October 28, 2021 Bear's Ears National Monument, Utah

65 degrees and sunny. 

Our first hike was to Cave Towers. There are 7 towers around the spring at the head of the canyon. Only a few are partially standing. John with one of them. Looking down the canyon. 

One of the other partial towers.  Close up of the rock work. 

Purple asters, blue milkvetch, yellow flowers, yellow asters, and an agave. John in the ruins of what seemed like 3 towers. They were unsure if they were all towers or if some were kivas. 

Potholes of water. Copper mallow, yellow flowers, yucca with curly hairs, cottonwood leave caught in weeds, and large seed heads. 

John walking up South Mule canyon on our second hike. 

Cool rock overhangs. Nice fall colors. 

House of Fire ruins. The classic shot of the House of Fire. I had seen photos of this, but never seen it in person before. It is really impressive. 

Shadows on the way back.   Hole of fire under an overhang. 

Tall tree reflection. Canyon reflections on the way back.

 Fall colors. 

Sunset from camp. 

October 27, 2021 Bluff, Utah

 80 degrees, sunny and no wind. It was lovely. 

We left Moab and drove by the Hole In the Rock, which is a home tunneled into the rock with a large gift shop and now a petting zoo, and the Wilson Arch along the road south of Moab. Water in Recapture Reservoir with fall cottonwoods. 

Driving into Bluff, Utah. The Twins in Bluff, Utah. 

Beautiful, historic, downtown Bluff, Utah. They say the population is around 300, but they must not live in town. There is no downtown. A few hotels, gift shops and restaurants. Many RV parks. Very quiet little town. The bus at the Coral Sands RV park. 

Working on this new masterpiece. 6 x 6 x 2 inches. My friend Pam make the center. It says it is Indian Paint stone. The view north from our campsite. 

Coral Sands RV park. The view from our backyard tonight. 

Sunset tonight. It was cloudy, windy, rainy and only 60 yesterday. We stayed in. Today we walked around Bluff. At Fort Bluff which is a collection of old historic buildings, a gift shop etc. John bought us ice cream from a woman dressed in period clothing. 

Bluff Dwellings resort is mostly new since last year. It is a fancy resort with a spa and Wilderness Adventures. The Twin Rocks trading post and cafe was down the street. The cafe is closed for Weds and Thurs. The trading post l had really beautiful Indian jewelry, baskets and weavings. The welcome guys  by the door had masks on.  

One of many old historic homes in town. Welcome to Bluff, Utah.

The Cadillac ranch RV park is down the road. It is smaller than the Coral Sands where we are parked, but has a vintage Cadillac out front. Another historic home. 

At the Cottonwood Steak house is Fort Crapper. The Navajo Code Talker highway runs through town. The code talkers were in WWII, they used the Navajos language, with Navajos to interpret as an  unbreakable code that helped win the war. a decretive gate, John under the raven at the Twin Rocks Trading post, the vulture was down a bit, I am about finished with this masterpiece. It has an Indian Paint stone in the center, made by my friend Pam, natural and dyed pine needles and magnetite and glass beads. It is 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches. 

October 24, 2021 Moab, Utah

 70 degrees and mostly sunny. 

Brilliant yellow cottonwoods and the La Sal Mtns. We visited our friends Jim and Wes who have this beautiful home over looking Moab.

Jim cooked us a delicious chili for lunch. Jim, John and Wes. After lunch they took us to a cool unnamed slot canyon near Arches. 

We started higher up the canyon and hiked down. Slot canyon and fall color. The men up ahead in the colorful canyon. 

Nice reflections in the slot canyon.

At this point there was a drop off and a deep pool at the bottom. Ignore the weird sun flare on the photo. We turned around rather than swim the pool. Autumn leaves in the water.

We hiked back up the canyon with fall colors.

We got stopped here by another deep pool. Jim climbed over to see if we could continue, but decided not and he needed a last foot hold to get down so John helped out. Cool boulder and roots on the canyon wall. 

We hiked back down the canyon where it widened out. The colors were spectacular. 

The sun backlit the Cottonwoods, oaks, rabbit bush and who knows what else nicely here. Wes and Jim in their courtyard. We had a wonderful lunch, hike and visit with them.