I hit the road heading west on Tuesday September 2nd towards Moab, Utah to meet up with the Green River Canoe trip crew for the following week’s adventure. I left the north Georgia mountains around noontime and stopped by the Bass Pro Shop in Huntsville, Alabama. It has been a while since I’ve been in Huntsville but enjoyed my visit there. I was very impressed with the whole area and how nice it was. Later that evening I found a camper friendly Walmart parking lot somewhere in Arkansas to get some sleep in the ROG camper for a few hours. I hit the road again early the next morning in hopes at arriving in Amarillo, Texas and stopping by the Big Texan Steak Ranch for dinner. I made it there late afternoon and ended up camping at their Big Texan RV Ranch a block down the road from the restaurant. I had a great dinner and the campground turned out to be a nice and enjoyable spot for the evening.
By Thursday night I had made it to UTE Mountain Casino RV Park in Towaoc, Colorado for the night. I had a pretty good buffet dinner at the Kuchu’s Restaurant there at the casino. I woke up the next morning and decided that I would do a little back tracking to the Four Corners Monument. It was pretty cool to stand in four states at one time, but I’m not sure I would advise anyone to go out of their way to see or visit this attraction. From there, I had a very scenic drive into Moab, Utah. I had already made a camp reservation for the next three nights at a pretty cool campground called Sun Outdoors Moab Downtown. A lady camping next to me in Amarillo told me she had just left the Moab area and highly recommended Sun Outdoors for the place to camp in Moab, especially for its convenience. It was a really nice location for I could walk everywhere in the town and Arches National Park was just up the road a small piece by car. I spent most of the weekend exploring the surrounding area.
On Monday morning, September 8th, I had to close my camp down and take the ROG camper to a secured short term storage area while on the Green River Canoe trip. That night before the canoe trip and the night after I already had a hotel reservation at the Hoodoo (Hilton) in town. The grounds and rooms there were extremely nice.
The storage area was just a couple of miles south of town and just when I arrived there, I see Bob and Ryne out touring around and looking for petroglyphs locations in the area. I suddenly found myself in their rented jeep and off we went for the afternoon checking out more petroglyphs finds. We even found some dinosaur footprints dating back 190 million years ago, very cool! We had a great time and even made a quick stop in Dead Horse State Park before having to pick a couple of other crew members up at the Canyonlands Regional Airport.
By mid-morning on Sunday, Mary, Bill, Bayli, Declan and Brooks arrived for three more nights in the Moab area. The photos are not completely in order by date but we definingly spent time in Arches National Park on at least two of the three days in the area. What a fantastic park to hike in and explore!
On one of our days in Moab, we took the grandkids out to the Moab Aventure Center (Moab Giants Dinosaur Park & Tracks Museum). Declan absolutely loves dinosaurs, so this was a super exciting trip for him. On that same day we went out and visited both Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse State Park.
On Wednesday, we left Moab and headed southwest stopping first in Capitol Reef National Park. We mostly took a driving tour here enjoying the amazing land formations. Next, we traveled through Fishlake National Forest and viewed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. At the end of the day, we made a brief visit to Bryce Canyon National Park. It is definitely a place that Mary and I would like to visit again.
Zion National Park was beautiful, but we were somewhat disappointed in our visit there due to how very crowded it was. Bill and Bayli spent the first day hiking the scenic, but very highly traveled trail to Angel’s Landing while Mary and I played with our grandsons. The next day it was difficult to find parking at the entrance where we then we had to board extremely packed shuttle buses to get around the park. We joined many others taking the Riverside Walk trail and enjoyed visiting Zion Lodge. We all decided that we would prefer to visit Zion in the off season.
On Saturday morning, we parted ways with Bill’s family. They headed south to Grand Canyon National Park, and Mary and I drove west to Joshua Tree National Park in California. Although we didn’t have time to take any hikes there, we really enjoyed seeing the many sizes and shapes of the thousands of Joshua Trees, cacti, other unique desert plants and the ever-changing landscape.
In one of the photos below, the San Jacinto Mountains and the San Andreas Fault can be seen looking across the valley towards Palm Springs. The tallest mountain is San Jacinto Peak at 10,832 ft. which I crossed over in 2014 on my PCT thru hike.
We spent Sunday on the road in Arizona. Our first stop was Winslow, AZ along Route 66 where we took pictures “Standin’ on the Corner” made famous by the 1970’s Eagles song. We also discovered the Relic Road Brewing Company which was a fun little brewery with great food. Later that afternoon, we toured Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. It turned out to be one of our favorite stops. The petrified trees and the landscapes were so colorful and distinctive. There was also a storm building up on the horizon which really enhanced the beauty of everywhere we stopped.
From Arizona, we traveled many miles across New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee with only a few stops and arrived back home in Georgia on the night of Tuesday, September 23rd. I’m already looking forward to hitting the road again in a few weeks for what’s become an annual Pheasant Hunting trip out in South Dakota.
A Password is Required Here
Whitewater's Long Distance Trail Journeys 
Fantastic pictures and story! Thank you, thank you!
>