Monument Valley, Arches and Capital Reef NP

This little gem is the reason I’m delayed in getting another post out. Right now we are at Sheridan Lake Marina just outside Rapid City, visiting my nephew and his wife, Jessie and Mackenzie and this sweet, adorable babe. It’s been wonderful spending a few days in the Black Hills at their newly purchased marina. I’ll get back to this later.

When I last wrote we were on our way to Moab and Arches NP. Our route took us through Monument Valley.

As we were nearing the end of Monument Valley, we passed a sign warning of a major slowdown area and people standing in the street. This was a strange sign. Why would people be standing in the middle of the street? There were plenty of pull off areas for picture takers. As we reached the top of rise, we could look ahead into the next alley and sure enough, far ahead of us there were people standing the middle of the highway. Then we realized they were actually videoing themselves. That’s when I turned around and looked at the road we had just driven from their perspective. I recognized this view. To confirm, I googled Forest Gump in Monument Valley. Sure enough. Remember in the movie when Forrest stops his cross-country run? This was it!

Shortly after this, we came to the road to Valley of the Gods. My dad had strongly suggested that we go there. He had camped there several years ago and loved it. Sorry Dad, we tried. But the dirt road into Valley of the Gods was very rutted and steep. Not meant for our rig. Friends David and Gayle did go in but they have a 4 wheel drive high clearance van and they said it was beautiful, but a bit of a hairy drive. Instead we continued on toward Moab and some National Forest land just beyond.

Moab was not on my “gotta do” list.  I had heard the streets could be zooish; crowded with lines of cars and OHVs.  After driving through Sedona, I was not keen on having a repeat.  But Tim wanted to go and check it our, so we looked into it further.  Ok, Arches NP was very close, Canyonlands NP and Capital Reef were also not too far, so we headed on.  So very glad we did.  We had to drive through Moab to get to the entrance to Arches.  Moab was more like what I hoped Sedona was.  Yes, it has its share of fancy, but it also has a more earthy feel- lots of tatted arms and dred locks, but Patagonia jackets too.  Unfortunately, our arrival at Arches was not what we hoped.  The park was full and therefore closed. “Turn Around” was message on the sign.  ”Try again in 3-5 hours” was flashing.  Using the app Campendium, we found several Forest Service campgrounds off Hwy 128 between us and Arches.  We’d read that these sites fill up fast, but we hoped the fact that it was a Monday would help . After stopping at the first few campgrounds only to find all sites taken, we were a little concerned.  That concern grew after we tried a few more.  Getting close to the end of the choices, we found the Big Bend Overflow Camping Lot. It was perfect. What a backdrop and just across the street was the Colorado River. For our evening entertainment, we watched some young adults practicing their bouldering .

I set my alarm for 5:30 wake up so we could hit Arches before the rush. So glad we did. When we arrive a little after 6am, we drove right in. By the time we left at 9ish, cars were lined up and waiting. Just a note, we did not do any lengthy hiking in the National Parks. Dogs are not allowed on the trails in the parks and we weren’t comfortable leaving Maggie for too long alone in the rig.

I have to add a couple pics from the funky little town of Hanksville where we stopped for diesel. A little yellow school bus that had been converted to an RV pulled up beside us. Believe me, we have seen all kinds of rigs on this trip.

As we nearedCapital Reef, we traded red stone for whites and tans.

Capital Reef-

From here, we headed north toward Provo and beyond to the Tetons before turning east to the Black Hills. That will be in the next blog.