[Update to previous Moab posts: We have all had fun taking 360 pictures and posting to google street view. Forgot to include them so here are the links ...
1) Turret Arch https://goo.gl/maps/GUcXz8WpPFq - Mitzi and Ella are under the arch but you need to zoom in
2) Top of Mesa Arch https://goo.gl/maps/7Rohnq45LCo
3) Skyline Arch https://goo.gl/maps/sMicemMzQmR2
]
With three full days of hiking and swimming we all needed somewhat of a break. We got some much needed extra rest with a later wake up time. There were so many cute little cafes and breakfast places we had been passing we decided to go out for brunch. At first we thought maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. The first place we tried stopped serving breakfast at 11 and it was now 11:15. We could have gotten lunch here but all of us just wanted breakfast. We went a little further down and stopped at an adorable little place called Eklectica.
The girls were excited because we parked right by Mater (each time we drove back and forth through Moab they noticed the rundown old tow truck decorated to look like Mater even though I never saw it). As we walked up the steps we were worried this also wouldn’t work because there was a very long line and tons of people all around. Once we got the lay of the land we realized we would be ok. It was a counter service, so all the people were waiting to order (and the amount of people was an indication to me we made the right choice) and there were several tables on the outside patio. Adam and the girls got us a table while I waited in line to order. Since we were all pretty hungry by this point, I got us an incredible looking (and tasting!) peach scone to share while we waited for our food to come out. Adam and I were very happy to get coffee. Since it had been so hot we were trying to keep very hydrated which sadly meant no caffeine or alcohol. We all really enjoyed our breakfast. I had a delicious egg white omelet, Adam and Ella shared a yummy breakfast burrito and Lily got a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese that she loved. On our way back to the car we stopped at Mater for the girls to check out and take some pictures.
From there we headed to Hole in the Rock. What an interesting place this was!
Back in the 1940’s a family blasted through the mountains to start building their new home. They opened what became a very popular diner on this same spot. It took them 20 years to build their 14 room cave house. We paid the nominal fees to take their 12 minute tour (only one they offered) of this one of a kind home. No photographs were allowed once we were inside, even in the gift shop, where you enter.
The first room we saw once the tour started was their kitchen. They custom fit the kitchen cabinets and it was amazing how they were flush to the curved ceiling and the sides of the walls. Next we entered into their living quarters. It was an open air design with the spacing and various furniture changing the rooms, but no walls to separate them (with the exception of the bathroom). They made it very cozy complete with a fireplace. They had to build a chimney straight through to the top of the mountain. It was evident they used it often as the rock ceiling was very blackened above this area. The wife loved to collect knick knacks and figurines and she used the cave’s natural ledges all over to display them. For the times when there wasn’t a ledge available she used her chisel to create one. The husband had a variety of interests and abilities. Painting was one and there were several of his works hung on the cave walls. Taxidermy was another and right in front of their bed was a colt he had worked on left in the position he had found it in, with it’s front legs bucked in the air. The husband died 6 years after he finished building the house. The tour guide told us shortly after he died the wife switched to another of the bedrooms which they guessed was so she didn’t have this colt as the first thing she saw every morning. There was another horse he had worked on in another room of the house too. The wife would go around the local lakes and swimming holes and collect all the glass. She would bring it back to her craft room and would put it through her machine to smooth it down and make beautiful “stones” out of it. Then she would work to create jewelry with it and would sell it in their diner. Even though the tour was limited to 12 minutes we were able to get a very good feel for what it must have been like to live there, see all the rooms and learn a lot about the family and their manmade dwelling.
After the tour we wandered around the grounds just outside. We took some time to look up at the memorial statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt the husband carved into the mountain side.
We enjoyed checking out all their unique antique signs and art.
We really liked the very large lizard hung on the side of the mountain.
The girls couldn’t believe they had a Mater car here too. Two times in one day!
I especially liked their statue of “Big Foot”, not the creature you would imagine, but a stone sculpture of one large foot.
The girls had a great time sitting in the granite “chairs”.
Towards the back of the mountain was the gravesites for the couple.
In the back of the yard was a little fenced in area with the gravesites for all the family pets. There was a very cool, large sculpture of a bull made out of recycled metal. Next to it was a sign stating No Bull Riding (their humor was great!)
After we checked all of this out we went over to the General Store to pay another nominal fee for admittance to their zoo. In front of the General Store was an awesome piece of art. It was a full size jeep made out of old car parts and license plates.
Unlike most other zoos where feeding the animals is prohibited, here it is encouraged. Along with our admission we paid for a bucket of food to feed the animals. At the top were tons of baby carrots and at the bottom was all kinds of oats and grains. The woman gave us tons of info before we went, letting us know all the animals so we rationed the food right. She also told us how to feed the ostrich and the camel and said we had to make sure not to miss this experience. When we first went through the turnstyle door, sadly, their wallaby would have been the first animal to see but it died just a few weeks prior to our visit (it died of old age and it was evident the rest of the animals here were very comfortable and happy in their habitats).
The girls had a great time “talking” with the turkey. They would squawk at it and it would squawk back at them. This made all of us laugh until our sides hurt.
We visited and fed their sheep and goats and then did the same with the huge black hog. Around the corner we found the zebra and deer habitats. Both of these had tubes we could put the food into which would land in feeding buckets on the other side for the animals. The African Watusi were fun to watch and feed too. The size of their horns was fascinating to see. They also had a tube to put the food. The bison habitat was next. Here the parent one was very aggressive and kept taking all the food. We wanted to feed the baby one so we tried to distract the big one so the baby one could get our snack. We loved their bird cage, Coop Deville, too. Several of their antique signs and items were in here. You really had to pay attention to your surroundings to notice all of the things they had on display. There were a few peacocks and we spent some time trying to get them to open their tails but never had any luck.
Another side splitting moment came along with feeding the ostrich. We were instructed to hold the feed bucket up to the ostrich. The ostrich would then stick it’s head out of the fence and put it’s large beak into our bucket. It would collect a mouthful of food and shake it’s head up and down as it ate. We each took a turn feeding this silly bird.
The woman warned us that the alpacas spit at you so we quickly made our way past them in hopes we would not be their target. Thankfully we were successful. We decided not to feed them to be safe and went on to feed the donkeys. We saved the most interesting task for last. When we were instructed how to feed the camel it was definitely not what we were expecting to hear. The camel loved to get close and personal with you and preferred to take the food from your mouth. So, we were to put a carrot into our mouth and put our face close to the gate. They had signs posted giving the same feeding instructions for the camel too (somehow we neglected to take a picture of it) so we knew the woman wasn’t pulling our leg. The camel would come and put his face close to ours and very gently take the carrot from us. We thought this was odd, but figured when in Rome, and so we did it. It was a little unnerving but so much fun. The girls and I each did it a few times (Adam was worried to participate since he is allergic to some animals and didn’t want to chance it).
We talked with the turkey one more time before ending our extremely fun visit. Before leaving we stopped into their Trading Post Store and the girls each picked out a beaded spirit bracelet. The legend says spirit bracelets protect from harm and bring good luck. They were already lucky as there was a bracelet available for each of them where they liked the design and the main color was their favorite (Ella-blue and Lily-orange).
Our next destination was a hike on the Mill Creek Trail that would take us to a swimming hole with a waterfall. I was immediately skeptical of this as we turned down the last road to get to the trail head. We had to drive down a road with no parking signs posted continuously. When we got to the end there were lots of cars parked here so I started to feel a bit better. We started out and from the beginning it was not clear which way to go. We made it over to the dam and then had to climb some rocks to continue on. There was a large sign there that warned us of possible illnesses one could catch from the water. At that same point another group was coming back. They started telling us how we have to walk about another mile or so through a rocky and uneven path and several parts were through knee-high deep water. Since we had a pool we could swim in back at the campsite it made no sense to me for us to continue on. The girls were disappointed but I was not willing to budge. If we didn’t have a place to swim maybe I would have felt different, but this seemed like an awful lot of effort to swim in questionable water when we had a beautiful and safe place waiting for us. To lessen the disappointment we stopped at Moab Coffee Roasters for gelato. We went straight to the pool once we got back and swam the rest of the evening.
