RV Trip'N: 05/07/12

May 7

View from our campsite at Spanish Trails, Moab, UT

We made it to Moab and spent the day doing laundry and grocery shopping. The town is really growing. We are camped at Spanish Trails Campground, its a nice campground in town, we usually stay here when we need hookups, its always very clean and has shade trees. We have been very spoiled up till now, our camping has been free or from $5.00 to $16.00, not so here, add gas and groceries and we have been jolted back into reality but cable TV is so nice. Tonight we will be going out to dinner and doing a little shopping for the grand kids, I can't wait.

Campsite at Spanish Trails

Spanish Trails Campground

Jeeps are the tow vehicle of choice out here

May 6 - Goblin Valley

Today we are in Goblin State Park, we got to the park at 11:00am and were given the last campsite. This park has 28 campsites and one yurt. The campgrounds are beautiful especially if you are tenting. It's a very fascinating park, the rock formations are beautiful and on the Valley flour you don't have to follow any set trail, you just thread your way through the rocks and canyons as far as you want to go. We had to force ourselves to stop. The scrambling over the rocks is so much fun and every turn is so different and more beautiful than the last. The movie Galaxy Quest was filmed at this park because of it's unique landscape.

Tomorrow we will be back in our favorite place in the world, Moab Utah, hopefully we will have WiFi and phone service.

Our campsite with covered picnic table

Goblin Valley State Park

May 5

We have taken on a new traveling companion, a messy little mouse! I was awake all night listening to him rooting around. In the morning we found that he was in the oven nibbling at the bread that we store there, and left his little mouse mess on the kitchen counter. I had to clean everything and than go into town for some traps. This camper is not big enough for the three of us so Mr. Mouse has to go.

On a lighter side we did a very high hike to a beautiful lookout, and a very nice scenic drive. I hope your not getting sick of the pictures, this park is so beautiful.


Top of our climb

Trail

Capitol Reef Scenic Drive

May 4 - Capitol Reef

Capitol Reef NP

Today we drove into the park at 7:45am and got our campsite by 9:30am the campground was full.There are no hookups or showers here and the campground is very small but so pretty.

Capitol Reef is an area that was used as a safe place for the plural married Mormons to hide out in the 1880's, they farmed and planted orchards and lived in the area for many years. The park still maintains the orchards and some of the farm land. During the season people can go into the unlocked orchards and pick and eat fruit free or take out fruit for a small price.

We hiked the Grand Wash Trail, a pretty flat fun 5 mile trail. The scenery here is so awesome.

Breakfast View


Shaded Campgrounds

Fruita

Awesome Tree

Capitol Reef


Capitol Reef

Nice hike in the park

Scarlet Penstermon

Along the trail

Big Disappointment - May 3rd 2012

We made it into Capital Reef National Park at 11:00 am, but were given the bad news that the campground was full. We had driven three hours over a 9000 foot Mt. Pass and were in the middle of nowhere. The ranger, however, told us about BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land just outside of the park entrance. She suggested we stay there overnight and in the morning try our luck at the park.

Capital Reef has no reservation system and up until now has been under the radar as far as National Parks go. We reluctantly left the park and found the spot she had directed us too. It was gorgeous, we found a spot and got settled in and soon others joined us. We went on a very nice hike and took a lot of beautiful pictures.