Our first package of mail arrived from Ben on Saturday and Hank was one happy camper. After taking care of a month’s worth of mail, we went into town to attend the weekly Farmer’s Market at Swanny City Park. We bought the best peaches we have ever tasted and also a very sweet Green River melon. They were selling jars of honey and it was fascinating to watch how they extracted it from the frames from inside the hives. You can see that they remove the wax with a hot knife and then place the frame in a centrifuge, spin it AND out comes the honey into the jar.
We then visited Lin Ottinger’s Rock Shop on Main Street. This fascinating store has been open since 1960 and is filled with mineral specimens, fossils, crystals, polished stones and, best of all, dinosaur bones! Garrett and Jack would have loved it. The owner, Lin, is known as the dinosaur man. Many of his discoveries have been donated to museums around the world and include new species of dinosaur.
On Saturday, we drove out along U-128. This spectacular drive along the Colorado River gorge features colorful cliffs, lush riverside habitat and massive red rock formations. This canyon is well known for its hiking opportunities, but swimming in the river is not recommended. In spite of that, Matt and Alice swam in the river twice and enjoyed cooling off!
Fifteen miles upstream from Moab sits the appropriately named Red Cliffs Lodge. It’s a lovely place that is built on the site of the old George White Ranch, a key location for many of the biggest westerns ever filmed. The lodge houses the Moab Museum of Film & Western Heritage and displays many productions photos, autographed scripts, movie posters and props from the many pictures and advertisements filmed in the area.
The Castle Creek Winery, Utah’s first and largest commercial winery, is right up the hill from Red Cliffs Lodge. How did a Moab winery come to be? In the 1970’s, mine closings hit the economy hard in this area. Utah’s Economic Development Commission underwrote a study that found the regional soil ideal for growing grapes. The late summer sun encourages good sugar content and high acid levels necessary to produce well-balanced high quality wine. Castle Creek Winery has produced more than 30 award-winning wines and we enjoyed a bottle of their Outlaw Red with Matt and Alice.
Again, I leave you with a few last pictures of this memorable last day in Moab.
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