Moab and other unrelated goings on...

I haven't really been in the blogging mood for the last several months, but for some reason the urge has begun to return.  Perhaps it has something to do with currently doing my Psych rotation; maybe it's the massive amount of introspection and overanalyzing that seems to go hand in hand with that area of medicine, or maybe it's the lack of stimulating activity to be found in Pueblo.  Probably both.  

Anyway...after finishing my trauma surgery rotation last Friday (which was both exhilarating & exhausting), Steve and I packed up the car and headed to Moab, UT for a much needed weekend of relaxation, sleep and good times.  We were tempted to go to Fruita since it's 100 miles closer, but we knew we wanted to go to Moab at some point, so we may as well just do it now.  I slept pretty much the whole way there and we arrived around midnight at the campground where our trusty Trek rep (& friend) Larry was camping with his family.  It was late and we just wanted to sleep, but due to the fact that 20 insane rednecks right next to our tent were living it up on their last night of the 2009 Moab Jeep Safari, we had to sleep in the car.  

The next day we rode the Porcupine trail in the early afternoon and then some other sweet trail in the late afternoon.  I knew the Moab trails were unique and that there were lots of rocks, but I had no idea what the riding would be like or how impressive the slickrock really was.  I rode my new Superfly (this was her maiden voyage) and I felt like it handled the rockiness and severity of terrain quite well for a hardtail.  It obviously wasn't as smooth a ride as the Roscoe, but I felt like it climbed super efficiently and the big wheels carried me over more stuff than I was even confident riding.  We crossed paths with several Jeeps out on the trails and I was extremely impressed by what these people were capable of doing and had the balls to do in their 4x4's.  That night we hung out and roasted marshmellows around a campfire with Larry's fam before heading to our cabin at the hostel (complete with hippie smell) to sleep in a real bed.  

Sunday we decided to ride the Slickrock trail since, afterall, it is what put Moab on the mountain biking map.  The plan was to just do the practice loop to see if we liked it and then decide if we wanted to do the whole thing or move on to another trail.  Well, for better or worse, we ended up doing the whole blasted thing.  It had it's super fun sections for sure, but it also had sections that scared the living crap out of me.  Basically, I'm glad I can say I did it, but I don't need to do it again-ever.  

After surviving the Slickrock trail, we loaded up the car, hit 4 different bike shops in town, and headed to Arches National Park.  We were able to get some really beautiful shots with our camera that Santa brought us.