As the week began, I continued to stay at Sunset View Campground on Navajo Mountain. It is a part of the National Park Service. There are 30 campsites, and each has a picnic table and a grill. There are no firepits and no hook-ups at the sites. There is a bathroom centrally located, though I used my own. There are many trash cans throughout, and the Ranger emptied them every day that I was there. It doesn’t cost to stay there, and you can stay up to 14 days. Quite a few people rolled in on Friday and Saturday nights, but by Sunday, most of the campsites were once again empty. I had a beautiful spot on the outside of the circular road that ran through the campground. Being on the inside, all the grills and picnic tables,and your useable campsite space would be divided up among those using the inside of the circle, like a carved up pie. But being on the outside of the circle, meant that my “back yard” extended farther than I could walk. It was probably many acres and although I doubt it was officially “my campsite” I did have access to all of it, for miles and miles. Even though I couldn’t see it from my camping spot, this was where my “back yard” led to:
I don’t think I could’ve hiked that far, but when I walked up to the Visitor’s Center, the Ranger suggested I take the trail from the back door and walk about a mile to the vista point. I did and that’s where I got some amazing photographs of the canyon within Navajo Mountain Monument.
My life there was so simple, so easy, and quite idyllic. I really did lose track of time (which was not hard to do since Utah is on Mountain Time, and Navajo Nation is on Arizona Standard Time, and I was in Arizona which is always on Daylight Saving Time. Depending which cell tower my electronic device was picking up, I could be in any of those time zones and sometimes several at once.)
I made the rounds most days, taking Cosmo for walks around the loop, and stopping to say hi to anyone I encountered. I met a very nice man from Canada who was traveling through both North and South America on a motorcycle. He had just come up from Chile. I asked how he did that on a motorcycle and he told me he left his bike in Panama, north of the canal and someone from South America left their motorcycle in Panama south of the canal, and they just traded for a while. They apparently traded back about a month ago and he is winding his way through the southwest, and then on up to Canada. He’s been living on a motorcycle and out of a backpack for 2 years now. He had a tent and a sleeping bag and said he was mostly limited by how much food and water he could carry. I was rivetted that he could live on so much less than anyone I’d met along the road. I felt like a hoarder by comparison.
On another walk around the loop, I met a young German couple. They had just finished school last month and were to start jobs two months from now. They decided to come to the States, rent a car, and travel and camp for the most part. The guy said (the woman didn’t speak much English) they stopped weekly at an Air B&B to do laundry and take showers. I’m always surprised by people on the road who have so much less than I do and are at least as happy as I am being nomadic, for however long it lasts.
Visiting “neighbors” really helps me feel connected and have human contact. I’ve said often to people who ask if I get lonely on the road that I have some very meaningful twenty-minute relationships. Both the man from Canada and the couple from Germany left very soon after I met them. It’s unlikely I’ll ever see any of them again, (never say never) but for the brief time we talked, there was a connection, a kinship. The fact that we all live on the road told us so much about each other before we even introduced ourselves. We might not know the particulars, but we have a pretty good sense of what the other’s life is like. Since we live life on a very basic level, we also connect on that basic level. It’s hard to explain, but we connect as human beings. The connection is sincere, and there is a sense of caring that I rarely used to find with strangers. It’s encouraging.
After my daily dose of human contact, Cosmo and I went to our “back yard” and I brought out one of his favorite toys that had been lost under the front seat. It is a rope, tied to a ball at one end and a loop at the other. There was a large rock surface (I’m guessing nearly an acre?) behind our site, and he could “go long” and I’d throw the ball over his head. He’d grab it and run back, and I’d hold the loop end and we’d play tug of war until he got ready for me to throw some more.
We spent the next few days kicking back in a way that I haven’t done for months. I spent a lot of time reading, both outside at my picnic table and inside the van. Cosmo and I went for two or three walks “around the loop” every day. The highlight of the walks was always meeting our neighbors. They changed often. Although I stayed for a total of 8 days, many of our neighbors were there only for a night or two. Even so, it was always gratifying when we’d go out for our “pre-bedtime pee” to have someone shout out from across the way “Good night, Scott. Good night, Cosmo.”
Staying put for days on end afforded me the luxury of doing both short-term and long-term trip planning. In the short term, I plotted an itinerary that would take me up the eastern edge of Utah, through Oljato, Mexican Hat and into Moab and Arches National Monument. The long-term plans are a bit more vague. I am tentatively planning on heading east to Colorado and heading south through New Mexico. I hear from friends that fires could interfere with those plans, but we’ll see when we get that far. There are a number of wonderful things to see and beautiful places to stay along that route. My even longer-term goal is to head to northern California and into Oregon for the summer. We’ll see what actually comes to fruition.
The last day on Navajo Mountain was extremely windy. We got out of the van only briefly for Cosmo to pee or to take a quick walk. The wind was steady at 25 mph with gusts reported up to 50 mph. I spent much of the day reading, listening to Audio Books and napping. The winds settled down some by nightfall and the sky was clear and full of stars. Orion is setting early these days; that’s a sure sign that winter is about over.
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We left the next morning for Monument Valley. I’d picked out a very cheap campground for the night that had propane, laundry, showers fresh water, a grocery store and even a pool. We stayed in the “dry camping area,” meaning a dirt lot across from the main building that housed the office, showers, laundry, and indoor swimming pool. We had no hookups. We brought our own water and electricity, so we were good. We had been on Navajo Mountain for almost 2 weeks (minus the 2-day drive into and out of the Grand Canyon). I fully intended to be on the road through Valley of the Gods and on up to Moab and points beyond for the next two weeks, so it was nice to be able to stock the food cabinets and fridge, fill my freshwater tank and get the last real shower I’m likely to see for a while. This was our backyard:
The next morning, after a quick walk, we drove ¼ mile down the road and topped off our propane tank. With full water tank and stocked fridge, we headed toward Valley of the Gods. The drive was easy, on nice roads and quite beautiful scenery. Just north of Mexican Hat, UT, I spotted the sign for Valley of the Gods Road and took a left. It was quite a transition, onto a rutted dirt road, heading straight toward a wide ditch. Upon closer inspection, I think it was a dry riverbed, and holding my breath, we crossed it slowly. There were beautiful and unusual rock formations surrounding us. I pulled over to the first space I saw and got leveled up. When I got out my cell phone to check the time I saw that I had only 2 bars, and reception was minimal. I tried my wireless router and could barely get a signal. So before settling in any further, I decided to go up the hill and see if I could do any better. The surrounding rock formations were gorgeous, and I found a huge campsite that was on a bluff. We got settled in, forgetting the main reason I moved was to have better cell/internet service. I got lunch and when I sat down at my laptop, I had zero service. Nada. Zip. I decided that was the Universe’s way of telling me it was time to take a break and unplug from the virtual world and make some time to reconnect with the beauty surrounding me. So we walked, and I took some photos, trying different lenses and creative angles. It was good for me. By nightfall, I realized how dependent my life had become on my cell phone. I wanted to move on in the morning, but could not pull up Google Maps, or my calendar to see where I had decided to go. I didn’t even know what day it was. (not that it mattered that much. I was pretty sure that it was either Wednesday, or Thursday, or maybe even Friday. Either way, it made no difference. I was going to move on in the morning and head north, finding a new free spot to stay, and, I hoped, a cell signal.) I pulled out my DVD binder and found an old movie to watch. After that, it was bedtime. The wind had kicked up, but it was still quite warm outside. I slept with the windows open and the wind howling outside. I woke up with the waning moon almost directly overhead and Venus hanging in the brightening eastern sky. Bliss.
I started the coffee and took Cosmo out but had to forego my usual morning routine of climbing back in bed and reading news headlines on my phone, listening to a podcast, and just easing into the day. With no internet, I couldn’t get e-mail or listen to podcasts. So instead, I started packing up and latching doors and cupboards. I started the van without knowing where I was heading. Even though I had the coordinates of where I wanted to go next, I couldn’t access that information on my calendar, and I couldn’t access Google Maps. I just drove down off the mesa and headed north on 163. After a couple miles I came across a motel and pulled into the parking lot where I could once again get a cell signal and access my stored information. I clicked on the coordinates of where I wanted to go and arrived about 45 minutes later.
I drove down a long, poorly paved road, (that has become a somewhat meaningless term for me over the past year) but at least it was paved. My GPS directed me to take a left onto a very rutted dirt road. I drove on that for way too long, but my GPS assured me I was getting closer to my destination. Within a matter of minutes, I did indeed arrive at a large, fairly flat dirt spot in the middle of nowhere. There was already a campfire ring made from rocks set up behind it. It was surrounded by a canyon, which wound its way around the spot where I parked.
To the north there were snow-capped mountains. It was gorgeous, but having driven many miles in, I was far, far from humankind. I like being remote, but I also like seeing other vans off in the distance. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel safer. After I was all set up and settled in, we went exploring. While trying to decide if I could make my way down into the canyon, I saw a van pass by, heading out the way I came in. If there were other humans nearby, I think they just left.
As I was figuring out a way to get down into the canyon (This is not the GRAND Canyon. It was probably 15 or 20 feet deep) the wind started picking up. I realized I could not climb down wearing flip-flops and holding a leash with an eager dog on the other end. I went back to the van to change shoes and drop Cosmo off, but by that time the winds had reached gale force. I checked the weather channel and it said there was a high wind warning. Steady winds at 25-35 mph with occasional gusts up to 50 mph. The van was rocking violently by this time and the red dust was flying everywhere. I’ve not seen the movie Dune yet, but I did see the trailer. I think I had somehow found my way to the planet of constant wind and sand. Cosmo laid across my lap and I reassured him that we’d be fine. We were forced to stay inside the entire day, until almost sunset when the wind died down enough for Cosmo to go out and pee. When I opened the van doors, a fine red dust fell from the ledge above, sparkling in the light of the setting sun. All the windows which were shut as tightly as possible were whistling. The ground is a fine, red dust resembling red baby powder. It penetrates everything as the wind blows. I sat down at my laptop and the surface of the table and keyboard was covered with a red grit. I got a damp cloth and wiped off the table and my laptop. I made myself a sandwich and sat back down at the table and it was totally covered in red grit again.
When I went to bed, I gazed out the rear window at the stars. The moon wouldn’t be up for another few hours. It was pitch black and I could only vaguely make out where the earth ended and the sky began. I don’t think I’d ever been this far removed from other human beings.
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The wind died down some. The clouds were as beautiful as I’ve ever seen. We had to go explore. It wasn’t easy for an old man, but I managed to find a gentle way into the canyon. We hiked down and the reward was some of the most amazing rock formations I’ve ever seen. Check them out if you are interested at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/195383419@N07/
Lessons from the Road: The sense of community on the road is difficult to explain. It’s very non-invasive. People would never come and knock on my door, or even follow me over to my “back yard” or the picnic table at my campsite, at least not without being invited. But it is rare to pass anyone as I walk around the campground without them saying hello, either introducing themselves, or picking up the conversation where we left off yesterday. It’s a special part of my life these days.
As primitive as my life tends to be in many ways, I am constantly reminded that I have become George Jetson for the most part. I ask my Google Mini what time it is, or what the weather will be and the sing-song male voice gladly and politely gives me whatever information I need. I sit at my laptop and communicate with people around the world or plot my course for the next week. But I just spent 24 hours without cell service. No phone, no access to Google, or my maps, or my calendar. I couldn’t make a phone call, send a text, or check the weather. I could not plan my drive for the next day. I had no internet, so no YouTube and no podcasts. No Netflix or Hulu. I went from being George Jetson to Fred Flintstone just by driving a mile off the main road. I sat and made long, thoughtful replies to e-mails I had received earlier in the day knowing I could not send those replies until I got back to some semblance of civilization. It was good to unplug for a day, but it also reminded me how dependent I am on electronics. If my phone continued to be out of commission, how would I get to the next town? Where IS the next town? How could I tell anyone where I was? It was more than a little bit frightening.
Then I moved to an even more remote place. I believe my current location is as far as I’ve ever been from other humans, and yet I have a good cell signal. I believe the cell signal is coming from a snow-capped mountain I can see in the distance. When I look at Google Maps, it shows me as being ON that mountain at an altitude of 11,320 feet. The weather channel thinks I’m there as well. But when I input my GPS coordinates that I used to get to where I’m currently camped, it shows me as being outside of Bluff, UT, an hour away from the mountain. The truth is that I’m no longer sure where I am, but I do know how to get back to the main road (Hwy 163). I’ve still got a full tank of propane, and water, and enough food for a week or more. Where I am is beautiful, so I may as well enjoy myself even if I can’t find me on a map.