We don’t usually make reservations in advance, but after stopping on a whim at Goblin Valley State Park on Halloween a year ago, we suspected that if we ever wanted to stay at this small and quirky campground, we’d better plan ahead and book some dates (October 25 – 27, 2016). A year ago, there […]
After departing the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park on Monday, October 17, we restocked and cleaned up in Blanding. The Edge of Cedars State Park Museum is located there, which has an extraordinary collection of ancestral puebloan pottery and artifacts as well as a restored mesa-top ruin with a kiva that’s accessible to visitors. […]
The next stop on our six week Fall escapade was the Needles District, one of four distinct areas within the Canyonlands National Park, in Utah’s southeast corner and the furthest from Moab. It’s known by its iconic, white-topped red spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone. When we visited Needles a year ago, we hiked all of […]
After spending almost a week Canyonlands, it was time to restock, clean up and fill up our water jugs in Moab. We returned to Ken’s Lake Campground south of town. David also needed to get some work done so we spent Monday, October 10 in Moab’s wonderful library. On Tuesday, we were ready for a […]
It took us three long days to drive from Glacier National Park just shy of the Canadian border in Montana, to southeastern Utah. We spent a night along the west side of Flathead Lake south of Kalispell, then just outside Missoula, and finally in Idaho Falls before the final push to our favorite Utah headquarters, […]
The following are just a few highlights of where we went and what we did during our sojourn around the southwest in February and March 2016. We put 6200 miles on the Ford Transit, filled up with gas 22 times and stayed in 30 different camp sites over the course of eight weeks. Joshua Tree […]
We thought we’d share some of our favorite camping locations from our Southwest trip in February/March 2016. We didn’t get reservations for any of these places ahead of time. The trick is to show up early enough in the day (before noon is best). And, having a manageable length vehicle (22 foot Ford Transit van) […]
We took a different route north to Moab on this trip, and decided to take a detour to Hovenweep National Monument which straddles the Utah and Colorado state line. Since the Visitor Center and campground is about 30 miles east of the main road, few people take the time to explore this area. Once home […]
Be sure to check out the most recent update of our van conversion: Transit Enhancements We promised a full report from our original post about the 2015 Ford Transit cargo van conversion upon returning from our five-week, 3000 mile trip to the southwest this fall. We didn’t make it as far as we intended (Tucson, […]
We spent an expeditious Tuesday night at a very generic RV park in Page, Arizona. Our primary mission was a hot shower, and after five days there was no putting it off any longer. Trust me. Having accomplished that, we ate a decent pizza and salad at the Canyon King Pizzeria. The next morning we […]
After leaving Natural Bridges National Monument, we’d planned to camp overnight at Goosenecks State Park. But with 35 mile an hour winds making it challenging to stand upright, we didn’t stay long. Just after the Goosenecks, we found ourselves hurtling down the graded dirt switchbacks of the Moki Dugway, considered one of the world’s most […]
We arrived at Natural Bridges National Monument by mid-afternoon on Sunday and checked in at the Visitor’s Center to flash our colorful America The Beautiful Pass at the peculiar rangers on duty. (We’ve noticed that each set of rangers is unique to each national park, and Natural Bridges did not disappoint). We were interested in […]
On Sunday, we finally managed to extract ourselves from Moab’s magnetic pull so we could continue to explore southern Utah before returning to Oregon in time to take care of little Margot on November 12. We drove south again on UT191 then turned off into another of the three Canyonland National Park zones. With the […]
We signed up for the last ranger-led hike of the season in Fiery Furnace, one of the permit-only areas inside Arches National Park. This complex sandstone labyrinth is unmarked and can be difficult to navigate both logistically (GPS signals do not work in there) and physically. Many National Park rangers are furloughed for the winter […]
We decided to check out the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park for a few days, a two hour drive down UT 191. The drive to the Needles is round-about, heading south then veering sharply north through a long steep walled red rock canyon. We pulled over at Newspaper Rock to see the many centuries […]
Devil’s Garden Trail is the longest of the maintained trails in the Arches National Park. It leads to seven impressive arches, with several more visible from the trail. We chose a day with perfect hiking weather— 55 degrees at the start, warming up to 65 by the time we were finished. The initial mile to […]
We packed up early Sunday morning intending to check out some other potential camping and hiking destinations on the west and southeast sides of Moab. But first, we stopped for another cuppa Joe and a pastry at the Eclectic Cafe. Sufficiently fueled for the morning, we drove up Sand Flats Road which switchbacked up to […]
We spent a second night at Granstaff Campground, only three miles from Moab along Utah 128. In the morning we were delayed a bit while we watched fellow campers take off, fly around, and land their powered parachutes from the parking lot a few hundred feet away. They swirled and curled high above the Colorado […]
After an all-to-brief exploration of Arches National Park on Thursday (see previous post), we spent our third and likely final night up at Fisher Towers Campground, savoring our amazing spot. A deluge had just come through the canyon prior to our 7:30 pm arrival in the pitch dark. David drove gingerly through the water and […]
We spent three days in Arches National Park. This post is about our first visit, a very brief three hours late in the afternoon, with a storm approaching fast from the east. Read more about our forays into Arches in our Devil’s Garden post the following Tuesday, and then Fiery Furnace on Friday, October 30. […]
Monday was spent as a “going to town day”. We took $4 showers at the beautiful new Moab Aquatic & Recreation Center, then spent a few hours at one of the nicest libraries we’ve ever been in. It was also new and very much set up for out of town visitors who may be in […]
It rained a lot last night while we were camped in the Green River State Park, which introduced some welcome humidity into the air. We departed around 10 for Dead Horse Point State Park about 50 miles away to the southeast. It’s on another glorious road, this time FR313 deep into the top of a […]
Friday started off well enough. After departing Bryce and stocking up in Tropic, we drove a few hours north and boondocked just off the 9111 ft summit of Boulder Mountain at milepost 110 (elevation 85o0 ft). We were concerned about the weather report and didn’t want to get stuck in the snow if the temperature […]
When our Tucson friends Lisa and Dan said they were planning a camping trip to Bryce Canyon in October, we invited ourselves along. I’d been to Bryce for two brief hours exactly 14 years ago when my siblings took our dad to Zion National Park to commemorate his seventieth birthday. This time, we had six […]