Moab Day 1 - Petroglyphs

Christmas Break was our first time having OVER TWO WEEKS with nowhere we had to be.  And yet we had no immediate family to go hang out with.  Interesting the way that happens, huh?  We enjoyed time together to playing, relaxing, and doing a few fun things near here, but we were determined to go somewhere, even if we were on a super-tight budget.  Moab was a logical choice since it's close (about a 3-hour drive) and cheap and the weather is (supposed to be) slightly warmer than it is here.  There are 2 awesome National Parks near Moab and we still had our National Park pass from our trips to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks over the summer.  So we did it!

When I was asking around, trying to find out about options for cheap places to stay, a friend told me about a hostel in Moab where she'd stayed and that it was really great and they had cabins you could rent.  Awesome!  And to make it even better, their winter rates were dirt cheap.  We could rent an entire cabin, with electricity (no water, we'd have to walk to the nearby bathhouse) for $25/night.  Sold!  I reserved 3 nights and we were psyched to have our first stay in a hostel, and our first vacation with just the 5 of us, for that matter!

We arrived and went straight to the hostel to check in.  But the office didn't open until 5pm.  So we went right back out to the Visitors Center and got some good suggestions about things to do during our stay.  Then we followed one of the brochures the nice guide gave us and took a drive looking for petroglyphs and pictographs.  We found some!  We were so excited!  (Pictures are below, but I need to finish my story before I show them to you.)  Then we went straight to the hostel again and this time we got checked in.  At this point in my story, I should tell you that it was cold in Moab.  We were bundled up.  There was snow on the ground.  It might have been warmer than the Provo area, but it wasn't by much, I can tell you that!

So Ben gets us checked in and comes back to the car to inform me that since we requested 3 beds, there was an extra charge so we would have to pay $40/night.  Well, they didn't tell me that over the phone when I made the reservation, but I guess I can handle $40/night.  That's still super cheap.  We started driving around the campus (if that's what it's called?) of the hostel and he stopped at this little shack.  I was totally confused.  "Where's our cabin?"  "This is it." "Huh?  No.  I saw the pictures online and this little, what did you call it, cabin?, is way too small."  "Nope this is it."  "Oh.  Okay.  Well, let's check it out."

So, when you think of a cabin, what do you think of?  A simple building made of logs with a few rooms and beds?  Well, this shack was simple.  And it had a few beds.  But it was only one room.  And it was FREEZING.  Ben turned on a sad excuse for a space heater as we looked around at our home away from home.  One small room.  (The cabins at my Young Women's girls camp were huge compared to this thing.)  A bunk bed.  A twin bed.  A chair.  A small table with some towels and soap.  (Awww, thanks!)  No room for our huge suitcase.  No room for Eliza's portacrib.  The bathhouse is too far away to have to walk in freezing cold.  The space heater is pathetic, there's a significant crack under the door to let lots of cold air in, the walls aren't insulated, and the window is single-pane.  We deliberated.  Can we sleep here?  Just for one night?  We remembered our camping trip over the summer.  The temperature was in the 30s that night and we didn't sleep very well.  The temperature would be much lower than that in Moab, though, and we like to sleep.  We also like to wake up without frostbite.  But Ben had already paid for the "cabin" and we wondered if we would get our money back?  Of course, during this deliberation, our kids were doing their best to dirty the room by putting any part of their petroglyph-hunting bodies on the beds and other furniture that they could.  Finally we knew we had to make a decision and make it quickly.  We were all cold, the "cabin" was not getting any cleaner, we were hungry, and it was getting late; if we were going to stay at the hostel we needed to try to settle down for the night before it was too dark, and if were were going to stay somewhere else, well, we needed to figure out where that was going to be.

We dusted off the furniture and decided to stay somewhere else.  Best decision ever.  The people at the hostel were very understanding.  "Yes, those heaters aren't the best."  Ya think??  So we agreed to come back in the morning for our full refund (apparently the night guy didn't know how to do that...) and set out to find somewhere else relatively affordable.  Ben and I both got online looking at prices and made some calls and finally found a good hotel in the middle of town (well, I'll admit, the town's not that big) for $55/night.  What???  Just $15 more than we were going to (errr, already did) pay to sleep in a shack with no bathroom? And this hotel has a refrigerator, too?  In the end we actually saved even more because we only stayed 2 nights.  And since the room had a refrigerator, we were able to keep our breakfast and lunch food in there and only eat out for dinners.  Score!

So, with that (somewhat lengthy?) introduction, I give you:

PETROGLYPHS!

Everything I would tell you about these petroglyphs is written on this sign, so if you're interested, just click on the picture to see it bigger so that you can read what the US Department of the Interior has to say about it.

Prehistoric method of rock climbing. (See above description.)

While Ben and I admired the petroglyphs, the kids explored the little park.  This is Cat's first time walking on water!  Err, ice.

Jack wanted nothing more than to let Thomas get out of the car and stretch his weary wheels.

Ben thought this tree was cool.

While we were outside, Eliza hung out in the car.  She didn't seem to mind.

Our brochure showed that there were more petroglyphs and pictographs on our route, but after driving for a while we didn't find any.  Oh well.  Seeing just one random wall with carved drawings in the rock dating back thousands of years was still pretty cool in my book.