Midwest Motorhoming Trip - June 9th and 10th

June 9^th:

Right now it is 9:19pm, and we are still looking for a place to camp the night. Goblin’s Creek, which was down a 25 mile or so road, was full. This little itty bitty national park was full. Only the undesireable places nearer to Canyonlands than Bryce Canyon had availability. Looking back on it, we should have dry camped at Goblin’s Creek. Still, the night sky is looking lovely.

We were pretty exhausted from yesterday. Got a lateish start from the Arches National Park Visitors Center. We watched a little program about rocks and I sent off some post cards. We departed for Canyonlands, ready for another day of sights and sun. Canyonlands was mostly full of scenic views of the vast expanse of canyons upon canyons. We were viewing from Island in the Sky, which was one of the three main features of Canyonlands, the others being The Needles and..uhm…the third thing. Canyons. At Upheaval Dome, I made a card. It struggled to get away from me. The drop offs were staggering. I’m not one to be afraid of heights, but I was scared. In Arches, if you fell you didn’t have far to go. Here you had a long time to think about your life before you went splat. I made a second card at the Grand Viewpoint. I liked that one a lot more. Some of these cards are a textural mess, while others are quite majestic.

Canyonlands is a place of short hikes and extremely long hikes. We didn’t take any long ones.

At fiveish we departed to find a campground. Stopped for gas and dinner at Burger King, and as I said, we are still looking for a place. Might illegally camp for a time being, lest we get booted.

Today’s Portrait is: Mitch Hedberg

June 10^th:

So, we managed to spend the night illegally at a scenic spot without a ranger coming by and kicking us out. We moved the motorhome from the spot to the Visitors center at around 7:15ish, and as the center opens at 8, that wasn’t strange at all. Mother and father went for a bike ride as I slowly got to waking up.

We stamped our stuff in the visitors center, I bought a book and some stickers, ma bought a haul of goods and dad got a shirt and a mug. Then off we went for Bryce’s Canyon! While last night may have sucked, all that driving did put us just a mere 100 miles from the National Park. So a shorter drive than the ones we have been making.

After driving at terrifying heights really close to the edge with brakes that were smelling funny, we took a detour at this Anasazi museum in Boulder, Utah. It was a lovely little constructed museum, devoted to speaking about the things that were uncovered at a dig site (where there were once houses and stuff). You could also get really close to the original dig site, though obviously no touching was allowed. It was a nice rest, and soon we were off again.

Instead of trying to find a site at the end of the day, before even entering the park we checked into an RV park. Having a pool and laundry on site is fabulous. We got our spot, I got a magnet.

The great thing about Bryce’s Canyon National Park is that they have a shuttle bus that picks up people from outside the park and brings them around the park on a loop, and the busses come every 15 minutes or so, so you can get off, hike, buy stuff, get on and go to another place and hike. So today the motorhome stayed in its place and we just hoofed it. Well shuttle bus and hoof.

We took the whole shuttle bus loop and then disembarked at the visitors center. We got our stamps (all the national parks have little ink pad stamps) and some post cards. Watched another video about erosion and rocks. Then it was back on the shuttle bus for hike time!

Bryce’s Point was the start of our path. Bryce’s Canyon has such wonderful special spire mounds called Hoodoos. And they are quite epic to behold. But after hiking around the rim for an hour, it gets a little repetitive. Still, the light changed as we hiked and that gave us some new views. Really beautiful when the sun casts shadows through the Hoodoo formations. We got to Inspiration Point, and it was inspiring. And then Sunset Point. From there we took a bus to Sunrise point, got some ice cream (I squashed a souvenir penny) and waited for the next shuttle bus to take us out of the park.

We got back at around 7ish. We took a dip in the pool and hot tub. Perfect thing to do after a long days hike (several miles worth of hiking along the cliffside path). I showered. Mother worked on dinner. Father and I took our dirty clothes to the RV, Campground, Inn, etc. Compound’s Laundromat. We were much in need of some clean clothes. I was just about out of shirts, and when we eventually meet up with Nathan, none of us want to be that smelly. Dinner was consumed, then we went and threw the laundry in the dryer. Dad and I worked on crosswords till the laundry time was up. Some of it was still damp, so we rigged a clothes line in the motorhome.

Tomorrow is Bryce’s Canyon Part Two and then Zion.

Today’s Portait Is: John Hodgman