Issues, issues, issues. We all knew they were coming

We are here! Pretty amazing. A bit chilly. We've only had three issues so far and they were all mine. First issue was yesterday when the special Georgia peanut butter I'd packed for a gift for the ride director (in my carry-on suitcase) got confiscated by TSA at the Atlanta airport. I forgot that we'd be doing carry-on. So, that was sad. 

Second issue was queued up for this morning when we were putting my bike back  together. My bike is a regular road bike but it has a small battery (tucked into the seat post) that allows the shifting to be done electronically. We'd had to remove the seat for transport and Fred didn't really understand how the whole thing connected but he thought he had put it back together perfectly. And, as an engineer  I know he is really good at that kind of thing so I had no worries. Everything looked okay, seemed okay, but when I tried to charge the shifter battery, which I've done many times before, it was quite dead. No green light, no red blinking light, no nothing. I doubled checked all cords and connections. Hmmmm. I felt sort of panicked. My charger has suddenly quit working? I won't be able to change gears on my bike. At all? I quickly called two bike stores which reported that they didn't have the charger I needed. My third call, to Poison Spider Mountain Bikes, went better and they said "come down!" We loaded up the bike and cable and went in. After a bit of chit-chat (between Fred and Sherrill, I tend to go pretty quiet when I'm dialed up to the uptight and agitated range), they figured out that Fred had not clicked the battery cord in quite all the way. Sherrill fished the cord out, Fred clicked it fully in place, CLICK, and my shifter started charging! Relief, sweet relief. I was quite happy to see that little light blinking.

After that, I was quite chatty and felt like shopping. What a cute store, I now noticed. Sherrill didn't charge us anything for his advice, but we made a few purchases anyway to show our appreciation and to underscore our (now) good moods. Finally, we said goodbye and rolled my bike back to the car. There, I began patting my pockets. Hmmmm. Wait. Wait a minute. I've lost something.

Issue number three. My glasses are missing. I'll speed it up now and spare you the details but really, I do want to send a shout-out to Sherrill because, bless him, he found my glasses for me. Together, we searched what felt like the whole store, retracing steps, looking in a bin of water bottles, etc. But he found them, and I got out of there pronto and began to calm down and get it together. Whew. On the bright side, Sherrill is my new BFF in Moab.

It is our first visit to Moab, and Arches NP and we are already big fans of both places. We've been out to the park twice in less than a 24-hour period. Last night we drove through the whole park at sunset, and just took a small hike over to see Delicate Arch. Today we drove all the way to the far end of the park and hiked six miles and saw famous Landscape Arch, Double O, and four or five others. It was brisk out there, very windy most of the time. We are hoping for a warm up before the weekend, but I'm not sure if that is in store. 

See this serpentine road. We will be biking up that baby on Monday morning as we make our way into Arches NP.