MJK Thrills N Spills: Wind & Friends in Moab

Mike and I took Cora camping and biking again, but this time to Moab. We thought waiting until March would mean better weather than our normal President's Day weekend timing. But . . . We didn't quite get it right so we had another windy adventure that I'll tell you about. :)

We drove down Thursday afternoon and found a BLM camping site that was really pretty sweet! We set up camp, made a fire, cooked our tin foil dinners, and tried to relax for the evening, but Cora was not relaxing at all! I don't know if it's because she didn't really get much of a nap on the drive down or what, but she cried and cried and struggled once we got into camp. Her sleep and feeding schedule was all messed up. But we did our best to deal with it. We eventually put her to bed around 7:30 but she struggled to fall asleep. It dawned on us that she was probably struggling because we had her hands all bundled up in her down bunting and so couldn't get to her thumbs to suck on them to put herself to sleep. She eventually fell asleep but woke at 9:00 pm so I fed her again and prayed she fall asleep in my arms since she finished feeding very grumpy. Amazingly! She did fall asleep in my arms! So I carefully put her in her pack-n-play (which fits in our monster tent along with us) and she slept through the night with only a minor peep at some point. Miracle!

Feeding Cora on the tailgate on the drive down to Moab

Cold diaper change in the tent

Hanging out by the fire.

That was a double miracle because let me tell you why: Mike and I froze our cans off that night! Well, maybe not really. But we struggled to stay warm in our 15-degree down sleeping bags and with a bunch of layers on. When I got up in the morning, our 5 gallons of water in the jug had some big chunks of ice in it that I had to break up! We think it got down to the mid-20s for the overnight low temperature. Holy moly! Apparently, we had Cora bundled up sufficiently for her to sleep through the night like that.

Our camp site

We brought along Cora's birdies to play with. It was pretty chilly that morning so we kept her in the bunting.

That morning we hung out in camp so Cora could get a decent morning nap. And while hanging out, we watched and heard the wind pick up. Ugh. Dang wind! Always messes with our camping trips! So we packed up camp and decided to get a hotel for that night. Again - camping was foiled by the wind.

Mike took me over to the Mag 7 trails and I did a solo mountain bike ride first. It was a blast! Just all downhill since Mike and Cora were going to pick me up at the bottom. Once I reached the bottom, it was time to head back to the top to meet up with Steve and Tess, some friends of ours that are living in their airstream trailer full-time and happened to be in Moab that weekend. Mike went for a ride with Steve and Tess and basically did the same ride that I did earlier. Cora and I met up with them down at the bottom of their ride. And then to my pleasant surprise, Steve offered to take our truck and Cora and let me ride with Mike and Tess down Great Escape to another meeting point. It was so fun to ride with Mike again! Then Cora, Tess, and I took Mike and Steve up the top of Great Escape for them to ride it again in a race against the setting sun. They made it, but just barely! After that Mike, Cora, and I checked into a hotel for a much warmer and pleasant night of sleep.

Riding TOGETHER on the Great Escape!

The next day, Mike and I took turns riding some of the Navajo Rocks trails with Steve and Tess and sitting with Cora in the truck. The wind was terrible this day! It was so strong that it nearly blew me over while I was riding my bike. And that meant we couldn't really do anything with Cora outside that day either - so it was pretty boring to sit in the truck with her and a bit challenging.

Once we finished those rides we were pretty beat, so we parted ways with Steve and Tess and headed home.