Wed June 12th - Goblin Valley and 'the middle of no where"

After three wonderful days in Moab, we were off to Goblin Valley a state park due West of Canyonlands, but about a 2-2.5 hour drive as like many things in Utah, you have to "go up and around" vs. directly to it.  Last time we came to Utah back in 2009, we visited Bryce and Zion national parks (and for those who are interested in our opinion, they are better than Arches and Canyonlands, but the town of Moab was better).  While there we visited Coral Sand Dunes and Kodak chromocolor state parks and they were great.  So when Arnie said "we have to do Goblin valley" based on his past experience, combined with my recollection of HOW GOOD the state parks were on our last visit, off we went.

It is hard to explain Goblin valley.  I think the pics will do best.  It is a little land of "figures" that look more like mushrooms than goblins, but they are everywhere.  Very easy to climb for the kids which they loved.  We headed "into" the valley and just explored.  We took Henry with us and he was a trooper, as the sand was HOT.  We would try to find him shade and he would dig deep to get to cooler sand, but I eventually walked/slow ran with him out of the canyon to cool off his very hot paws.  The only downside of Henry is he is black, so he gets hot easier than most.

The highlight was we had the best game of hide and seek ever.  First the kids hid and I looked for them, Claire won that round.  Then me and the kids hid and Dad looked for us...he never found Claire and I that is how great this place is.

After a couple of hours in the canyon we headed to the RV for lunch and to cool down.  Thank god for the Generator, it can run at any time and give us air conditioning.  For those non-RVers, today's RV's are very sophisticated.  You can go  up to three days without a "hook-up" as the lingo goes.  There are full hookups - Electric, Water, Sewer, just electric, electric and water.  For the most part I tried to get full hookups, as it is just easier.  It also would cause me less stress.  But in many of the national parks, they have VERY LIMITED full hookups, and they go years in advance literally.  We have not had a full hook-up since Moab.  Now, we are not "using" the RV in LA.  It is parked in Andrea and Bob's drive-way.  So it will be 6 nights without a hookup - which now makes me nervous on how cold the refrigerator will be!!

Arnie also wanted to do the Wild Horse slot canyon which was 2 miles down the road, still in Goblin Valley.  The hike was ranked really high and recommended by some friends.  Well the women in the group were WIPED out, I mean spent from the time in the valley.  I am guessing real temperature was 105, but with the hot sand felt hotter.  I have never sweat so much so quickly.  My girls said "no way" to this and I knew my mom would want to sleep, so I stayed in the RV too.  Well the boys LOVED the hike, and it was EASY!  Bummer, but still glad that we got some rest.

So off we headed south towards the Grand Canyon.  Our goal was to get a few hours of driving in to make Thursday's drive to Arizona a bit shorter.  We didn't know where we would stop, but felt OK with no hook-ups, so it would be an adventure and it was.  Around 7:00 I started to think ok let's find someplace (and I was driving, so took control of the situation), so we can have dinner and get everything set up before sunset (remember...no electricity hookup).  We were in Southern Eastern Utah, north of Lake Powell, entering the Glen Canyon recreation area.  This is a very large canyon that sits on the northern edge of Lake Powell.  Lake Powell is the huge lake the Colorado feeds before going into the Grand Canyon, like Lake Mead is coming out of Grand Canyon.  The odd thing is we stopped in the Hite area.  It had a HUGE boat launch, literally 150 yards long, 25 yards wide, but the river was dry.  Rainy season is July- August, so I am guessing it is BUSTLING then, but we were the only people here, in this massive canyon, with our own rest area and clean bathrooms and it was FREE.

I thought this was awesome.  The kids and my dad were a bit spooked by it all.  We had a great dinner, played on the boat launch (Ben brought a basketball and is trying to dribble 1,000 times a day, so this made that task easier).  We even broke out the sparklers for the first time.  Henry loved exploring the lake bed with Arnie and it was a night I won't forget for a long time. 

Off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.