Wednesday morning we found ourselves with an entire extra day at our disposal (remember we left Monday instead of Tuesday). In the morning we visited with Joyce and Ron, friends F made when he lived in Moab. They fed us coffee cake and were really excited to hear about all of our travels and adventures.
Leaving their house, we took Mill Road to downtown. It was time for us to pick up our marriage license! The clerks were only a bit confused about the fact we already shared a last name but were very happy to congratulate us on our wedding.

Licensed to wed, we headed back to Danette’s to retrieve Sprocket and make lunch. When we were done eating, we pondered where we could go for the afternoon and settled on taking the Jeep out to Steelbender (or Metal Masher if you’re a mountain biker).


Steelbender starts in Mill Canyon. Mill Canyon is a really beautiful place. I really love this first part of the trail.


After we let Sprocket play in the creek for a little bit, we started the climb out of the valley onto a large flat between the North Fork of Mill Creek and the main fork. We tried to head out the Ken’s Lake exit however there was an eight foot drop that needed to be negotiated and we decided not to attempt it. On our way out, we did the northwestern loop of the trail which afforded us some distant views of Arches National Park.


We made our way back out the trail, stopping again to let Sprocket play in the creek. Back at Danette’s we decided to get some takeout sushi (for Danette, Robin and I) and Chinese food (for F and Kirk). Robin and I did some college browsing and we all relaxed on the deck as the sun sank behind the La Sals.
This is the coolest.
It was SUCH a good day. So much fun to have a relaxing day with Forrest and Sprocket before things got busy.
To be perfectly honest, that photo of the Jeep terrifies me. The rest all seems very fun though 🙂
It isn’t actually *scary* in a “someone might get hurt way” but in a “oh shit oh shit, I’m spotting and we DO NOT want body damage” sort of way. AKA I was terrified, Forrest was happy.