Brothers in Moab

Every two years Jake likes to get together with his two brothers in Colorado for a few days of brotherly bonding, food and golf. This year’s outing was in Moab, Utah.

Day 1 – Thursday, October 23, 2008. We three leave our home town of Boulder, Colorado, at about 9 AM, and head out through Golden till we start due west on I-70. At about 2 PM we pull into Vail. Driving through this American Xanadu we talk of old time Vail and how it must have looked when family friend George Williams started Vail’s first bank, back in the day, before George (and his brother) could donate acreage to CU, back before Vail was, well, Vail. Putting off lunch for a bit we take a short driving tour of some of the millionaire’s (billionaire’s?) homes on Forest Road, several of which have had the pleasure of having their insides and/or outsides painted by either of the two younger brothers’ painting companies. All the “houses” here are built on, or rather, into the side of the mountain, and one “house” actually has a gondola that runs up the precipitous slope on a private cable. Thus the millionaire can ride up in the gondola to get from his roadside garage(s) to his Rocky Mountain aerie without having to take those pesky stairs – spiraled in gold (only kidding!, sorta) though they may be. Lunch is in West Vail, which actually has food we can afford, and we have a nice repast of sandwiches, salads and Coors at the Westside Café.

Shortly after crossing into Utah we get off I-70 and onto Route 128 towards Moab. Middle Brother has been here before, but even he is in awe of the scene. He drives while Older Brother and Younger Brother ohh and ahh out the windows, and get down right trippy (like back in the day) as they look up through the moon roof at the always red and often looming rock over head. As we seemingly float down stream on this two lane, black top wonder of a road, the Colorado River flows placidly at our side, pretending it had nothing to do with the millions of years it took to create what we now enjoy in our blink of a lifetime on this planet.

We get into Moab in time to get into our rented 3 BR condo south of town – which actually lives up to its Internet photos – settle in and get ready for dinner. Research by Older Brother has proven that perhaps the best place in town for dinner, certainly the most expensive, is Desert Bistro, so we get back on Highway 191 (aka, Main Street in town) and head north. Our dinner proves to be more interesting than good – the menu includes a lot of game, including Antelope; the setting and décor is quite nice; the service is attentive and knowledgeable; the drinks and wine are varied and stout -- but overall the dinner seemed a bit of a disappointment. But us Brothers Three, having lived in the culinary rich environs of Boulder and NYC, have a bar that is sometimes too high. Still, we enjoyed the evening out, and back at the ranch we drifted off to sleep with full stomachs and no regrets. (Better research by Older Brother might have pointed us instead to the Center Café, which though we never visited, looks quite nice in retrospect.)

Day 2 – Friday, October 24, 2008. Breakfast at the Jailhouse Café. They do only breakfast and they do it well. We had to wait a bit in the cool morning’s autumnal air to get into the not-large cafe, but it was worth it. There was a nice mix of locals and the expected bicycle/motorcycle tourists. Having filled up and eggs and waffles and bacon and fruit and coffee we headed off for Arches National Park. People travel from all over the world to see this worldly wonder, and ten minutes into the park we knew why. Choose your adjectives – wondrous, spectacular, inspiring – there is little to say that has not been said before or is said better by a few pictures, amateurish they may be. We hoped to be able to see something of the recently collapsed arch in Devil’s Garden, but we got so entranced by Park Avenue Viewpoint (“Better than that other Park Avenue! Next time we take that trail down there.”), Courthouse Towers (“Man, oh man!), the Tower of Babel (“Have we said wow! before?”), the Petrified Dunes (“Very cool counterpoint to all that tall stuff.”), Balanced Rock (“Up close is the place to be!”), Wolfe Ranch (“What, was this guy nuts?”) and Delicate Arch Viewpoint (“Vista of the double wow!”), that we never got to see any crumblings. For we are in Moab for more than just to see some of the most stunning geology in the world. We are here to enjoy one of God’s other great gifts to mankind: golf.

We figured we had just enough time for lunch back in town before our tee time. The Love Muffin Café had been locally recommended and provided us with very good sandwiches, salads and soup. And there was a good vibe to the place as well. (We swear, on a stack of Urban Dictionaries, that we were unaware -- middle aged fogies that we are -- of the street-wise slang.)

Moab Golf Club is just south of town and seemingly pushed up against the red rock formations of Moab’s Spanish Valley. We play, as we usually do on these excursions, a Brother Scramble: we each hit and take the best shot, then each hit again from there. We aim to score at about 6-8 over par for 18 holes, and thanks to the golfing skills of Younger Brother we can usually do so.

The setting for Moab Golf Club was fabulous and the course itself, while short (6,108 yards from the Everyman Tees that we played), was in fine shape. This course has a nice combination of challenge (some pretty tight holes) and fun (pars are possible for the Everyman Golfer who would love to shoot in the low 90’s once in a while). Perhaps more importantly, there is not a “cart cartel” here -- walking is always available. And to do anything but walk this desert 18-hole beauty is foolish indeed.

We went with another local recommendation for dinner and headed for Buck’s Grill House, north of town on Highway 191 for an après golf dinner. Without reservations on this Friday night we had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated. Once seated, our experience here with the food was spotty; ‘nuff said. But the beer was good and cold.

Day 3 – Saturday, October 25, 2008. Breakfast again at the Jailhouse. The trip’s itinerary calls for a final round of golf at the Hideout Golf Course down the road (Highway 191, of course) in Monticello before heading home. But over Eggs Benedict Florentine, etc, we decide that going that far south, only to come north again on

the way home, will make for a very long trip back to Boulder. We decide to find a course on the way home, perhaps around Grand Junction, CO. Middle Brother’s GPS does a fine job of finding us some possible courses, and though we would love to play Redlands Mesa, we opt for the lower key (and lower budget!) of 9 holes at Adobe Creek National just outside Grand Junction in Fruita, CO. Wondering how easily we can walk on without a tee time, on a Saturday, at about 11 AM, with the weather being perfect (about 60 degrees and sunny – which was pretty much our weather throughout), we were happily surprised to go out right away. Some twenty bucks (each; it’s not that lower budget) later we were teeing off with no one in front of us on the Mesa Nine. (Adobe Creek has three 9-hole layouts.) Sometimes life just works. And the course just worked too. Along side one of the massive mesas that dominate the topology of Grand Junction, we enjoyed the distant views and a relaxing round of western Colorado golf.

After golf, Middle Brother’s GPS was less successful in finding us a good and close Mexican restaurant, and after several U-turns, much laughter and loving brotherly comments we headed in hunger-fed desperation for the nearest mall, where surely there would be a place to eat. In theory, Famous Dave’s BBQ is such a place…. Well, at least the wall by the restrooms had a cool display of license plates from around America, including Hawaii. And the beer was good and cold.

Using the GPS to exit the mall (no kidding; this part of the western slope is certainly not what it used to be when mom and dad would take us out this way) we shoot towards home on I-70. For old times sake we forsake the Eisenhower Tunnel and do Loveland Pass instead. We arrive in Boulder in time for dinner. The beer was good and cold.