I’m sitting in one of my favorite places in our temporary home.  The sunshine is just pouring in, the coffee is good, and the house is quiet.  This is almost enough to make we want to just pull the plug on Indiana (notice I said “almost”).

The days activities were pretty simple.  Monticello continued it’s Pioneer Days celebration with a parade followed by vendors in the park selling arts and crafts as well as food. Visions of corn dogs and elephant ears popped into my little brain.  We fired up the trike and headed in.

We lucked into a great parking spot on a side street that happened to be the intersection where the parade route turned.  On this corner was a local pizza place who had thoughtfully placed a picnic table on their property.  It was the perfect spot for parade viewing.

The parade was much better than anticipated even after we were warned that it wasn’t the Rose Parade.  Just as the parade was ready to kick off a local pilot flew his craft at what had to be full throttle just above the tree tops down the main parade route.  The crowd was very appreciative even if this wasn’t exactly per FAA guidelines.  The floats were well thought out and presented the theme of the parade.  There were some things I noticed that I plan to pass on to the parade committee in my hometown.  There were no baseball teams involved in the parade.  They had a float that celebrated the high school class from 50 years ago.  A lot of candy was tossed.  They even threw some t-shirts, Frisbees, and other assorted trinkets.  The parade lasted about 40 minutes and was great!

We followed the crowd to the local park to check out the vendors.  There weren’t a lot of vendors on hand.  My thoughts of corn dogs and elephant ears were dashed.  The food offerings were traditional native American, a taco truck, and kettle corn.  There was also a shortage of arts / crafts vendors.  We didn’t stay very long.

Back at the house we regrouped to plan the next activity.  There were two remaining spots on my “hit” list for the Moab area – Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park.  Piled back in the truck we headed for Moab once again.

It takes about an hour to reach Moab from where we are staying.  From there it’s another 30 minutes to either of the parks mentioned above.  The decision was to head to Dead Horse Point.   The name comes from the rounding up of wild horses by herding them out to a point above the Colorado river then creating a temporary fence so they are trapped.  The cowboys would then select the best horses and leave the rest trapped there.  You can imagine the outcome – hence the name of the park.

The attraction of this park is that the Colorado River makes a 180 degree U turn which is visible from the observation point above.  I read once that this is the most photographed point along the Colorado (it’s on the internet so it has to be true).  I have to admit while it is a unique experience I was somewhat disappointed.  There was no vantage point where I could get an unobstructed view of the U-turn.

We collected the usual round of souvenirs (magnets, post cards, hat pins, and smashed pennies) then moved on to Canyonlands NP.  This involves retracing part of the route on the highway then taking the other fork in the road.

I guess you can only see so many beautiful scenes and you start getting sensory overload.  That is what I experienced at Canyonlands.  The park is full of magnificent views but I just wanted to get back to the air conditioned truck and find something to eat.

Moab Brewery was right on our path.  We had a great lunch before leaving Moab for what is possibly the last time on this trip.

As a final wrap up to Monticello’s celebration there was a fireworks display which we could see from the cabin.  It’s amazing how good I can feel after a long day of parade watching, canyon viewing, and front porch fireworks watching when a little wine is thrown into the mix.  I think I could do this for a living.