Moab Brewery | World Famous Woody's

Sunday - 16 June 2002: Moab, Utah - Well, folks, I finally did get my day of rest, but we were so busy doing nothing, that I didn't sit down to needlepoint until 4 pm. To qualify - I didn't get out of bed until 9 am. DT went for a long - 8 mile - run around the bike paths in Moab. It was over 100 degrees here again. Goldie needed a serious cleaning. We dusted, vacuumed, mopped, washed the sheets, and generally scrubbed her down. Dust is a constant here in the desert. After the cleaning, we went out to see the famed "Slick Rock Trail" - a rite of passage trail for mountain bikers around the world. It was so hot, only a few fools were out on the trail. Only two campsites were full - they offer dry-camping sites in the dirt at the trail-head - it was just too hot to be in the desert. The parts of the trail we could see from the road was simply terrifying! Nearly straight down! It looked terribly dangerous to me, but what do I know?!

It was an interesting route through Moab to Slick Rock - we were able to see a lot of the town and where the "real people" live. The streets are wide, as in Salt Lake City, and are also labeled with the same confusing street numbering system they use in Salt Lake City. We saw several homes without siding of any type - just plywood walls. Houses here do not have air conditioners - only swamp coolers. We stopped off at the local market to purchase the famed pinto beans and then came back to our extremely clean motor home to watch Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open.

The campground was nearly empty all day - we assumed people had gone home after the weekend.  But by the end of the afternoon, it was full again with new campers. There are a lot of rental RVs here, filled with Germans. Germans, Germans, everywhere; looking to line-dance. It is Sunday, so we went in search of pizza.

There is another brew pub in town, Eddie McStiff’s that advertises one of the best 100 pizza's in America, so we decided to try their pie. We entered the restaurant and asked for a table for two. We were seated in the bar area, but not at the bar. DT ordered one of their own brews. They didn't offer a beer you could see-through, so I opted for water. Later, we saw they offered mixed drinks. (In Utah, they do not offer you a mixed drink, you have to search it out.) So, I ordered a gin & tonic. (T & T, with lemon, of course.) We looked around, spotted a pizza and decided this would not be a pizza we would care to try. One drink, and we would be outta-here. Wrong. The waitress came by and asked if we were ready to order, and we said, no - we are just here for a drink. Wrong. You cannot have a mixed drink without ordering food. She told us, "The cheapest thing on the menu is chips and salsa for 99-cents". We ordered the Buffalo wings. Honestly, they were very good, but we wanted to get out of there. We wanted pizza.

Which is how we ended-up at Zax. They advertised wood-fired pizzas and a ton of beers on tap. This Utah booze stuff is so confusing. The ton of beers on tap were only available in the bar. We wanted pizza, so had to sit in the restaurant. (For my Oregonian readers, I can tell you Zax is like Izzy's - if Izzy's had a vacuum-cleaner.) You could order pizza and salad, or you could have all-you-can-eat pizza and salad bar for $7.99. There were a lot of hungry mountain bikers in the restaurant - imagine how much food they could consume after a day on the trails - for only $7.99!!! I ordered a dinner salad and DT ordered a Caesar salad and we ordered a Pizza Margherita. My dinner salad was a pass through the salad bar (a very nice salad bar) and DT's salad was enough for a family of four. The bad thing is that our pizza was horrible. It was tasteless and I could not figure out why, until I realized they didn't put salt in their dough. It was like eating mozzarella melted on a matzo. Ugh. There is nothing worse than bad pizza.

Or so I thought.

Which is how we ended-up at scene three: There is a tavern down the street called World Famous Woody's - so we had to go. Our friend, Woody, would be ashamed of us if we didn't visit this fine drinking establishment - and bring him a t-shirt. There was a banner across the doorway of World Famous Woody's (221 S. Main) reading "Welcome Harley Hogs". We walked in, sucking our last breath of fresh air, and sat ourselves down on padded saw horses and ordered a draft. Not so quick, pawdner. World Famous Woody's is a private club. A private drinking club. We had to sign-in as guests of Rob, who was seated at the end of the bar. We wrote our names on the list, bought Rob a shot of Jack Daniels and had a beer. It was a cultural experience. DT said the water faucet in the gent's is operated with a piece of wire. The bartender kept all the money in an antique bed-pan behind the bar. There was a table in the corner having a serious political debate about the situation in Washington, D.C. The drunkest man at the table had an answer for every question (it started with an "F") and he yelled it at the top of his (smoke-filled) lungs during the heated debate and though they urged us into the conversation, I decided the fact we can use more than one adjective disqualified us from the table... and World Famous Woody's. We didn't buy our friend a t-shirt.

Go where you know. Which is how our walking pub-crawl of Moab ended up across the street from our campground - at the Moab Brewery. Our bartender tonight, Scott, graduated from DePauw University... and they all have the same story - they came here for a vacation/reward for graduating university and never left.

Tomorrow we have booked an organized tour through Canyonlands National Park - 4x4 (Chevy Suburban) and a Jet Boat. If you do not hear from us in a few days, call the National Guard.

RV Park: Canyonlands Campground