Next Day, Hurrah Again

 

There are a few tour boats coming down the river now and then. Was mostly Moab Jett up to now with their blue Aussie boats but it's opening up. Saw a raft go by today all packed to the top so likely one of the first to go to Lake Powell which usually takes about four days.

Few butterflies have showed up, a flower here and there and yesterday the porch was full of side-blotched lizards racing around. A few ringtails each evening and striped skunk almost babies, and saw the first fox in a week last night before the full moon came and then it disappeared as they always do when the moon is bright.

Lot of disc golfers every day and lot of guests. We're completely full almost every night. Because of the two day minimum requirement I've set we might be full on the 1st and 2nd, and then the 4th and 5th with the 3rd being skipped and it's like that mostly all the way to middle of May with just a two night booking available here and there for a few of the rentals.

Hurrah

 As promised the county ground up the bad spot on Hurrah Pass last year but the top of the pass coming up from this side still looks bad. It's not as bad as it looks but it has some people nervous so Jax and I have them follow us up or occasionally we just drive them up in their vehicle and hike back. We got a couple hikes in from Hurrah.

Found this on the way down.

Hayduke Kind of Day

 Mesa Man left early in the morning heading back out on the Hayduke Trail.

Mike and Melanie came in a few hours later. Stayed for an hour or two, watered up and headed out.

Short while after they left from back to front came Peter Pan, Cruise, and Stretch. They camped and headed out in the morning.

Few hours after that came two more who told me their names and I promptly forgot. My mistake.

Skinny People

Skinny People got popular last week. Somebody told somebody and they told some more somebodies. One or two sets of guests were out there every day and shockingly despite my poor map drawing skills they all found it. Guests are coming back saying that by itself could be a park or that and The Fingers would be full of people if it were near a population center. Most were taking two to three hours out and back but one day we had some that hadn't returned in three hours so Jax and I headed out.

Jax was pretty sure they were down below us somewhere and as always he was right.

Brian Brinker

 Brian sent me some pictures of his stay last month.

Wind Caves

River

Critters

Then there's this.

Stuff

 Moses came through hiking the Hayduke. I'd seen a couple Haydukers a day or two before but they walked right on by.

Jax and I got a hike around the property a couple days after the tourney just to see if there were any changes. Disc'ers picked up after themselves and it was pretty clean most place despite the rain that we had on Saturdy afternoon.

Did find two white-tailed antelope squirrels that were eaten by dogs and thrown up by the main house. Plus there were atv tracks right up next to the male hogan and then the guest behind them parked their dirt bike and atv up there seeing the tracks of the disc trackers before so I had to ask them to put their vehicles in the parking lot. There were a couple other places the atv and dirt bikes had gone off the trails.

I went to pump water from the river to fill up the pond but somebody had backed over the pipes and broken them so that's going to be awhile before we can get parts for it.

One of the houses was pretty muddy and we didn't get it completely clean by the time guests got here and they were pretty upset and rightly so leaving a day early. The mud that came while were booked solid was everywhere and the land took a brutal beating. Jax and I are hiking back and I'm trying to decide if I want to do two of these a year. Moab doesn't get much rain but October is the month that occasionally gets the monsoons though it's been a few years since we got one.

I need a break so Jax and I head off to hike out by the Wind Caves and back. It's nice, it's relaxing. Don't forget where you live and how much people enjoy it. We'll do it again in October and try and mitigate the things that happened this time.

I get back and Kobae is outside sunning himself. I look in the laundry room where he slept the night before and he's left me a present. It has steam coming off it. I get two shovels in case it's alive and I have to kill it. It's going to take that many shovels to lift it once it's dead. I think I hear it breathing. A tortoise didn't leave that. It had to come from a cow or perhaps there is still a dinosaur around. I've seen the bones. I tell people Kobae weighs 200 pounds but I think it's closer to 180 today. I pulled a back muscle lifting it up on the shovel to take outside.

This Is My World

 On Saturday I'm driving around to all the locations where people are staying in structures and or camping to let them know round two is cancelled because of the weather. When I get to the house a couple players ask me to come inside for a minute. Chaucie hands me this.

As I'm looking at it I don't quite get the Jax and I reaching out for each other. Then I keep looking at it and there's Jax, Linny, a ringtail, a skunk, a raccoon, a fox, Kobae, some birds and in short it is my Base Camp family. The little people I hang out with when regular people aren't around and sometimes even when they are. The detail is amazing. It's emotional. That really is my life right there on canvas. I pull the truck right up to the house and have a hand off through the window to keep it from getting wet in the rain. 

When I get back to the lodge I turn it over and see this.

I'm thinking ok this was inspired by a review last year where one of the guests said to come stay here because "Tom is a God." Pretty clever. 

Then Monday Ryan and Chaucie come by to check out and say goodbye and I tell Chaucie I get the God thing referring to the review a while back and she says "No. It's a spin off of a picture hanging in the Sistine Chapel." The Creation of Adam/Jax. Even more clever. 

Chaucie I've said it already but I can't say it enough. Thank you.

Monday Looks Like This

 

Sunday: Round Three

 Jax and I head out to watch some disc golf and they are everywhere. I had heard the day sign up happened online that the 75 slots sold out in four minutes, then someone said it was three minutes and then I ran into a player who said he watched it online and it sold out in a minute and a half. Almost a sign up per second. As it turned out it got expanded to 80 and 10 plus more showed up just in case and they all got to play so it was in the 90 something range.

In Moab the busy season use to start the 3rd week of March and it was mostly the same for me. The disc tourney moved my busy season up a week. Now though, since Covid I've been busy a couple weeks in advance this year. The challenge is on Monday everything goes vacant and if everything re-rents the same day, it's impossible to get it all clean before new folks move in. If there were lots of people that worked here it might be possible but this is the boonies and lots isn't in the vocabulary.

Still with the challenge and despite being full in October with or without a disc tournament, Doug and I sat down today and went through the dates so as not to conflict with other already scheduled tournaments and we're going to do it again. We're is misleading. I provide the locations and Doug and his do all the work.

I have blocked Friday Oct 8th and Saturday Oct 9th from all booking sites so only disc golfers will be able to stay at that time. It's still just a two day minimum but that runs some risk. I had two rooms that initially booked just Friday and Saturday. Meaning that if your room rents to someone else who's staying two or more nights I need you to get all your stuff out before you go out for Sunday's round so we can get it clean for the new people coming in. Both rooms extended their booking for Sunday and I had offers for people who wanted to stay Sunday and Monday but once the disc'ers extended through Sunday then they couldn't book. So, we're doing it twice this year and we'll see how it goes as if to continue doing it twice a year.