Day Six: Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Some might wonder why anyone would want to sleep in a tent in the desert in June. Let me present Exhibit A: the view from our topless tent with the windows rolled down. I opened my eyes to these views.
We got lucky!
Our first night in the desert was calm, with perfect temps. If we had experienced any of our less-than-stellar, future desert camping scenarios, we may not have ever attempted it again. We were hooked after one night, though! Sleeping on sand is remarkably comfortable, way better than lumpy grass! We didn’t need to concern ourselves with packing up a damp tent because there is zero moisture…and no dew on that lumpy grass! We’ve had our share of those less-than-stellar nights in the desert, but this one set the bar pretty high as far as tent camping goes. Be sure to subscribe to read about those other stories!
Time to Explore
We learned fairly quickly that camping in the desert in June also means that your tent turns into an oven once the sun is up! That’s ok, though, because hiking in the desert in June is an early morning activity. We quickly packed up so we could explore, starting with the area around our campsite.
We’ve been back to Goblin Valley since this trip, but someday I want to camp in site #12, which is tucked behind this rock formation and might be the best site in the whole place! Our campsite had this view so not a bad site either! The kids had fun climbing around behind our campsite.
Exploring Goblin Valley
We drove down to the Goblin Valley Overlook and were amazed all over again at the expanse of little red hoodoos. This has to be one of the strangest landscapes I’ve ever seen! Arches and Canyonlands seem more vast and majestic, while the landscape in Goblin Valley is more otherworldly. From a distance, it looks like a bunch of cairns stacked everywhere, or like little blobs of terra cotta colored Play-doh in weird shapes, all stacked up. Up close, the blobs are rock formations that are taller than people. You are able to wander around like it’s a giant playground and climb around on all of the rocks, making it great fun for the kids!
The visitor center wasn’t open when we entered the park the night before so we checked it out as we left. The kids were able to get junior ranger booklets and Goblin Valley State Park Junior Ranger badges. Since I had no clue about Milky Way photography at the time, I picked up a photo card of the Milky Way as a souvenir. Also among the photo cards, I spotted some gorgeous red walled canyon images and asked the ranger where the photos were taken.
Little Wild Horse Canyon
The ranger told me those photos were taken in a nearby slot canyon called Little Wild Horse Canyon. All we had to do was go out of the park and down the road a bit to a parking lot. Then hike to the sign and the slot canyon is after that. I’m sure the directions were more specific than that, but that was the gist of it. It sounded easy enough, so off we went!
Finding the parking lot was no problem. There were plenty of cars parked there already at 10am when we arrived. The trail follows a wash, but it didn’t take long to determine that this hike in the mid-morning sun was going to be hot and there were a lot of people on the trail. Since this was not on our agenda, and I wanted to make it to an afternoon cave tour three hours away, we decided to bail out. We’d have to try this trail someday when we had more time and an earlier start. Time to hit the road!
There is no shortage of gorgeous views in every direction, each mile with something new to see. We left Little Wild Horse Canyon, going back the way we came, then turned on the highway we came in on the night before, which would take us back to the interstate…or so I thought! Imagine my surprise to find a sign for the Hanksville Airport!
Wrong Way
I immediately knew that was not right. We’d have remembered seeing that sign of civilization out in the middle of nowhere. I stopped to take a look at the map and discovered that we had gone about 20 miles in the wrong direction! Ugh! We were on the right road, just traveling the opposite of the way we were supposed to go. There is no cell service in the boonies of Utah to start a route on the phone, but I thought I knew were I was going, so I never checked the paper map. I must have got messed up with which direction to turn since I had come from Little Wild Horse and not Goblin Valley. I took a right at the first highway I came to, which would’ve been the first turn I needed if I had been leaving Goblin Valley, but instead I had gone all the way to the bigger highway and taken that right instead of a left. Ooops! That was 45 minutes we wouldn’t get back, but at least the scenery in the San Rafael Swell is amazing.
We made it back to the interstate and took Highway 6 through Provo Canyon towards Timpanogos Cave National Monument. Once I reached some cell phone service, I called to check on tour availability and they had plenty of spaces left on their 4pm tour! Perfect! We could make it there in time….as long as everyone else did not have the same idea.
By the time we arrived, only two spots remained. Darn! They would not add a third spot so we signed up for the first tour in the morning, which the ranger assured us was the perfect time to go! She also gave us some campground recommendations. We collected the junior ranger booklets and went in search of a campsite. I had read about Little Mill online, and we checked that out, as well as several others in the area. We decided to go back to Little Mill, where we took site #19.
A Tent in Daylight
If you’ve been following along since the beginning, you’ll note that there is actual daylight and our tent is set up…a new record for us! Now, what to do with ourselves? We needed supper and we wanted to visit the LEGO store, plus they had a used LEGO shop called Bricks and Minifigs that we wanted to check out.
I should note that we did not load anything into our tent before we left. We learned the hard way that leaving a tent unattended with sleeping gear inside is a good way to come back to a tent full of wet sleeping gear that will require a lot of quarters to dry. When you show up late enough to just go to bed, it works to toss everything inside right away, but nothing good can come of tossing it all in the tent and then driving off to go be tourists.
LEGO Shopping
The closest LEGO store we can visit near home is four hours away in the Mall of America. Granted, that one is fun to visit, but we don’t get there often. We always have to stop if we make it to a city that has a store and I always have to mention to Joey that we are bringing him to the mother ship. Ha! I probably enjoy visiting LEGO stores just as much as he does, though. They are always so full of interesting sets you don’t get to see in Target or Walmart back home. This one was located in The Fashion Place Mall.
The Baked Bear
Also in The Fashion Place Mall, we found The Baked Bear. The photos can really speak for themselves here, but these were custom made ice cream cookie sandwiches. I don’t remember the ice cream or the cookie names, but whomever thought up a store to make custom ice cream cookies is a genius! Take a look at our supper! These were the size of burgers, only they were one of the best concoctions we’ve ever encountered on a road trip. We really should find another one or go back to this one someday! Maybe Megan can find us one. She is the food researcher who led us to these delightful treats!
Bricks and Minifigs
We ate our cookie sandwiches on the way to Bricks and Minifigs, one of the first LEGO resale stores in the nation. This store was great! They have some new sets and some old sets, but the feature we enjoy the most are the bulk tables. For so many dollars, you can fill a ziploc baggie with as many LEGO parts as will fit in the bag. The bag must be able to zip shut. Joey told us what parts to look for so Megan and I helped him load up a bag. The photos below are from when we got back home and were getting ready to wash the parts. A not-quite-quart-sized bag holds a LOT! We also picked up a smaller baggie of minifigures.
What storm?
With our LEGO shopping mission accomplished, we drove back to our campground. Upon arrival, we noticed wet leaves on the ground and immediately checked the tent, thankful to not have anything inside. There were a few damp spots around the edges where water had collected on the tarp under the tent, but no major issues.
A little while later, on a walk around the campground, we stopped to chat with the camp host who asked if we had faired alright through the storm. What storm?? I told him we had just set up the tent and then went shopping for a few hours. He told us there was a huge thunderstorm that passed through the area while we were gone. Apparently, we missed out on hail, heavy rain, and high wind! We had noticed the darker sky to the east when we were driving between stores, but never encountered any rain.
Had we not wasted 45 minutes going the wrong way in the morning, we probably would’ve been hanging out at the campground in a thunderstorm after our cave tour. Instead, we were off shopping and eating ice cream cookie sandwiches. Lucky us!
Be sure to subscribe to find out just how lucky we were in the next episode of this adventure! Timpanogos Cave is up next! Please share if you know someone who loves caves or national park adventures.