When I pulled into Moab... it was full

I'm pretty sure the only reason we were able to tear ourselves away from Ocean Beach on Thursday morning after lunch with Josh and John and their neighbors Lori and Christina was the light rain that was falling. It wouldn't have taken much to keep us around.  But as it was, we set off for one night in vegas.

We arrived in town around dinner time, checked into our room at New York New York and treated ourselves to a steak dinner at Gallagher's.  After  dinner we walked down to the other end of the strip for a brief stop at the Imperial Palace casino before spending the majority of the evening playing blackjack at the Bellagio.   After our self imposed allowances ran out around 2:30, we called it night (joe walking into the hotel at left).

Reading that makes it sound like the most boring vegas boys weekend ever - and that's probably true, but we did have a good time.

After a pizza breakfast we headed out of the hotel. I laid my single leftover black chip on the baccarat table and lost it in a cool 10 seconds on our way out.

We got on the road to Moab around 11:00 am and arrived at the Archways national park around 8 (with the time change).  We took the 30 minute long, breathtaking drive through park's famous red rock formations to the campground only to find out on arrival that it was full. By the time we got back down to the bottom it was after 9 and dark.  We elected to throw in the towel and check into a motel rather  than go another 20 miles out of our  way to then open campgrounds.  It turns out that most of the rooms in town were full too.  We checked 5 or 6 placed before finally getting a room at the Archway inn.

After checking in we grabbed a quick bite at the Moab diner before heading back to our room to catch some sleep in preparation for our 6:00 am departure for Ft Collins, CO.   The diner claims to have the best green chilies in Utah.  I'm not really sure how Utah's chilies hold up on the national green chili scene but I can say they were the best Utah green chili's I've ever had.

Pictures taken on the road from vegas to Moab are below. Click on the bottom of the image to display the nav bar and start the show.