Dead Horse Point SP

This is a really nice campground. Located on the other side of the canyon from Canyonlands National Park, this state park offers well maintained sites with paved pads, shade structures, and electric hookups. It is also about two thousand feet higher than Moab, so when it is pushing 100 degrees down there, it can be mid eighties up top. In fact, most of the time, we were seeing seventies, so that was awesome.

I dropped Richard at the intersection of highway 191 and 313, which goes all the way to the national park. There is a turnoff to the left that takes you to Dead Horse Point State Park, for a total of around a 22 mile ride. He had an uphill, wind in his face kind of a ride to get to the campground. I got to the site well before him and did all of the set up. That’s a lot of work! I tipped my hat to Linda who was already set up and does this all by herself every single time.

We grilled an early dinner and found the West Rim Trail, which takes you right to the very edge of the canyon. Richard got a tutorial in finding trails over rocky surfaces and we waited out the sunset. It was a bit too overcast for much of a show and we felt occasional droplets of almost rain.

Tuesday morning we verified with temperature gun data that the plexiglass windows let in significantly more heat than the aluminum walls. We have been finding Dory2 to be noticeably cooler than Lola, even in some heat, and tested whether that had anything to do with the lack of the BFW. The gun has spoken and we hereby state our hypothesis that having no BFW is less hot than having a BFW, by a statistically significant margin. We also submit that it helps to keep the privacy curtains closed on the sunny side. We are open to peer review.

We headed into Canyonlands around 10:30 and found a long line of cars going in. We worried that the Grand View Trail we wanted to do would have no parking, but I managed to squeeze Bruce and his off-road badass self onto the side of the road in a way that seemed legal. Then we hit the trail.

The national park brochure uses the word “stunning” to describe this hike and I can’t argue. In fact, I can’t come up with better words. Richard has a hard time believing there is any canyon bigger, so he will probably be impressed when we go to the Grand Canyon. The hike is about a mile out and a mile back with very little elevation change. There are stairs at the start and some steps in the middle, but it was not too strenuous for me. And the steps more than paid for themselves with the views.

When we got back, Richard got on his bike and rode back to the Visitor Center while I drove and stopped at view points. He said it was spectacular riding with mostly downhill if you do it in that direction.  One of the descents was a little scary, but mostly because of the wind.

Dinner was another grilled Blue Apron recreation. Those are going very well and I have yet to cook inside Dory2. The stove is a new model and I’m anxious to try it out. Dory1 and Lola’s stoves are the same and the flame control is not that great. It’s either full on, as low as it goes, or a tiny variation of that. Rice almost always boils over, even at the lowest setting. We shall see….

On our last night, we did the same hike again and tried to meet up with Linda. I just have to take a moment here and say how grateful we are that she came out with us to pick up. She had just gotten a new puppy (of the same lineage as T-Rex) and with her daughter’s youngster doggie, she had four in tow. That’s a lot and she’s the first to say that. We dubbed this trip the #wtfdytwh summer adventure. We all knew better than to hit the southwest in the summer time, let alone with four dogs. So here we are, not being terribly surprised, but it’s still hard to see it all unfolding, in glorious technicolor doggie detail. We love you Linda, and are very grateful you braved this to hang with us

This was a favorite park for us. It is worth it to go out the “Point” where apparently all the horses died. The story goes that wild horses were herded out to an inescapable bluff and fenced in, but no one bothered to supply food or water. History is brutal, but the view is nice. The stars are mind blowing too. If you go there, be sure to check them out.

Tomorrow we part ways with our BFF as she heads home and we continue in the desert. It has been an epic trip so far but we will miss our friend.

Total miles: 162.3, 19.0. Site 20, electric hookups, but no drinking water inside the park; be sure to fill up on water before coming. Good dump and water available for hose rinsing. Not great cell service, except in specific points near the rim. At the end of the Grand View Trail, we got LTE, but it was slow. No WiFi in either the state or national parks.