Author: Paul

Tripometer – 11912 mi

Gas Gauge –  908.875 gal

Location – Days Inn, Camp Verde, AZ

Lodging – $100

Cans of OFF – 4

Looking forward to warming ourselves even further, we headed South today into Sedona, AZ. We were told by several people that the Sedona area was beautiful with a ton of things to do. Our plan is to stay at one of a variety of campgrounds located in and around Sedona.

The trip to Sedona from Page was largely on smaller back roads rather than the interstate. The roads were horrible. We have a sway reduction device on our hitch that helps reduce the amount of movement between the truck and trailer but this road was testing Kelly’s patience as she drove. The road had repeating series’ of dips that caused the trailer rig to flex up and down at the connection point between the truck and trailer. This can be especially dangerous at speed because this movement can cause the front wheels to loose traction with the road and send the rig out of control. Needless to say, today’s trip took considerably longer than the Google estimate of 2.5 hours.

The drive to Sedona today took us through the mountains around Flagstaff. Leaving 60 degree temperatures in Page and not expecting significant deviation from the norm, both of us dressed in shorts for the day. At 2:30 in the afternoon when stopping for gas near Flagstaff we noted the temperature was a balmy 41 degrees and all of the surrounding mountain tops had a dusting of snow. Driving through the mountains was predictably slow with the trailer.

When passing through the canyon just North of Sedona we were expecting to look down on the town itself. What we found instead was a beautiful drive down a canyon forested with tall pines and bordered by tremendous red canyon walls the entire way. We were especially thrilled when instead of coming slowly into town we turned a corner in the canyon around a large outcropping of rock and were thrust into the heart of Sedona without any warning. Restaurants and shopping plazas as far as the eye can see when 100 feet ago there was nothing but natural beauty.

The first few campgrounds we were targeting for the evening were North of Sedona in the canyon. Even though the cellular coverage map that we’ve been using indicated that these campgrounds would have cell signal, they did not. We passed up all three of the campgrounds that we had researched with no luck. Our backup plan was Rancho Sedona RV Park within the city limits of Sedona. Sadly, by the time we arrived they had no space available through the weekend. Frustrated, we sat in the parking lot of the RV Park and made reservations at a Days Inn in Camp Verde for the evening, about 20 miles south of Sedona. All of the hotels in Sedona proper were tremendously expensive and most did not accept pets. At least the hotel offers in-room showers and a wi-fi connection!

Sedona is beautiful! The city is surrounded on all sides by tremendous red canyons and mesas in such variety that makes your head spin. Each mesa and rock formation has a name and all have trails leading up to and around them. We’re really looking forward to further exploring the area.

On the way to the hotel we checked out the cellular connection at a little RV park located directly off of the interstate at Cliff Castle Casino. The signal was strong with good data speeds but the trailer park sites looked awfully close together and the RV park was still 30 minutes from Sedona. We had left our business card with the folks at Rancho Sedona in the hopes that a site would open there tomorrow, allowing us to stay in the city of Sedona within walking distance of most of the things we’d like to see and do. Our plan is to check in with them tomorrow.

Tripometer –11,713 mi

Gas Gauge –  890.799 gal

Location –Page Lake Powell Campground, Page, AZ

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

100 days on the road!

Waking this morning to temperatures in the 40s, we quickly noticed that both of Ranger’s bones that were left outside last night are now missing! We did hear coyotes on the hill behind the RV park last night but didn’t think anything of it (we hear them almost nightly). We’re guessing that one of those guys came into our RV park last night and liberated Ranger’s chew things for their own enjoyment. We’re going to have to find some replacements soon. We’re not sure how Ranger is going to manage his life without his rawhide chew toy and his marrow bone (or how we are going to manage our lives without him being somewhat distracted by them).

We went for breakfast this morning at a local diner. The sign above was posted out front as a lunch special. Neither of us can ever remember feeling so far from Philadelphia and so far from a proper cheese steak sub. That sandwich is a disgrace to someone who lives near Philly. We joked it was a “stake” through our hearts, given the spelling faux paux. Shame!

While Kelly worked today, Paul took Ranger on a hike up the canyon above the RV park. He captured the picture above at the top of the hill to the East. We have noticed that every RV park tends to look like an oasis compared to the land around it with only a few planted trees here and there.

Having spent the last few days working on the trailer and reading his book rather than working on photos and the blog, Paul spent much of Kelly’s work day sorting pictures from all 4 phones from the past couple of weeks. He’s been walking around muttering to himself about how far behind he is on the blog. I guess stress is relative, when one doesn’t have a significant source of stress in daily life the mind comes up with things to be stressed about. Today: Paul has a pressing first-world problem with the blog.

We revisited the BBQ restaurant from earlier this week again tonight, making sure to have leftovers for a couple of sandwiches over the next week or so. So Good!

Special Note: There’s a certain smell to an RV park. Whenever you have 50 to 100 open sewer lines dispersed evenly around a parking lot there can be a lingering odor. This RV park has more than a few uncapped sewage lines and the wafting odor is enough to knock you out if the wind catches it just right. Not pleasant.

Tripometer – 11,698 mi

Gas Gauge –  890.799 gal

Location –Page Lake Powell Campground, Page, AZ

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

The early portion of Paul’s day today was spent spit polishing the trailer and packing up for the move to Page Lake Powell Campground down the road. Ranger is suitably depressed for most of the day as two of his humans wandered away yesterday and haven’t yet returned.

Kelly dropped Dave off at the airport early this morning and started the 4+ hour trip back from Las Vegas. The wind was blowing through the canyons at over 30 miles per hour – good thing she didn’t have the trailer or she would have had to stay put in Vegas. We both think that Vegas is the quintessential, “I wouldn’t want to live there” place. After about 24-48 hours we are both done with the constant hustle, noise, and lifestyle in general.

On the way back Kelly had to stop for another bag of Ranger’s dog food. Ranger is picky, so picky in fact we’ve gone through bags and bags of brands and flavors he wouldn’t eat. As of this moment, there are 3 types of kibble we know he’ll eat – not one of which comes from a chain/grocery store or costs less than a steak dinner for 2 with drinks! Finding stores that carry his epicurean delights has not been easy. The nearest one to Lake Powell is over 100 miles away!

Both of us have an AT&T cellular plan. We have struggled for much of this trip with matching nice camp locations with acceptable cellular signal so Kelly can work during the week. Looking at AT&T cellular coverage maps for Arizona there is a significant lack of AT&T coverage in the northern part of the state. We drove by this RV park two days ago to confirm the high strength signal. Arriving at Page Lake Powell Campground this evening we were discouraged by the data transfer speeds we were experiencing over this tremendously strong cellular signal. Sitting in the RV park this evening, both of our phones are registering 4 bars of LTE but the signal is despicably slow. We learned from one of our neighbors at the RV park that this area of Arizona (much of the state) was, at one point in time several years ago, the only area of the country with its own cellular company with their own proprietary cellular towers. This little cell company was bought out by Verizon and the towers are now leased to AT&T through some kind of agreement. It is readily obvious to us that we are not getting full throughput on these cell towers with the Cadillac of AT&T cell phone plans. This seems criminal. The cell signal is enough for Kelly to do most of her work but it takes longer to transfer data than normal. We’re booked into this RV park for two nights. We’ll have to make due with this signal until then. We are also going to look into a Verizon cellular hot spot so that we can access two different cell networks making this game of ‘find the signal’ a bit easier.

Always looking for new dining experiences, for dinner this evening we had fried chicken at an independent fast food joint in town called the Birdhouse. We were richly rewarded for our experimentation. Both of us are fans of good fried chicken and are no strangers to our hometown favorite Royal Farms chicken. This chicken was far better. With dinner we ordered a side of seasoned fries to go with our meal. Imagine our surprise when the seasoned fries so highly praised on their Google reviews were spiced with Old Bay. Maryland is slowly taking over the taste buds of the rest of the world!

Tripometer – 11,447 mi

Gas Gauge –  876.538 gal

Location –Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ / Linq Casino, Las Vegas, NV

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

Dave’s flight back to Baltimore leaves at OMG:30 in the morning tomorrow, necessitating an overnight stay in Las Vegas because no one, Dave included, wants to wake up 5 hours before OMG:30 and drive back into Las Vegas. Hauling the trailer back into Las Vegas at this point doesn’t make good sense from a gas or time standpoint and we can’t all go back into Las Vegas and leave the car because dogs aren’t welcome in most hotels. Someone has to stay with the dog in camp. Kelly volunteered to drive Dave into Las Vegas, spend the night and drive back to the trailer after dropping him at the airport in the morning, leaving Paul to a quiet day of chores and book reading in camp (for which he is thankful).

Paul’s Day

Aside from Laundry, a bit of reorganization in the trailer, and dog walking, ‘the day without a car’ was spent listening to his audio book looking out at the shores of Lake Powell. The goal of the chores was to reset the trailer to a freshly packed and clean state after being destroyed for a week by three inhabitants and one hell of a muddy campsite. Kelly is planning on getting back to the trailer no later than 4pm tomorrow which is the deadline before we get charged for an additional night. We have made reservations at a local RV park, some 15 minutes away, with much better cellular signal for Kelly’s first day back to work on Tuesday.

Kelly’s Day

Kelly and Dave left at about 11am and headed toward Vegas. The drive was rather uneventful until they got to the mountains overlooking the city and saw that it was almost completely obscured in dust due to the prevailing winds!

  

They checked into the Linq casino and secured reservations for the Linq’s High Roller, a new tourist attraction that Dave really wanted to experience before leaving Las Vegas. The High Roller is like an extremely large Ferris Wheel where each “car” is a pod that can hold 25-30 people. It takes about 30 minutes to complete an entire revolution, during which time you can enjoy a very open bar and amazing views of Las Vegas at night. After the ride, Kelly & Dave had a fantastic time walking the Promenade which was all decked out for Halloween. They topped off the evening with a late-night dinner at Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar consisting of this ridiculous burger and trash can nachos.

 

Tripometer – 11,218 mi

Gas Gauge –  863.560 gal

Location –Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

David’s only experience camping with us has been at camping destinations without tremendous natural attractions that we need to visit in the immediate vicinity. Kelly and Paul believe his expectations were in line with what we’ve done in the past, most of the days are relaxing and centered around camp or hiking in the park or very nearby. Needless to say this trip has not been like that at all. We’ve been running at top speed from attraction to attraction since his arrival in Las Vegas over a week ago. Today Dave requested a more relaxed day around camp to be able to say he did some relaxing while on vacation.

We started the morning at a local creperie in Page. (Why don’t we have these on the East Coast???) Not stuffing ourselves right out of the gate, we all left with a nice hot coffee in hand and a warm lump in our bellies. The first and only tourist attraction today was Horseshoe Bend which is a whopping 10 minutes from Page. According to the website for Horseshoe Bend the Bend has received an internet hug in the past few months(?) / years(?) and is now being visited more than ever before. Several travel blogs (maybe in Asia given the number of Asian tourists we saw) have featured Horseshoe Bend recently, driving this level of increased visitation. Looking at Google satellite imagery the parking lot has been expanded by a factor of two to three since the satellite images were taken (how long ago can that be?). There are a whole row of bus parking spaces in the parking lot now and an entire row of pit toilets to handle the ‘flow’ of visitors. When we arrived we found the place bustling. There were easily over two hundred visitors there the entire time we stayed at the Bend (not more than 30 minutes). Not being a National Park, Ranger got to participate in the hike down to the Bend.

Returning to camp we swam Ranger in the lake until he refused to bring his floating toy back to us to be thrown again. We topped off the evening with beers by the campfire and a nice hot meal on the barbie. Relaxation accomplished!

Special Note: There’s a nasty small burr plant that grows all over this area. Paul, with his usual nonchalance towards footwear, put his sandals on less than a minute after we arrived at the Wahweap campground because of these little plants. They are as low and as unnoticeable as grass under foot but each ~6” wide plant is covered in maybe a 100 or so ~1/4” burrs that stick to anything and everything. We think they have some kind of poisonous coating because they hurt way more than a simple thorn or sticker might. Ranger has really struggled over the past few days. If we lived permanently in an area with these plants we would have to find some shoes for the poor dog. On the upside we are sure that Ranger would be fine if he ever lost a limb. He seems to trot along just fine on three feet when the fourth has a burr.

Tripometer – 11,091 mi

Gas Gauge –  847.866 gal

Location –Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

We bid goodbye to Stratis this morning as he heads back to reality and responsibility in Pittsburgh. Kelly, Paul, and Dave headed off on the especially long drive to the Grand Canyon North Rim. It’s a two and a half hour journey into the park from Page, AZ but on the up side we woke up this morning and enjoyed coffee in the upper 40s instead of the mid 30s. Today’s drive is taking us through a very large open expanse of desert, much of it within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation. Kelly enjoyed stopping at quite a few different Indian jewelry kiosks along our route today.

The first set of kiosks that we encountered today were almost at the peak of a pass across the top of a mesa. As Kelly perused the Navajo wares, David and Paul discussed the route we were going to take to the Grand Canyon. From our viewpoint parked along the highway at the pass, Paul was able to point at destinations over an hour away. The tremendous distances that you can see in the southwest are amazing. There have been more than a few instances where we believe we can see objects 100 miles away in several different directions at once, often not from a high vantage point.

  

We stopped by a few tourist destinations on our way including Navajo Bridge (old and new) which cross the Colorado river at Lee’s Landing. Our lunch was packed this morning and we stopped to eat at an old tourist trap which now looks more like an ancient Native American stone building than a modern day building, but we were assured by the internet that the old structure was built in the early 1900s. Either way it made for a fantastic place to eat.

  

We knew from the weather forecast that the North Rim area would be cold due to elevation, but we were not prepared for the lush pine forest that surrounds the entire area. We’ve been in the desert for well over two weeks now, it’s been so long since we’ve seen proper forest that this took us by surprise. The North Rim Visitor’s Center lies at just below 9000 feet in elevation and the vegetation could not be more different from the Page, AZ area where we’re staying. To be honest, at this point, it was a nice change to see. We are loving the southwest and the tremendous canyon structures that dominate the skyline, but deep in our hearts we’re forest people and this area feels much more like home.

  

Getting out of the car at the Grand Canyon we had certain expectations, all of us. We have grown up seeing pictures and hearing people talk of the Grand Canyon but none of us have ever seen it in person. We were absolutely dumbfounded at the sight. Perhaps our minds naturally diminish descriptions and pictures of spectacular sights, but the Grand Canyon is so much bigger, deeper, colorful, and generally more spectacular than what the three of us expected. There have been more than a few destinations that we have visited that didn’t live up to the hype. The Grand Canyon shattered our expectations and left our mouths hanging agape. So much so that Paul and Dave both set aside the ‘no closer than 5’ to certain death’ rule, as were many other people visiting the Grand Canyon.

  

Arriving late in the day to be touring a national park, we chose to run from one overlook trail to the next trying to absorb as much of the sights as possible before the sun set. Almost every overlook trail was within inches of a drop-off of over 1000 feet. Kelly, being the only non-agoraphobic person with us today, was dumbfounded not at our fear of heights (or of falling as Paul and Dave would say) but at the sheer number of people who were obviously struggling with the heights. If one assumes that a fair chunk of the population wouldn’t even attempt some of the trails we were on, of the people on the trails roughly half were visibly distressed by the hike they were taking. When one side of the trail was towards the cliff and the other towards a wall, there was a steady stream of traffic moving in both directions on the trail that refused to leave the side of the trail against the secure wall. (Sometimes this was Paul and Dave).

While we were all frustrated that we only had a few hours to spend at the park before dark, we stayed until the sun set, grabbing more than a few stunning sunset pictures of the Grand Canyon. The opening that can be seen in the canyon wall above is called Angels Window. The Grand Canyon left all of us somewhat speechless and very humbled.

The drive home was stressful. It was yet another level of the driving video game through dark, rain, fog, mountains, desert, highways, and forest roads all containing mule deer near or on the roadways. 3 hours later we finally made it home much to everyone’s delight.

 

Tripometer – 10,787 mi

Gas Gauge –  836.564 gal

Location –Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ

Lodging – $30

Cans of OFF – 4

We all heard the rain start during the night/sometime in the very early morning. It was hard enough that we all, at one point in the night, mentally evaluated our distance from the little river we were camped near. Our fears were easily quelled by looking out the window to still see the lights of the trailer that was CLOSER to the river. We woke early this morning with the intent of getting a good start on Bryce Canyon. Coffee was had underneath the awning out of the rain in a 2 inch puddle of mud that seemed to have no intention of draining anytime soon. David and Stratis both made an attempt at an impromptu drainage system, but just ended up getting muddier in the process. After seeing that the same weather system we were in was sitting on top of Bryce Canyon producing a rain / snow slush at roughly 32 degrees, we decided to reevaluate our situation over a hot breakfast in town.

The weather cleared as we drove into Kanab. It was still largely overcast but this glimpse of clear weather and the 5 degree temperature increase we experienced driving down in elevation instantly brought spirits up. There was only one well rated café in town that was serving a lite breakfast. The quiche Florentine and Bavarian mocha lattes were the stars of the show. We ate breakfast outside the café underneath a gas space heater and were happy to do it. Across the street from the café was an old Hollywood set. Some quick Googling told us that Kanab and nearby Johnson Canyon were the primary filming locations for the television series Gunsmoke.

After getting a taste of warm and dry we all decided to bail on Bryce Canyon and proceed immediately to Lake Powell where the sun is shining and the temperatures are in the mid 70s. There was only one piece of business remaining, we have to go pack up camp and drag it out of the mid pit. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we got back to camp but By the time we got the trailers packed up and hitched up, Paul and Stratis were caked in pasty mud to their knees and elbows.

Towing the trailer out of the mid pit was not a straightforward task. The first attempt was a slow careful pull towards the road while avoiding the largest puddles. The rig made it about 10 feet before we realized this was likely not going to work in its current form. We managed to move the truck onto a grassy patch to get some traction but sunk one of the 4 Runner tires into a prairie dog hole in the process. We disconnected the trailer from the truck, got the truck out of the prairie dog hole, and reattached the truck pointing straight at the hard packed road surface at the edge of the campsite. We all knew we had to get this rig out this time or we were stuck here for the day at a minimum. Stratis had the good sense to film the escape from the mud pit. When watching, be sure to not miss the trailer fishtail a little bit right before it finally gets up onto the road. We all felt a sense of victory when Kelly finally got the rig on hard ground!

The trip to Lake Powell was entirely uneventful, thankfully. We didn’t pick Lake Powell as a particularly attractive destination, but when we arrived we were blown away by our campsite. Situated on a hill overlooking Lake Powell, we had a commanding view of the hills, mesas and caves on the far shore. One of the top things to do in Lake Powell is to rent a huge houseboat for the week and take the whole family to a remote section of the lake to swim and play on the lake in relative seclusion. These houseboats dotted the lake and far shoreline and could be heard occasionally blowing their horns at one another throughout the day. After we got camp set up Kelly, Dave and Stratis took Ranger swimming for the first time since Oregon. Boy was that overdue!

Not feeling like cooking tonight after moving, we went into Page, AZ for dinner at a local BBQ joint. There was a live country band and tourists everywhere so the wait for dinner was quite long. While we waited for dinner we enjoyed the antics of a surprisingly large concentration of German tourists as they posed for pictures with the American flag, the cowboy statue, the BBQ grills, the band, the peanut buckets, the beer cooler, etc… As we ate our meal of ribs and pulled pork the two German tourists seated next to us made very little effort to resist the urge to stare at us out of the corner of their eyes during the entire meal. We think they were especially fascinated by us eating the BBQ ribs with our hands, but either way we were definitely part of the tourist attraction for them.

  

Tripometer – 10,645 mi

Gas Gauge –  820.974 gal

Location –Twin Hollows Campground, Mt Carmel, UT

Lodging – FREE

Cans of OFF – 4

With last night’s realization that the temperatures at the Grand Canyon will be too cold to camp, we’ve booked a site at Wahweap Campground in the Lake Powell Recreation area for Friday night through the remainder of Dave’s stay and a little bit beyond. The temperatures at Lake Powell will be a much more reasonable mid 60s to mid 40s range for the next few days. This unseasonably cold weather is not what any of us had planned on but spirits are high. Bryce Canyon is still on the plan for tomorrow but it’s going to be cold with a chance of rain. Stratis decided to head up to Bryce Canyon this morning to do some photography at sunrise.

  

What an amazing place. We can’t begin to convey the beauty of this park in words and can only try to approximate it with photos. The sun was at full strength today and Ranger got dropped off at doggy daycare early (for us). We jumped on the shuttle to the northern park and thrilled at the spectacle of driving through the lush green and red canyon walls.

  

The shuttle dropped us off at the farthest point along the valley, the base of the same trail that Stratis took the day before. Dodging a few hundred other tourists in the process we made our way up the Riverwalk Trail to where the pavement ends and the ‘true’ river walk begins. The paved trail wound its way up the canyon as it narrows from several hundred feet between the walls to about 20 feet where the pavement ends. There is a picture of the end of the trail above. Those with the ability and desire can continue up river through the Zion Narrows and beyond. Many tourists had rented waders and hiking poles in town to do exactly that. It looked like a ton of fun but, perhaps better left for a warmer day when we don’t have a dog in the kennel.

  

We spent the afternoon stopping at various shuttle stops and hiking the trails that lead to some of the specific attractions in the park. It seemed to us that the beauty of the canyon on our way to the end of the trail was always more exhilarating than the destination itself. Zion is known for some of its hiking trails with amazing views and tremendous drop-offs. Both Paul and Dave have trouble with heights, so for once in this trip the ruling consensus was to not get within 5’ of certain death.

Sadly, the doggy daycare we put Ranger into closes at 5:30pm and we had to scurry out of the park more quickly than any of us would have liked. We picked up a tired doggy from daycare. The staff there showed Kelly videos of Ranger playing with several dogs of various sizes. It seemed to work out well for everyone today!

Tripometer – 10,569 mi

Gas Gauge –  820.974 gal

Location –Twin Hollows Campground, Mt Carmel, UT

Lodging – FREE

Cans of OFF – 4

We woke this morning to the first frost we’ve seen on our trip. We are all a little surprised by the temperatures. Apparently a cold weather system has moved into the area earlier than is typical for this part of the world. Talking to locals in the area the temperatures were in the 90s last week and now are struggling to get out of the 60s during the day. Not only are none of us equipped with the clothing for this type of temperature, the trailer can’t experience freezing temperatures due to the water system on board. We would have to winterize the trailer if the nighttime temperatures are due to drop below about 28-29 degrees. As of right now the temperatures tonight are to be in the low 30s.

Kelly, Dave, and Paul enjoyed coffee this morning and then headed into Zion N.P. Stratis contacted us on the way into the park and we decided to go separate ways today. The bulk of Zion N. P. is accessible only by shuttle bus and dogs are not permitted on the shuttle busses. If we want to venture into the beautiful heart of Zion N. P. we can’t in good conscience leave the dog in the trailer in an unsupervised BLM campsite. We will need to put him in doggie daycare for the day.

We stopped by several fantastic sights and the visitor’s center on our way through the park picking up a book on hiking nearby trails both inside and outside the National Parks. With trails book in hand we retired to a restaurant in the town that might as well be within the bounds of the National Park. Over a nice lunch we discussed the possibilities for the next few days and decided that the best course of action was to check out a local doggie daycare facility to see if we want to board Ranger tomorrow while we check out Zion Canyon proper.

About 2 miles down the road we found the Doggy Dude Ranch, a local facility that we found was run by a woman almost as dog crazy as Kelly. Kelly reviewed the facilities and staff onsite and finding them amenable, made a reservation for Ranger at the Dude Ranch for tomorrow morning.

Paul looked through the trails book he acquired at the visitor center and proposed a few different hikes for the remainder of the afternoon. We checked out a couple of trails in the park that allowed dogs but quickly decided that we would have a better time checking out a trail outside the park near the town of Kanab. Peek-a-boo Canyon is a beautiful slot canyon about 5 miles down a dirt road with a hike of about 2 miles back into the slot canyon itself. Off we went!

Finding the actual entrance to the dirt road was a bit difficult, but once found it looked to be in pretty good shape. We put the truck into 4 wheel drive and headed down the sandy (not dirt) trail into the desert. We drove for about 10 minutes making it about 2 to 3 miles down the road as the sand got deeper and signs of vehicles passing this way dwindled. The road was getting worse. We had passed at least one indistinct turn in the road, cell signal was non-existent, we had told no one where we were going, and the temperature was due to drop into the 30s tonight. Call it a crisis of conscience or wimping out but we didn’t continue. Thoughts of getting stuck in the sandy soil over night gave us all pause and Kelly turned the truck around (not an easy feat) and we headed back the way we came taking a tour of Best Friends Animal Shelter on our way out. Best Friends is the largest pet rescue organization in the world and they own a tremendous amount of land in Kanab Utah (they own what appears to be an entire mesa). Kelly really wants to spend some time volunteering here in the future, but now is not the time.

We gathered some more reasonably priced groceries in Kanab and headed back to camp to meet Stratis. Stratis’ adventures today far exceeded what the Williamson contingent managed to pull off. Stratis hiked a fair bit of the Zion Narrows today, a once in a lifetime hike. This portion of Zion Canyon is only accessible by walking up the center of the Virgin River through water as deep as the thighs into the tightest most spectacular portion of the narrow canyon with walls climbing straight up from the river surface hundreds of feet into the air. What a spectacular way to spend an afternoon. Even after a masterful retelling of his amazing afternoon the rest of us opted for checking out all of the other sites in Zion tomorrow versus dedicating our day to that one hike. We already know we’ll be coming back to this park again in the future. The Zion Narrows will have to wait.

Over dinner tonight the conversation turned to where we might stay when we moved to the North Rim Grand Canyon area later this week. Kelly wisely checked the weather and to our horror found that the temperatures around the North Rim would be in the teens at night this week. We need a new plan… again…

Tripometer – 10,437 mi

Gas Gauge –  820.974 gal

Location –Twin Hollows Campground, Mt Carmel, UT

Lodging – FREE

Cans of OFF – 4

The drive to Kanab, Utah was punctuated by beautifully colored rock formations surrounding valleys that were sparsely populated by greyish green foliage. The skies have cleared today and the colors are standing out much more than yesterday. Driving through the southwest has been an absolute wonder from a topography standpoint. We are stunned by the landscape many times each day, even driving down Interstate 15, the main North/South highway through Las Vegas, the surrounding hills and valleys look like a National Park.

Pink Coral Sands State Park was our first stop in searching for a campsite for the next few days. This park is fairly centrally located to both Zion and Bryce Canyons. Sadly when we arrived we found ‘the inn was full’. We moved on to check a few nearby BLM sites that might be available. Pulling into Twin Hollows Campground in the early evening we decided to cut our losses and settle into an available campsite in the little valley on the shores of the Virgin River. The campsite was hard packed dirt, about 45 minutes from the visitor center in Zion National Park and looked to be perfect for our needs. By that, we mean it’s a fairly secluded flat place that we can park the trailer on while we tour Bryce and Zion Canyons. As a bonus, this is a BLM land campsite and therefore free to stay.

Kelly and Dave went into the nearest town of Mt. Carmel for very expensive groceries while camp was being made. Perhaps driving further and putting up with city grocery shopping would have been a better idea.

We broke out all the stops and had a campfire with Dave this evening while we all relaxed from the days drive and planned tomorrow’s activities. The temperatures in this area are lower than we had anticipated and the warmth of the fire helped ward of the chill edge of the night breeze. The Williamson trailer desires a later wake up call in the morning than the Kakadelis trailer. Stratis has plans to venture into Zion at the crack of dawn and the rest of us plan on joining him in the park after leisurely coffee. As the fire dwindled tonight we heard what we determined to be the call of a Red Fox on the hill above our campsite. Ranger was not pleased.