Today is Wednesday, Sept. 30th. I’m writing this from Ft Stockton. We stayed in a nice Walmart overnight and will be in San Antonio this evening. Expect to be back home tomorrow, Oct 1. I knew when I saw the bumper sticker on a pickup truck that said, “This driver only carries 45 caliber ammo” that I was back in Texas!
It’s been two weeks since we arrived in Utah, visiting some state and national parks.
We’ve visited Bryce and Zion Nat. Parks a couple of times in the past and have always enjoyed them. We wanted to go back to Bryce and Zion but also visit a couple of new parks as well.
From Colorado we headed for Moab to visit Arches and Canyonlands.
Wow, I think Canyonlands is as big a canyon as the Grand Canyon.. Huge!
Here I am jumping a massive and highly dangerous fissure at the edge of this sandstone cliff! Unfortunately, the photographer only caught the amazing landing…
And, of course, Arches is just very cool (except that it was very hot).
At this point in our travels we’re still kind of pooped out from the Rocky Mountain hike. It was also hot in Moab and we didn’t have a place to dump the dog so we only did auto-sightseeing. But we still got to see some cool stuff. Did a little Jeep, off-roading (that was just bumpy). And we have a better idea of what to expect and what to do when we come back.
Our last night in Moab we didn’t have an RV reservation. We checked Arches for a campsite, but they were packed so we decided to try the local National Forest campsites. They’re usually first come first served and self check-in. We tried a couple of camps along the Colorado River and found this one in the Big Bend campground. We got a great spot right on the river hidden in the trees. Built a campfire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows! Went to sleep with the gentle sound of river water rushing over rocks just outside our bedroom window…. ahh…
We also took this time to make plans for Zion, Bryce and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I.e. find RV parks with vacancies! We were expecting crowds to thin out after August when all the kiddos went back to school, but we still haven’t seen a shortage of tourists (lousy tourists).
We’ve met a lot of interesting folks from around the world and Germans seem to be among the top visitors to our national parks. The ones we have met have all rented RV’s from either Frisco or L.A. One German couple told us the RV was quite challenging because all they’ve ever known were little Volkswagens in Hamburg (It wasn’t even a very big RV they had) ! 🙂
On the way to Zion & Bryce we stopped at Gobblin State Park and Capitol Reef Nat. Park. The Gobblins were awesome. We only spent a couple of hours in this park, but could have spent a couple of days. There are a lot of desert trails and mountain bike trails and just running around through the gobblins was more fun than a corn maze!
This was the week of all the heavy rains in Utah which saw flash flooding and some deaths from the flooding. Therefore, some of the parks trails were not recommended due to the possibility of flash flooding the day we were there.
Later, in Zion we learned that 7 hikers were killed in a flash flood in their park. Apparently hiking through a slot canyon and no way to get out. The park is now re-examining their back-country permitting process…
You should visit Gobblin State Park if you’re in the area. You can even take your dog out to the gobblins with you!
Can you see me out there on the Gobblins?
Here’s a closer view.
It was shortly after this shot that Tina informs me she read a sign saying you’re not supposed to climb on the gobblins…. Thanks for letting me know… too late…
After Gobblins we popped by Capitol Reef where we drove the RV down a road that the park ranger said would be OK for our RV, but wasn’t. Too many steep dips in the very narrow, two lane road. Many tail dragging incidents… no bueno! Good thing I’ve installed the heavy duty skid wheels after destroying two other, smaller sets of wheels.
It was a beautiful place. Tina needed to get out and run 8 miles so I dropped her off out towards the end of the road and left her there while me and Zoe drove back to the visitors center and waited. Zoe and I walked aroung the little park area and Zoe was very interested in the deer that were grazing nearby in the grass. They seemed interested in her too.
Tina finally showed up so we hopped in the RV and headed out.
Now it’s on to Bryce and Zion…