Torrin riding down Sand Flats Road

Torrin took advantage of one our trips into town to do a little biking. As we descended from the cabin at 7200 ft Torrin took his bike out of the back near the trail head for porcupine trail and for the most part coasted down a few miles. Smudgy photo because I took it though the windshield. The snow is non existent at the lower elevations and we counted 84 seperate vehicles parked along the campsites near Fins N Things and Slickrock. I don't remember seeing that many folks even in the busier parts of the year. Perhaps the recession has more people camping and the Moab area is the beneficiary. The two nights we spent in town to watch the basketball games at Zax pizza, the town was buzzing with people. Susie likes it that moab seems to be a vibrant little town. One secret when visiting Moab in the off season, is the Moab Brewery offers all their half pound hamburgers with all trimmings for $5.00 I had the bacon swiss cheese half pounder with fries and it was super.

Moab rim from porch after storm

The snow had quit, we had completed shoveling off the porch deck again, and the storm clouds hung over the canyon for the rest of the day but the sun was shining at the same time.

Fireplace keeps it warm

Susie enjoyed a fire each day while she read. The secret to making this fireplace insert work efficiently is to build a hot kindling fire first. Get the stove pipe hot so that it will draft the smoke upwards. After a roaring kindling fire is going and the stove pipe or flue is HOT, we can put split logs on, turn the insert fan on and turn down or off the propane heaters in the cabin. The insert with fan can heat up the cabin within 30 minutes. We have had problems with smoke before but in talking with a number of people selling solutions to the smoke problem we started with the easiest first and to our pleasant surprise it worked.

evening Sun on the LaSals

On the way back up to the cabin on the Sand Flats road after being in town to watch the NCAA playoffs and run some errands I snapped this photo through the windshield of the LaSals. The cabin is on the mesa just right of center of this photograph. I am just passing Fins N Things at the time of this photo.

Pickup 100 yards out

Susie went out to photograph Torrin building his snow toad and I took this one to show the distance away from the cabin the truck is stuck in the snow. Look directly back of the right of the fruit tree to see where the pickup made it to. We had shoveled the walkway the day before so it was clear and dried out each day in the warm temps. We are hoping the same will apply to the road where we shoveled. Each day we watched the snow melt before our eyes and at times marveled how fast it was melting.

snow frog

Torrin, with a lot of energy went out to create a snowman, and when I went to check on his progress, I saw this thing... I asked what it was and he said since he had never built a snowman, born and raised in Phoenix Arizona, he didn't know what to do so he built this frog or toad creature. Weather was around freezing at night but in the high 50s and low 60s in the day. This is in the front yard near the fruit trees.

another snowfall

After shoveling as much as we did the previous two days, we woke up Wednesday morning and it was snowing again. This is looking out the back door over the proch. That drift is about 5-6 high and covers the firepit we use to roast smors and hotdogs.

Torrin digging out

Torrin heard me talking to some guests planning on coming this week on the phone and overheard that they had wives and one with an 18 month old baby. He immediately went out and started shoveling a path along the road for them to make the last 150 yards to the cabin through the drifts. He spent a little over two hours digging this. Bless his heart. Later I used this path on the road to get one wheel of the pickup in and enough traction to drive up to the cabin. I tried breaking down as much of the drift I could to help the guests but worry that the melting snow will make for pretty muddy conditions.