On Sunday, September 30 we began our Utah-Colorado road trip and left Flagstaff. On the way out of town we stopped at the storage yard and dropped off the trailer. From there we drove just across the Utah border and camped at Goosnecks State park. It’s a very nice State Park that offers free primitive camping although it does have a vault toilet and trash pick-up. It’ s located on the banks of the San Juan River, but as you can see in this photo, it’s a long climb down to it! (As you look at the photos, in many of them you can see a sheer escarpment in the background. In my next post we are going to drive straight into, and up it, at the Moki Dugout)
Just kidding, no one goes down to the shore of the San Juan River from Goosnecks State Park! The tiny white dots at the top of the cliff are big Rvs!! They give a sense of the extreme depth and steepness of the valley cut by the River.
Even Homer can’t believe his eyes! (You can clearly see the escarpment in the background. We are going to drive UP that!)
Map of the area. There is great, free camping at the State Park.
It was very busy with lot’s of campers and visitors; probably because of the Government shutdown. Having been kicked out of the National Parks, Forests, and Monuments, people needed a place to stay and this is a good one. There was a steady flow of people coming and going with quite a few spending the night and then moving on the next morning.
This fellow had a real sense of adventure! He literally was camped within 5 feet of the edge of the sheer cliff. He’d better not sleep walk! That’s Al’s van in the background–a more respectful 20 feet from the edge. (By the way, the rocks really did glow that orange every night!)During the day, there was a constant flow of people who literally stopped for 5 minutes, took a picture and jumped back in their car or RV to “bag” their next experience. I felt sorry for each and every one of them! Here is this wonderful, life-changing place and they think that because they were here for 5 minutes and took a picture they have “experienced” it, when nothing could be further from the truth. Our modern lives are so totally artificial and “fake” that we can delude ourselves into believing that we are actually experiencing life in that way.
On the other hand, we were so enjoying it so much that we decided to stay for 3 nights just soaking in the ambiance and “feel” of this astonishing place. Every evening at sunset the rocks around it glowed orange from the setting winter sun and the distant mountains and peaks turned pink and purple. The silence and stillness would seep into your soul if you would let it!
Every night was magical as the sun set and the entire landscape burst into flame! (Notice the twisted mountains in the photo above in the background of this one.
Every sunset was breathtaking! And then the stars were so clear and beautiful because of our remoteness.
wow what great pictures you took,I enjoy reading about your adventures. Cant wait to see your next post and pictures. I however would not like to tent camp 5 feet from the edge. I have a health respect for heights. Utah is breathtaking,I will revisit someday and stay awhile.
Thanks Linda! I couldn’t camp that close either!
Breathtaking is the only word to describe it!
Bob
Great post and pictures Bob! Those hills are amazing. I visited that area back around the end of July after reading about it from RV Sue. Just a beautiful, magical place. Looking forward to reading about your travels.
Tina
tina, it must have been really hot there in July, you are more adventurous than I am!
Bob
Gorgeous! Thank you for sharing so many incredible photos. I am imagining myself there with you all.
WOW!!!! beautiful photos and great observation of the conditioned thinking of modern society
Thanks Diane! It took me a ong tie to get out of the modern mindset of capturing and possessing a place, rather than being possessed by it.
Bob
Breathtakingly beautiful! I haven’t been to that particular area yet…now I MUST. Thanks for sharing Bob.
Joni
You are very welcome Joni!
Bob
Bob_
Your sure making it easy for me to plan what/where/when I want to see once I get out West next year.
Thanks for the travelog…much appreciated.
You’re
You’re welcome Openspaceman. You will fit right in with the wide open spaces, man!
Bob
OMG! Fantastic pictures Bob! So wish I was there with you guys and I probably would be if….
spent the last two months in Fl helping my mom.
Keep living the dream…
love,
yolanda
Yolanda, family cones first! But you will be rewarded and your time will come!
Bob
Among the things the shoot-and-skoot visitors missed out on was watching the sky darken and the stars come out. And they missed the slow approach of dawn. Both events make one aware of the rotation of the planet as it travels around the sun in our corner of the Milky Way. Take a snapshot of THAT, folks.
Right you are Al! Another big part of that is feeling the cold setting in as the sun sets and the warmth as it rises. But you and I know all about that don’t we!!
It sounds like a reason NOT to live in a van, but I consider a strong reason to live in a van!!
Bob
Bob,
Thanks for the awesome photos and great info on the area! You have probably already driven it already at this point, but at the top of the Moki Dugout, near the sign, take a left on the dirt road for some great views and good camping sites. Driving up and down the Moki is great fun! It was being worked on and covered with loose gravel and dirt when I drove it last year! Have fun Bob!
Thanks for the tip David! But we were so close to House on Fire we just went over there. Glad we did because it gave us the sunset and rainbow!
Bob
I’d say you summed it up very well Bob. The place is awe inspiring to say the least. Also let me point out the view of the stars is incredible! I’m glad we got the opportunity to meet you and the others and we’re both looking forward to seeing everyone again in Quartzsite.
mark, it was my pleasure to meet you, Bob and Eric! You can’t have enough vandweller friends! And you’re right, the stars there were awesome!
Bob
What an amazing landscape!
(I’m new to your blog, and I’m loving it 🙂 )
Thanks, Mopsa, but the pictures on your blog put mine to shame!
Bob
Wow! What splendid views! What a thrilling experience. Someday when I’m on vacation and don’t need the Internet for my, work, this would be some of the places I’d like to see! Yipeee! Thank you for sharing all this with us!
You are very welcome Gloria! But you are right, the lack of internet is a hardship.
Bob
Super cool post! I came across quite a few of the 5-minute crowd at Petrified National Forest last year, which is a shame there because of the unexpected variety of fascinating things to see in different areas of it. I must be getting old – it seemed weird to watch 20-somethings power-walk past me through the Blue Mesa, holding their iPhones out to snap pix as they marched past. It won’t be the same in the pictures! Me, I kept stopping to gawk and drool on my shirt. The handout at the gate lists things by “If you only have 1 day…a few hours…one hour”. I think I was there for nearly a week and still didn’t see everything. I’m hoping to go back and get my fix!
Old fogeys like us have paid our dues and now we are getting our reward! I spent a lot of my life running around like they are, but that gave me the ability to slow down and enjoy it now!! Ane that is my plan!!
Bob
Other than a sunset and some stars what do you feel or experience in 3 days that everyone is missing out on? I’m seriously asking because I don’t get it. I went to niagra falls once and was like ‘what!’
I drove up here for this? It looks like the same thing on TV. Why am I so jaded?????
Nigara Falls and you weren’t impressed? Did you by any chance take some time to go UNDER the falls…or see all 3 falls at the same time…or try to imagine what it felt like to want to go over the falls in a barrel? I grew up a few hours drive from Niagara falls and I have been there 50+ times and if I go 50+ more I would still suck in breath!!
Where Bob is, is awesome beautiful, the badlands of the Dakotas are stunning, the hyper-touristy streets of St. Augustine, FL make my feet feel different and the view from….
Happy Wanderings,
Joni
Rick, you’re not jaded, just disconnected, and you simply haven’t found your outlet yet. Yes, I went to Niagara Falls many decades ago and actually don’t remember it! Kinda sad that I don’t. I was with my bride on a return trip back from New York on the proverbial hit-and-run.
Sounds odd, but I find that places that are guardrailed off, so all I can do is stand aside and observe from a paved fixed place, then get back in in my car and go on to the next, don’t do that much for me. It’s like 3-D TV, but I still feel distant and partitioned off. Places that I can be in, where I’m immersed in them and can experience fully as kind of a non-spectator, I can’t forget. There’s a sense of connection.
Example: Palm Canyon, south of Quartzsite AZ. You have to pick your own way in over very rough terrain (unfortunately). There are lightly-worn paths, but they aren’t always the best way at points. You can stop and look (and get your breath) anywhere, because you’re fully in it, 360. What you look at is your business, since there are no plaques or highlighted viewpoints along the way, except near the very end where the palms are, to keep you from losing hope that you’ll ever make it. There’s no paved and railed walkway with people waiting behind you. The scenery while you battle your way in and out makes it difficult to be a shoot & run flyer, because there are no preset vistas assumed to “best represent”. You’re in it, not at it or near it. Different feeling, and that works for a lot of remote campsites, too.
Not to mention sitting with a glass of wine after dinner and watching the Kofa Mountains turning blood red in the setting sun.
Well, there’s that, too! A toast would be in order, I think.
m.a. I have to be in the mountains every year, but I always miss the desert sunsets!! There is a reason that the sunset is on the Ariozna state flag!! I’ve reached the point where my heart needs the desert just as much as it needs the mountains.
But I will have to swap that wine for a diet Pepsi!!
See you in Arizona soon!
Bob
For me, there’s much more to experiencing someplace than just driving there and taking a look. I have to hike, bike, explore, climb things, get dirty, really FEEL the place both physically and mentally.
For instance, the first time I went to Arches National Park I was rushed for time because the sun was setting, so I drove through gawking at the pretty rock formations. But what I really wanted to know was, “How does the rock feel? Is it smooth or grainy? Will I slide around if I try to climb the base of that arch?”
So the next day I went back and hiked a bunch of trails and climbed around all over the rocks. THAT was the experience I was looking for. It also motivated me to come out of my shell and try to experience more.
The next day I bombed down the Porcupine Rim on my mountain bike. WOW! What an eye opening experience. The view, exposure to falling a thousand feet, speed of the trail, fear, excitement, happiness…. these are things you cannot experience by just driving up and taking a look.
Try to get outside of your comfort zone the next time you visit a natural wonder. This could mean a simple short hike, jeep tour or easy rafting trip. You don’t have to tempt fate to have fun.
Also, you may not be jaded but depressed. Depression makes it hard to get excited about or enjoy anything. Good luck to you.
I am in fact depressed a lot but I see everyone’s point. I hope to venture out and try to experience what nature has to offer. Thanks
Rick, there is a lot of good scientific research that says connecting to nature is one of the best ways to beat depression. There is an equally great amount of research that shows a lack of connection to nature CAUSES depression.
But, it’s also important to know there is some depression that actually is chemical and nothing will work except some of the best modern drugs.
Bob
I would like to second that statement about knowing nature as an aid to not being depressed. Also many years ago I drove tours to Hana here on my Island of Maui. Today the tours are what I call swisher tours. “Get your camera ready, here comes a waterfall!” Hana has beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Day visitors never see those. Bob you are a catharsis to many who have wanderlust. Your approach is fantastic and very practical.
Thanks for your very kind words John!
Bob
Joe, what a great comment, thank you!
It takes All the senses to experience something. I think getting dirty is especially important.
DIRT IS LIFE!! Until you’ve gotten it under your fingernails or in your scalp at a place, you can’t know the place!! I’ll go a step further and say until you’ve taken your sweat and mixed it with the local dirt, you can’t know a place.
Bob
Actually Rick, I had the same response at Niagara falls. Here are my thoughts:
1) Modern people have a goal-oriented, “be busy” mindset that closes them off from experiencing things directly (this is why so many men are dead soon after retirement, that mindset kills them). One of the hardest things people have to do when they start boondocking is make the mental switch from living for a goal, and just plain living. It can be a very hard transition!!
2) The Buddhists have an expression, “Don’t confuse the moon, with the finger that points at it.” images on a screen or paper are not real and the great tragedy of modern life is we actually believe they are.
3) Most people can’t stand stillness or silence because they hate their lives and themselves and they do NOT want to be alone with their thoughts or themselves.
4) Connection with nature is critical to our mental, physical and emotional well-being. Staring at a screen exclusively is incredibly detrimental to your well-being.
5) Nature must be touched with your entire body! Just seeing it for 5 minutes is meaningless!!! You must see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, feel it.
6) Nature is in constant change, every angle of the sun through the day makes it look totally different. The temperatures are constantly changing, the smell after our little rain was great! Being hot and cold reminds you that you are alive and not a robot setting in front of a screen slowly turning into another robot.
Those people are only having experiences in their thoughts, 100% in their brain. Living in nature allows those images to travel the longest 18 inches in the world:
Bob
Wow!!! Bob , Amazing scenery indeed ,and i must admit I am a bit jealous I can’t do this (fulltiming)until I retire (some ,but not many years ahead) but I am very glad that you and many others can, and provide us with such a wonderful feedback (it almost feels as if I was there) this amazing ORANGE GLOW of the rocks is breathtaking and it is obvious , only NATURE can “paint” it this way.
I totally understand your statement :
“Our modern lives are so totally artificial and “fake” that we can delude ourselves into believing that we are actually experiencing life in that way”.
It is so true and so sad that most people today live their lives in this way , completely unable to see and experience the immense beauty of these NATURAL WONDERS and as you so correctly put it : you must spend time and make the connection, stay out on a cool night and watch the stars cross the dark sky allowing all the sounds and smells of the desert soothe your soul..and wake up the morning a new you !
I actually stop discussing such topics with people around me as they are so “deeply sunk” in their “artificial world”, the “strange looks” I get, convinced me that I indeed do speak a “different language”.
Glad you are enjoying the experience , you and the group keep well and waiting for the next batch of the amazing photos. . . . ( wondering how is the comfort level without your trailer ?)
mario, you may not be fulltiming yet but vandweling is an attitude and not an amount of time or choice of a vehicle! I think you have a vandwellers attitude!
Living in the van is going well! I bought a plastic 4-drawer unit in the Durango Walmart and it is helping a lot. Everything is very comfortable now. I still have way too much stuff, but it is doable!
Bob
Bob,
Thanks for all the great pics along with your commentary. Keep it coming and enjoy your travels.
Omar
You are very welcome Omar, more to come!
Bob
I was thinking if “The Man” ever hassles you in your journey’s…you should direct him to your blog. I don’t know how many folks read your blog but by making people aware of these cool places…you are indirectly contributing to the travel economy when people go to visit and of course spend $ there.
*On the mother hand they probably wouldn’t see it my way.
openSpaceman, I don’t think we should confuse them with logic! After all these are the people who think the government shutdown is a great thing!
Bob
Other. Fingers to big to type on the cell.
Isn’t is about time to head to warmer climates? It’s Fall in full swing and colder weather is on the way. Where’s your winter destination this year?
CAE, you’re right, it is getting late to still be in the mountains. Right now i am at Ridgway, CO and it is pretty cold at night. But soon we will be in Moab and it is still pleasant weather. We will be okay there for awhile.
Sometime in November at the latest we will be back in AZ. If the shutdown continues we will go in a couple of weeks to Sedona, Wickenburg, then Quartzsite. If the National Parks open up, we will stay in Utah for October and some of November.
Bob
Bob – I don’t want you to take this the wrong way because I enjoy all of your posts….. but these ADVENTURE posts are the ones I REALLY enjoy! Keep ’em coming.
The tips on where to camp, where to visit, what to do are priceless.
Joe, no offense at all. I try to mix things up so everybody gets something they like but that probably means there will be some they don’t like as well (or even dislike!). there are lots more of the Road Trip posts to come, but they will be mixed in with others.
Bob
Bob..Just letting you know I ordered your solar system through your blog today. After much thought and trying to keep the weight down, I decided on the roll up panel..I ordered two. There’s a guy here in town that used to work at an rv repair place and he said he could install it for me at a reasonable price..I’ll let you know how it goes..Jan from Oregon (Subaru and Scamp)
Jan, you can’t go wrong with the Unisolar flexible panels. They are a little more expensive but they are virtually indestructible and so easy to install or even to carry inside the rig. Sometimes they are just the very best choice you can make!!
Thanks for ordering it through the blog also!!
Bob
Hey Bob! I was just thinking about this post when I was at Goosenecks a couple weeks ago… you CAN hike down to the river. And it’s not even THAT steep (you lose 1200′ in 2.5 miles on the way down and obviously regain it on the way out)! GREAT HIKE. (And free camping all over along the route to the trailhead. 🙂
http://3upadventures.com/winter-desert-weekend-part-3-honaker-trail/