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.