Now Boondocking near Big Water, Utah

 Sunday, October 15

We took the CR-V for a Sunday Drive to Halls Crossing, hoping to get some good view of Lake Powell.

It was about a 90 minute drive or so.  The place has definitely seen better times, and even though most everything was closed for the season, the place looked worn down.

The ferry service has been closed for a couple of years at least.  We did find the ramp down to the ferry though for a view:

Monday, October 16

We got off to a late start and by the time we'd dumped tanks near Monument Valley, AZ it was close to Noon.  Along the way, we stopped at the Forrest Gump Viewpoint (yep, that's what AZDOT has put on the sign) to take pictures of Monument Valley's most known features:

Tourons of Monument Valley, trying to get themselves

run over by cars.

Martha, not being a Touron

Around 2:30PM Martha found us a great boondocking spot on a BLM road near the small town of Big Water, Utah....just west of Page, AZ.  We had planned on checking out a spot three miles further in but a water crossing with steep banks stopped us.

Instead we got a spot near the water crossing, at a bit higher elevation and set up camp.  While we did this, a grader came in and smoothed out the road leading onto the Nipple Bench area.

photo by Martha

During the Golden Hour, I rode Yagi, my TW200 down Smoky Mtn Road to check out nearby rock formations.  

Obviously, lots to explore around here.  Some of the above rock formations are within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA).  Martha and I will be exploring this area over the next few days.

In the days prior to the Eclipse

 Wednesday, October 11

After some diagnosing help from RichardM, I determine my cheapo harbor freight solar charge controller had failed, so no solar power until I replace it with something else.

We spent part of the morning just doing a slow cruise on the VOTG (valley of the gods) road, checking out the rock formations. A lot of traffic to avoid while doing so, I feel it will be more crowded still as the eclipse nears.

We spent the afternoon inside the RV, sheltering from the high winds that started around 2:00 p.m. and lasted till past 10:00 p.m! Being outside at times felt like one was being sandblasted!

Thursday, October 12

I went riding after 2pm on Yagi, my TW200, to check out a trail that started near Rooster Butte that I had not ridden before.

It turned out to be a road leading to what looks like an abandoned ranch property.

                               

I did the whole loop and ended up at the other end of the ranch where county road 226 provides access to it.

Soon after the above picture, I got to highway 163 and turned south to the eastern entrance to the valley of the gods.

Someone had set up a traffic sign stating that on 10/14 this entrance will become one way till I am assuming there will be another traffic sign on the western entrance saying it is an exit only.

After taking the above picture I started counting rigs and campsites as best I could as I rode along the road towards my own campsite.

As I approached my campsite I had reach the account of 174+ RVs, tents, car/truck campers! I can safely I had never seen more than say 30 or so campers during the busiest weekend while I was staying here before!

Sadly we even had a trio of California trucks across the road from us. Bastards. Still, they perform they function in terms of making the area look full and being quiet campers who left us alone. (At least so far).

Friday, October 13th

We spent the day at the campsite guarding our perimeter. People continued to stream into the valley taking up all the spaces remaining and even some that weren't actual camping spaces, creating their own.

Taken during short walk:

Can you spot Uma?

Saturday, October 14th

Well that was anticlimactic, there was no darkening as the totality event happened and while we could squint and see the sun become a glowing example of the Opera logo, that was about it.

We're assuming that with specialized equipment it was a much better show and look forward to seeing it on the site that advertised it as a live stream event.

After the event statistics, in the first hour we saw 112 vehicles leave, 216 vehicles by the time 2 hours rolled by and a total of $264 vehicles by the two and a half hour point at which time I stop counting in favor of lunch.

After lunch, we drove the CRV to check out the Moki Dugway and get some internet signal for both of us at the top.

Afterwards, we drove over to the Gooseneck State Park and checked out the sites there. Martha managed to check out the side without breaking her foot again. We'd been there once before you see when Thing 1 was a baby, and she somehow fell while walking in the parking lot and broke up bone in her foot while 8 months pregnant with Thing 2!

Mexican Hat Rock was next but it was still crowded with RVs at the campground located there. There wasn't an easily available pathway closer to the rock itself so Martha just took pictures from nearby.

We got back to camp by 5:00 and hopefully tomorrow we will see a stream of RVs leaving the Valley of the Gods.

Boondocking at the VOTG: Valley of the Gods

Monday, October 9th

We left the Denver metro area around 11:00 a.m. and it took us about 4 hours to get to our first stop: the San Luis State wildlife area for an overnight stay.

Note: most photos by Martha in this post.

photo by Dom

Tuesday, October 10th

There was gorgeous Fall Colors displayed on CO Hwy 160 as we approached and negotiated Wolf Creek Pass near Pagosa Springs, CO:

photo by Dom

Chimney Rock

Long day driving today, at least 6 hours on the road, but we finally got to the Valley of the Gods around 3:30 p.m.

My preferred spot was not available so we took second choice spot by the Lady in the Bathtub:

We will be here till this coming Monday, hopefully we will get a good view of the upcoming lunar eclipse on Saturday.

I don't know if we will try and shoot the eclipse itself; there is after all a crew from some museum in San Francisco who's bogarted a large area on the east side of the valley for themselves, promising to stream in real time the eclipse.

I'll be adding a video of clips shot by Martha as we drove towards and through Wolf Creek Pass once we find a spot with good signal.  

Fall Colors Leaf Peeping with Martha

Yesterday, September 2, Martha and I drove out of the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area to see how the Fall Colors were in some nearby passes.

The weather seemed a bit too overcast as we drove along US 285 towards Guanella Pass.  So, hoping the dark clouds would clear off, we skipped Guanella Pass as first stop and drove on towards the southern entrance of Boreas Pass near the town of Como, CO.

The light did improve as the morning progressed and we slowly drove north along Boreas Pass Road towards Breckenridge, CO.

photo by Martha

photo by Martha

photo by Martha

photo by Martha

video by Martha

From Breckenridge we drove over to Loveland Pass and had our lunch at a trailhead parking lot near the summit.  Too high for Aspen or any trees really so no pics.  The nearby peaks looked brown and desolate, and I wasn't inspired to take pics of them, guess I prefer them with snow.

Some more driving had us in Georgetown, CO where we took on fuel.  We started up towards Guanella Pass but the plethora of other carloads of leaf peepers led us to quickly turn around and head home.

Turns out, the crowds we encountered were from a State Holiday, Mother Cabrini day since it's now not PC to celebrate Columbus Day apparently.  Oh well.

Still a pretty good, comfy day of driving in the Honda CR-V.  It was kind of cool at altitude and the next few days are supposed to be even cooler; so I think we timed it just right for us.