Moab - Monument Valley

In the early morning I discovered the best bike path ever!!

Very true! With no crossing roads, the path goes close to The Arches National Park and pass nearby the canions,  revealing fantastic views!

It was an easy workout, with only twice 10 minutes on a faster pace, just to stimulate legs a little bit.

Bike: 38km - 1h12min

On the GPS, there was no more swimming pools on the way until Los Angeles, so I hopped in the pool while in Moab, before getting behind the wheels again . . . 

The swim was really easy, so I focused on technic exercises. I also did some under water shots to have an idea of my stroke efficiency . . .  Lots to improve!! 

400y warm up, 4x100y drill, 200y kicking, 8x25y building, 4x100y drill, 400y pull, 4x100y aerobic @1'40", 200y warm down.

Swim: 2.600y - 50min 

With no monster training during this trip, the only scary stuff we saw, was at the Dinossaur museum at Blanding, UT!! Lol

It was very cool to see the exhibition, specially the idea generated by some fossils that would suggest dinossaurs had not scaly skin, but they were actually covered by feathers, like giant birds!

Back to the Isuzussaur, we kept in big steps towards the south. The next stop was another national park, it was actually the first national park of Utah, founded in 1908: The Natural Bridges National Monument.

It is featured by three natural bridges, carved by time by the action of the Colorado river. We did a hiking that took about 1 hour to the base of the first one, called Sipacu, named in Navajo's language, the indians who used to live in this area. The greatness of this rocks are impressive, and we took hours imagining the river action around this million years. It was the river who went down or the rocks that went up!?? Lol

Not far from there, it was time for the Isuzu to get into the trail again, and we went down Moki Dugway, a tiny rustic trail road with about 3 miles plenty of switch backs and amazing views.  

During the trip, we also saw two other formations:

Gooseneck State Park (imagine a river that has decided to make a turn!)

Shaped while it was a plain surface, the San Juan river, with no rush, molded by the years more than goose necks, one of the world's most famous meanders.

And the Mexican Hat (how come that rock ended up in that top!?)

Shaped by nature miracle, or it could be Medusa that seducted a Mexican fellow with his hat! Lol

With the sun close to the horizon, and fulfilled with awesomeness, we decided to go forward. We were too late to visit the "Monument Valley" (central right pic) so we left futher expeditions to the next day!

A little hard to find hotel in that county, we ended up almost on the Arizona's border, a few miles after the park, but still in that region called Monument Valley.

Click here to read more about this night at Monument  Valley . . .