Because you can't reserve a campsite in the campgrounds that Daryl and his buddies wanted to stay in, Daryl offered to go down early and find one. So Daryl, Me, and Dustee loaded the car up on Thursday April 30th and headed down to Moab. We left at about four in the afternoon and knew that we would probably be pitching a tent in the dark, but figured it wouldn't be that late when we got there. We also figured, that by going down there thursday night, we would be able to find a camping spot. BOY WERE WE WRONG!
Let me just say that the minute there is a weekend with good weather, everybody in the world packs up their campers and heads off to Moab....I KID YOU NOT! We rolled in at about nine o clock that night and I couldn't believe the amount of cars that were with us heading in. IT WAS CRAZY! When I looked over at the campsites at the beginning of town they were all extremely packed, but we still had faith that we could find one somewhere. So we headed down this road that has about six campgrounds, all along the colorado river. The first campground was full, the second campground was full, you get the idea, they were all full. We hoped that the campground we wanted to go to would have some empty spots because it was the farthest one away, but its also the most popular for that reason, so yes it was full as well. Of course we didn't want to give up, there had to be campgrounds that had openings somewhere, so we headed back to town. Remember those first campgrounds I saw at the beginning of town. Half an hour later, when we got back, there were signs up saying that they were completely full...I couldn't believe it. So we drove around town and Daryl said he had a buddy that told him about these very out of the way campsites that no one would know about and would probably be empty. So we went down this road that looked not so nice and headed for the hunt in the dark for these campsites. I thought my husband was crazy because we started heading down this steep, small road that ran along a cliff. I think he has no idea where he is going and is just making things up. Dustee is in the back laughing because when Daryl asks me if I think he is crazy I answer Yes I do. Then I see this headlights behind us and we're in the middle of nowhere and I think..great now someone has come to kill us. (Thats my overactive imagination coming into play. It does that a lot when I'm tired and think my husbands crazy.) We finally reach the bottom of this canyon and find the campground...which I was shocked was even there. But guess what....completely full. Even this one out in the middle of nowhere, where killers follow you down the canyon in the dark, there were already people there.
By this time I'm tired...its eleven, we've been looking for two hours and I don't want to look for a campground anymore. I want to find a hotel and just lay down. So we head back into town to find a hotel to sleep at for the night. Once back in town, there are a lot of hotels......a lot of hotels with NO VACANCY signs lit up! We start checking the ones that don't have the signs on and they are all priced at a hundred dollars or more. We findi this one hotel that looks crappy and cheap...but go figure..its a hundered and twenty dollars a night to stay there.
By now its almost midnight and I'm ready to cry! I'm so mad that the whole idea of sticking around and camping seems like a horrible idea and I'm even considering just driving home that night. So we stop at a gas station to fill up, Daryl calls his buddies who are supposed to be meeting us the next day and tells them to not even bother coming. We hit the road and head back to Green River Utah, forty miles away, and find a hotel there for the night. As soon as we get in and situated, I become a lot happier because I don't have to wonder if we'll find a place and I can go to sleep.
If you had asked me that night if I would go camping or head home, I would have said head home. But come morning, I figured we should at least try one more time to find a campground because we were right there by Arches National Park and Dustee couldn't remember what it looked like, since the last time we were there was when he was just a little kid. So guess what we did? Yes this crazy trio packed up, got back in the car and started looking for another camping spot. We hoped beyond hope that someone would be leaving that morning and we would be able to find a place to camp. So yes we headed back up the same road from the night before and at the first campground, there were three spots open! We decided to push on because we wanted to see if the specific campground we wanted to stay at had any empty campsites. With our luck though, we pulled in seconds behind another group and lost that campsite. So we hurried back to the first campsite and guess what....in the fifteen minutes we were gone, they ALL FILLED UP! Can you believe it?! UGH! So now I'm mad again, until I notice this other couple packing up their van and I ask them if they are leaving. The guy says yes and I tell Daryl, pull in there...even though they were still packing up. HAPPY DAY we got a camp spot. I was so happy I did a happy dance for about an hour. Okay, not really, but I was really happy.
By the end of the day, all of Daryl's buddies were there, camp was set up and we were ready for camping! The next day, we headed into Arches to hike up to the Delicate Arch, you know the really famous arch that looks like a pair of jeans. I didn't take my camera on the hike because it was raining by the time we started hiking and I had no place to keep it dry. OF course, the higher up we got, the less it rained until it stopped. UGH. So I took a few pics from the bottom of the mountain but it was a lot of fun. We had some friends take their cameras with them so I'll see if I can't find those and post a few on here for ya.
An interesting thing that we found out while we were there is that they give night tours up the colorado river. They have this giant spotlight truck that follows them and lights up the sides of the canyon walls while the tour guide gives them a tour. It was crazy! All of a sudden the canyon wall is glowing and we couldn't figure out why. It happened both nights that we were there and it was crazy. I took a few pics of the canyon walls all lit up by the light and I'll post some for ya here.
All in all the trip turned out to be a lot of fun overall. It was nice to get out and go camping. Of course, from now on....I'm going to make sure we camp at a campground that we can reserve and we won't have this same hassle again.
The guys I went camping with! I was the only girl! Yee haw!!!
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