MO-AB!

We hit Moab this weekend with Josh. And it was de-light-ful!
Before we rolled into town, we hit the Moab Brand trails and did THE BEST LOOP. I think I may have said this before, but we improved upon it. We parked at the Chuck Wagon parking lot and started with Lazy. Jumped across to Deadman's Ridge and Bar B like we normally do, but then took Long Branch back to Deadman's and headed back the way we came. Hit EZ. Took the East side of the North 40 then headed out to Sovereign. We did Sovereign just as we normally due. Josh sat out as Chris and I did a climb that we take out and back. The trail was soft and loose. Josh laughed as we had to walk some switchback sections. We met back up and continued on. I had tire issues!? That was crazy. So I had to throw a tube in my back tire. We reached the turn around point and headed back again. We started to run out of water by the time we returned to the Sovereign parking lot. We bummed water off a very nice local. (Bless him.) Headed back to the do the West side of the North 40. This is where Josh started to feel the almost two week rest he was recently forced to take due to knee issues. He had laughed at me though so I pushed the pace a bit. We made it back to the car putting in 4.5 hours of ride time.
Hitting the City Market we picked up some food for dinner and headed out to find a campsite. We scored a spot in Cluster A of Slick Rock. We hung out for a bit, snacking. Chris and I then headed back to town and rode Pipe Dream. We were so dead but it was still fun.
Dinner and camping were awesome. The night was perfect. It cooled off just enough. I have felt like I  might be fighting a cold, so I took some night time cold meds and slept so well.
We planned on riding Amasa Back and maybe Pipe Dreams on Day 2. Josh wanted to do Porcupine Rim. He had also wanted to ride Rockin' A and Circle O the day before, but we continuously vetoed it. We are not fans of the A and O,  but we gave in to Porcupine. Since we were camped there we started from Slick Rock parking lot. That was nice to split up the climb. My legs were felt tired, but I really don't know how I felt because my heart rate monitor did not work. I am so reliant on it that I have no idea how good I might be feeling without it. The climb felt tough, but I was able to find a good flow on the downhill. I took it cautiously since I had a tube in my rear tire. We rode the loop in just under 3 hours pedal time, so that was pretty good.
There was discussions of riding more, but we were all pretty spent. We got some food and rolled out of town having eight hours of pedaling in the legs.