Will we ever even go to Monticello?

 

Thursday, November 2, 2023  One day we will make it to Monticello

There is a hole my humans use.  It runs water and they take their paws and splash the water on their muzzles.  I jump up because I want to drink that water.  They have been pushing me away.  Sometimes, my maternal human will let me get a drink there.  They let me do this in the house that doesn’t move so I don’t know why they won’t let me do this much here.

Another cold 30 degree morning.  After our coffee, we headed back into Needles for a short hike.  We went to Pothole Point.  This is a short, .6 mile hike on slickrock pocked with potholes.  Lots of ups and downs and of course, plenty of views.  It was a fun little hike to start the day.

We got back to Artee and readied her for her next journey.  Our intention, once again is to go to Monticello.  We stopped, again, at the rock climbing place.  It is BLM land.  Lots of people were there getting ready.  I decided to do the part of the journey that takes you up to the place you start climbing.  There are several teeny trails that lead up.  You climb up a tiny path, and then there are some stone stairs that are full of pebbles and debris.  You climb and climb.  These people do this carrying their climbing gear which is heavy!  I could tell, going up was the easy way.  Going down was going to be a bit sketchy.  I talked to a couple of girls that were climbing.  It is a passion and they do it whenever they can.  I made my way down, without tripping or skidding on the pebbles.  I had to go slow.  I can’t imagine doing it with a heavy backpack!

Back on the road towards Hwy. 191, we saw Harts Draw Road.  A ranger had told us about it.  It has lots of wildlife and is slow going, but totally paved and will take you into Monticello.  So off we went.  We are climbing.  Lots of pinyon pines and it smells good.  We see a turnoff for Foy Lake.  Why not?  Off we go.  We follow the road for about a mile and there was a turnabout and a flat space.  We backed Artee in and declared it as our campsite.  We talked to a hunter.  He said he has only seen does and fawns.  I sure hope he doesn’t mistake us for a buck!

We unloaded our bikes and went for a ride.  In the sun, it may only be 46 degrees, but it is warm.  However, one pedal on the bike and it is cold!  We head down a bumpy dirt road past the hunter’s camp.  We kept going downhill, and downhill, and downhill.  That means we are going to need to go uphill at some point.  We have no idea where this road goes so after a while, we figured best to turn around.  We explored some of the other places people camp.  You know hunters have this all scouted out.  We pedaled down the road to the turnoff, then headed up till we saw a dirt road.  Off we went.  We collected some nice firewood and pedaled back to our camp.  Hmm… patches of ice at the edge of the road.  Betcha it’s gonna be a cold night!  We had a great fire.  There was a meager fire ring there, but I added rocks to it to make it deluxe.  Cool evening, warm fire and life is good.  Maybe we will get to Monticello tomorrow!