After the almost-running-out-of-gas fiasco, we went back to the hostel and chilled out for a bit in our room, then found a 1.6 mile hike that was 8 minutes away. What the hell, we went for it. 

Such a cool trail! Not something we would have done if I wasn’t supposed to be resting because it’s so short, but it was awesome! It shadowed a creek (Mill Creek, I think, that’s what the trail is called) out to a waterfall in a canyon. There were water crossings (we wore sandals) and some scrambling to get to the top of the falls. It was beautiful. I love water in the desert – it’s so unexpected and so damned pretty!

On the way back to the car, we stopped at the little “beach” – a sandy bank with some trees. Kinda cool. I guess. 

Now, we’re sitting outside our room, playing on our phones… At some point we’ll have to figure out dinner. But for now – more crack pretzels!!!!

Dinner ended up being Taco Time, eating hanging out on our porch… It was surprisingly good!  Then bed. Last night at the hostel. Sleep is good!

The next morning, I got up one last time and grabbed us coffee from Wicked Brew. Drank it in bed while reading a book. 

We packed up and talked about what to do for the day – we had to check out of the hostel by 11:00 and couldn’t check into the Airbnb until 3:00. We found a couple little hikes, one more of a scramble, to some more arches, and decided to start with the scrambly one, Funnel Arch. 

We drove to the trailhead, nothing more than a pull off on the side of the road, and found the “trail.” Almost immediately, we were walking straight up slickrock. There was a little maybe 15 ft. section that made me think about getting down – so I stopped thinking and just went. 

A bit more trail-ish path and more walking up slickrock, and we got there. It was so cool! The arch itself was pretty, and there was no one else around. We walked right up to it, and could actually walk off the back side too. It’s not too often you can walk all the way through and arch, let alone all the way around. This one, you could do both. 

We took twenty million pictures and videos and headed back to the car. I got down the part that raised my eyebrows without thinking, and we got back fine. 

Then we drove back to the other side of the river to the trailhead for Longbow Arch. 

An obvious trail, paint on rocks to follow, and some sand later, we found it. It’s an arch, ao it’s cool by default, but really it was mostly meh. Totally anticlimactic after the cool factor of Funnel Arch.

We snacked in the parking lot for a bit and then went to the grocery for a minute. By then, it was time to check into the Airbnb. 

The place was interesting. It reminded us of the office you see at a gold mine on “Gold Rush” or something. Just a big, manufactured building, wide open with a couple bedrooms in the back. But it was clean and comfortable, and really functional. 

That evening, we met Jeni, Karen, Rochelle, and Jason for dinner at the Spoke. A burger and a beer hit the spot. Then, Jeni and Karen insisted on going to the liquor store to get more booze, so we ran down with them for a minute – laughing at how we cross the road like penguins every time! When they’re going to drink the entire bottle of vodka they bought, I don’t want to know!

Then back to the house and to bed.  

The next morning, we hung out and drank horrible coffee, took a short walk down the road by the house, and that killed our morning. 

After munching some lunch, I went to pick Renee up at the airport. I thought I saw her plane landing, but then I saw a plane taking off and thought I must’ve been mistaken. Turns out, it was her plane and they had to abort the landing. Eek! She got in fine, though, and we headed back to town.

We stopped by the grocery , stopped by the house, dropped off her stuff, grabbed Matt, and headed to packet pick up. There, we ran into everyone else, and got some pictures of all of us. We had a big group! 

Dinner was spaghetti and jar sauce, then some scrambling to get the last of our crap together for race day, and laying down to get as much rest as possible. Tomorrow is the big dance!!

Race day was an entertaining shit show consisting of sun, ice, wind, hail, storms, mud, rivers of water down dirt roads, and a lot of sand and sliding down slick rock on our butts. I’ll eventually write a race report and update this post with a link if you’re interested, but I’m not going to bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, it did not go as planned, none of us ran as far as we thought we would, and Renee and I ended up doing shots of tequila when we got back to the AirBnb that night.

I haven’t been so happy to wake up in a bed after having actually gone to bed in a long time. I’m really not sad about yesterday’s outcome. It was really nice to sit and drink good coffee that Kris brought and chat and rehash with Renee. 

We packed and cleaned everything up and headed out by about 10:00 am. Kris and Renee had a hellish drive back to Denver, and we’re headed to Flagstaff! Time to get this road trip started for REAL! 

We filled up the car and headed south! 

Here’s the video: