The Back Road to Moab: The Time We Accidentally Found Westwater Canyon

August 11, 2026

Some of the best places I've ever found were places I wasn't actually looking for.

In the summer of 2017, I took my kids on a road trip through Colorado and Utah. We'd spent the day around Glenwood Springs, where I had lived years earlier, driving up the mountain I used to live on and going back through Glenwood Canyon.

We played in the Colorado River. The kids hauled back what felt like half the riverbed in a backpack full of rocks. You know, normal road trip behavior.

Eventually, we pointed the car west toward Utah.

I had read somewhere online that there was a back way into Moab that only added about 15 minutes to the drive.

That sounded reasonable.

It was not 15 minutes.

And I am very glad it wasn't.

The Part Where Everyone Thought I Had Made a Terrible Decision

At first, the road took us through BLM land.

And there was...nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Flat, barren land stretched out around us, and Riley was already complaining about my supposedly scenic alternate route.

I was beginning to question my own research skills.

Then, almost out of nowhere, the landscape changed.

We dropped into this enormous red-rock canyon landscape with the Colorado River winding through it. Cliffs rose around us, mountains appeared in the distance, and suddenly the "lame" back road wasn't lame anymore.

It was spectacular.

What was supposed to add about 15 minutes to our drive turned into nearly two hours because we kept stopping.

We had to.

There was always another view around the next bend.

The Colorado River followed us through the canyon, surrounded by red cliffs, desert vegetation and these massive open views that made everything else feel very far away.

And that's one of the things I remember most about that trip.

I hadn't planned Westwater Canyon.

I hadn't spent weeks researching it or built an itinerary around it. I had basically found a suggestion online that said, Hey, take this road instead.

So I did.

And almost nine years later, it's one of the parts of that road trip I still remember best.

Sometimes Take the Longer Road

Looking back, there's something very Meraki about that day.

We spend so much of our lives trying to get somewhere.

We take the fastest route. We follow the GPS. We calculate arrival times. We worry about how many miles are left and whether we're making good time.

But sometimes the extra 15 minutes turns into two hours.

Sometimes your kid complains that you've driven everyone into the middle of absolutely nowhere.

And sometimes, right after that, the road drops into a canyon you didn't know existed.

That's the stuff I remember.

Not whether we arrived in Moab on time.

I remember the river.

I remember the red cliffs.

I remember stopping over and over because we couldn't just drive past another view.

I remember a backpack full of rocks.

And I remember finding something beautiful because, for once, we didn't take the fastest way there.

Take the back road once in a while.

You never know what might be waiting around the next bend.

Inspired by the Road

This trip eventually became more than a memory buried in an old photo album.

Nearly nine years later, one of those photos from Westwater Canyon became the inspiration for the Take the Back Road candle, featuring a sketched version of the canyon landscape on an amber glass jar.

Because sometimes the longer road really is the one worth remembering.

Shop the Take the Back Road Candle →

For the life you'd rather be living.