Thursday, 28 through Sunday, 31 October 2021
I spent much of my time here trying to catch up on the backlog of posts I hadn't done yet. I only did 4 posts because it took awhile to edit the photos I'd taken and to try to describe what I saw. Utah is an unusual state in many ways.
This campground is designated as a Dark Sky campground. Several of those I've stayed in recently have that designation. The campground drastically limits the lights it keeps on around the campground - usually just one at the entrance to a bathroom - and even those are aimed to keep the light pointing down. And they urge campers to turn off their outdoor lights at bedtime - and almost all of them do. It means those of us up after dark can see a real display of stars, which is nice.
This campground had an unusual way of keeping the grass short in its playground area: a flock of sheep, tended by 2 dogs. I found this out when I walked my dogs down to the off-leash dog park next to the playground, and I found this whole flock of sheep grazing away. And then we were accosted by a dog that looked like a very large, white Golden Retriever. I'm pretty sure that's a specific breed but don't know which one. Anyway, it was very protective of the sheep, which my dogs weren't bothering except by their mere presence in the vicinity. And then a second one of these dogs came up. Both dogs seemed much more focused on my dogs, even though they were in the fenced-in dog area, rather than on the sheep, which were unnerved by all the sudden dog activity and started moving off the playground and around the campground and out onto the highway. I saw drivers having to stop because the sheep were milling around back and forth across the road, and neither of their 2 minders were minding them at all. What a to-do.
I saw those sheep again another day running along an unpaved road alongside the campground, so I think maybe they live at someone's place nearby - there were several houses down unpaved roads in the area.
Just outside the edge of the campground, someone had a corral of horses that seemed to live right there in that small corral - they were always there. There was a sign nearby offering horses and horseback tours for a price, though I never saw any takers. Those horses must have been aching for exercise and bored out of their minds. But my main concern was to keep my dogs from noticing them. Amazingly, in all the time we walked around that campground, and as visible as the horses were to me, the dogs never seemed to really see them. Thank goodness.
The campground also rented Jeeps and I did see people taking them out. This is definitely Jeep country - there's so much scenery to see and such rough roads to traverse to see it.
One day I did chores and discovered some extreme skimping in the bathroom. The shower curtains were too narrow to cover the opening to keep the water in. The water temperature was either scalding or icy - nothing in between. The lights operated by a motion detector, which detected no motion in the shower areas so didn't acknowledge my presence and turned off after 5 minutes. I thought 5 minutes was pretty skimpy considering all the things people might need to do in a bathroom for more than 5 minutes. I got clean, but it was no thanks to the management.
But their laundry room was adequate and fairly clean, so you can't have everything.
I turned my mattress over, glad again that I'd made the decision a couple of years ago to get a mattress that could be turned over. It'll make the mattress last much longer, not to mention the benefits for my back.
One day - and it was nearly a full day - I went to Hovenweep National Monument, and I'll do a separate post about that.
Mostly what I did, though, was enjoy the scenery. I took photos but never seemed to have my camera available when the light was perfect.
The campground was surrounded, albeit at a distance, by absolutely stunning rocks. Monument Valley is a huge area that includes sandstone buttes that rise as much as 1,000' high. But you can see from my photos that besides the buttes, there are fingers and spires of rock that I guess are the result of erosion - likely from wind, rather than water.
I found that these rocks changed character dramatically depending on the angle of the sun's light. I should have just carried a camera with me constantly, so that's a lesson learned. Once again, my photos don't even begin to do this area justice. Its beauty is an austere version - this ain't no Hudson Valley, NY - but it's stunningly gorgeous, all the same.
My campground was a mile from the nearest town - Monument Valley, UT - and about 30 miles from the decent-sized town of Kayenta, AZ. Both those places have hotels and tourist accommodations. But if you want to camp, this KOA was clean and well-run (aside from the shower problems). I absolutely think this area is worth a visit.
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