Day 3: Moab, Yellowcat, Cisco, Sego Canyon

Asleep by 10 pm last night and not awake until 8:30 am.  Lovely.  A breakfast of way too many sausages and then into the car towards a ghost town.  Often when driving we see a promising road and decide to 'hang right' so after only twenty minutes we came off the main road and drove down a dusty path to a campsite with some nice views of the mountains.  Jane then realised that (a) the battery light on her camera was flashing, (b) her spare battery was back at the hotel so we popped back to grab it.

Battery installed we were back on the road again heading to a ghost town in CIsco.  Again, we saw a sign for Yellowcat.  Sounded like it was worth a visit so we hung a right and drove and drove and drove down another dusty road.  We saw what was probably a meercat but really it was just a very long empty, gravelly road which lead ever closer to mountains that you figured you'd never reach.  We turned back.

Cisco was all you want from a ghost town.  Empty, Interesting buildings.  Nice and out of the way.  The town has been seen in films; Thelma and Louise,  Vanishing Point (1971) and  Don't Come Knocking.  Johnny Cash wrote the song; "Cisco Clifton's Fillin Station." (the photo below)

From the Ghost Town we were just about thirty minutes from Sego Canyon which we knew had some petroglyphs, but we'd heard can be hard to find.  Pffff.  We found them easily.

"Native Americans painted and chipped their religious visions, clan symbols, and records of events onto the cliffs. There are three distinct styles present which represent three separate cultures and time periods. These cultures are known to have been in the area during the past several thousand years."

Day 2: Springville to Moab

We may have been in bed early but alas - jetlag - for me.  I woke up at 1:30am and could I get back to sleep?  No.  Not at all.

I read until it wasn't too stupidly early to leave and we had breakfast and set off for Moab.  I'd read there was a ghost town en-route in a place called Soldier Summit.  On the way to the Ghost Town we passed an iron archway to Mill Fork Cemetery so we did a completely safe u-turn and went to have a look.

To get the cemetery you walked over a bridge, which this morning was coated with a thick frost.  The cemetery was pretty small (I looked it up on a website and the official internment count is just seventeen graves, though the findagrave website lists 46).  

You can read the story of the cemetery over www.thedeadhistory.com.  If you want the short version - A mother and daughter fleeing a town with an outbreak of Scarlet Fever didn't know they were infected and so infected most of Mill Fork.  Further tragedies ensue.

Leaving the cemetery behind we got to the "ghost town" in Soldier Summit.  All that was left behind were signs saying; "Private Property" and some brick outlines of buildings.  I suspect they've mostly been cleared away for some new rebuilding work.

We both very much wanted a coffee so we pulled into the nearest town.  This turned into a nice hour walking around Helper.  Surrounded by mountains it was a nice find and after a late (bigger) breakfast we had a wander around.  

Tiredness was starting to creep in and Moab was still hours away so we plugged on through.  Stunning mountainous scenery made the journey go pretty fast with Jane clicking her camera through the window.

Moab doesn't feel like an overly tiny town but if you look it up on Google Maps you can see it's really in the middle of nothing.

It's most unlike us on a road trip, but we're actually in the same hotel for three nights running so we walked across the road and grabbed food for the fridge.  Job done we wandered over to the Moab Brewery for a beer.  We both wisely plumped for "Dead Horse".  For an ale it was pretty nice.

Back to the hotel by 7:30pm (yes, lightweights) and an early night.

Booking Hotels and Planning/Not Planning

It's most unlike us to book many hotels in advance but we've actually booked three hotels (well, two hotels and a house) for the first six nights.  A night in Springville, then onto Moab for three nights where we can drive out to see the ghost town at Cisco then onto stay in a house for a couple of nights in Monticello.  Then as we're meeting Jules for a photoshoot in Albuquerque we've booked a hotel near the airport for picking up duties. And finally, we've re-booked the hotel in Springville for the return flight at the end of the trip.

As with Route 66 last year we're trying to draw the line between planning so we don't get back home and realise we were ten minutes from something cool, but equally not letting serendipity taking care of things.