermelon Burst smoothie is one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth. It’s so juicy and refreshing, which is perfect after a day of exploring in the desert sun. Doughbird is a unique little spot that does donuts in the morning and fried chicken in the afternoons – both of which are executed perfectly. Last one I’m going to specifically touch on is Snake Oil Coffee. I’ve often said that the number one thing that Moab was missing was truly stellar coffee. Like, the kind of coffee you’re genuinely excited to wake up and drink… Snake Oil Coffee Company is that for me.

The other thing we love to do in Moab is pop into the little, local shops. I’m a bit of a granola girl, so I am a huge fan of outdoorsy shirts, flowy materials and neutral colors, which I think we find so much of in Moab. Moab Made is hands-down always my favorite shop to pop into. We’ve gotten all kinds of things from Christmas ornaments and stickers to jewelry and even flower pots. I don’t think I’ve ever left Moab without getting something there.

Hitting The Trails

It’s not a trip to Moab without trying to hike as much as possible. Because this was our family’s first time in Moab, we mostly hit up favorites to show them! So, in Arches National Park, we did Devil’s Garden, Delicate Arch (twice: once durning the day, once at night to see the Milky Way), Sand Dune Arch, the Windows Primitive Trail. In Canyonlands we did the Grand View Point Overlook Trail and Mesa Arch. Outside of the parks we did Corona Arch – we had planned to do Fisher Towers, but ran out of time.

Scenic Drives and More

We ended up doing a few scenic drives. Our kiddos are still of the age that they thrive with a little nap, especially Liam, so we spent one nap time on a scenic drive up to Manti-La Sal National Forest, which was insane. I have always noticed the peaks in the distance, but didn’t realize that they were home to some alpine-like views. Aspens and evergreens were everywhere and we took every single side road on the loop trail we could find – the show-stealer was absolutely Oowah Lake. I have to say, this small taste of this area left me dying to explore it more. It’s such a stark contrast to the red-rock that you typically think of when you picture Moab and it’s just something that makes me love it even more.

Another drive we did – but I can assure you that no one napped on – was Shafer Trail. This is an AWD (4WD recommend) dirt/gravel trail that leads to or from Canyonlands NP’s Island in the Sky. It’s rougher than we thought it would be, honestly, but my Subaru Outback did make it up and the views were absolutely phenomenal. We went from the bottom up because we wanted to catch the sunset in the park. It was stellar.

I continued my hunt for new petroglyphs to find. I had a little solo adventure to 4 different petroglyph panels, all of which were new to me but one. I saw the Golf Course Petroglyphs, which include the “Moab Man”, the Moonflower Canyon Petroglyphs, an unnamed panel on Kane Creek Road, and I continued down Kane Creek Road until the pavement ends and it turns into Kane Springs Road and returned to the Birthing Scene Petroglyphs. I got such a high out of driving down dirt roads that I have to say, I’ve been researching some drives that I can confidently take the next time I’m in Moab.

Stargazing in The Dark Sky Park

Arches and Canyonlands are both international dark sky parks. So, we went into Arches National Park a couple different times to look at the Milky Way. Part of why we chose the week we did is because we knew there was a new moon. So, just before that we went in to see the stars over Balanced Rock. Ironically, Charleigh was terrified that the rock was going to fall. So, we had to take turns getting out to see the stars. Then, we went on a night hike to see Delicate Arch with the Milky Way over the top of it and that was such a bucket list experience and one of my favorite date nights I’ve ever had with Matt.

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Moab’s hold on me is deep and personal. I’m actually taking my first solo trip since getting married at some point next year and Moab is the main destination of it. I’m so excited to dig deep, again, in this space that feels so personal to me. I can’t wait to update our posts on past experiences we’ve had but have new info to add or all new posts to share from this beautiful trip. Until then, thanks for letting me share a little broad travel journal of our Moab trip.

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