Today was hot. It was probably in the high 90s all day and at our electric and water only campsite, the AC for some reason was tripping the breakers after running about a half hour. We stayed in and tried not to melt until it got a little cooler but we had big plans for some late afternoon sightseeing.
Our time at Capitol Reef National Park has come to an end. Tomorrow is Monday and I have pushed off my work obligations as long as I can without causing any serious pain for myself and others. It has been an awesome and unexpected experience as we knew very little about it prior to our arrival.
Today is our only full day here in Capitol Reef and we have a full agenda. Yesterday we completed the girls Junior Ranger program and got their badges so today we can just have fun and do some exploring.
Our night at Wonderland RV Park was brief. In a more populated area, we would have found a place to boondock instead. But since our 3G card doesn’t work real well, we opted to pay for the night since they promised a great wifi connection. Well, the connection was less than great up until about 11PM. Once everyone went to bed, I was able to take better advantage of it.
We got a fairly early start this morning considering both of us went to bed well after midnight. I actually only got about 3 hours of sleep but I am not going to let that get in the way of our big plans today. Our destination today is Bryce Canyon National Park about 20 miles up the road from us.
Today is our official day to tour the Grand Canyon National Park after getting into town around dusk yesterday. The weather is definitely getting much warmer even at this high elevation so I can’t even imagine how hot it is at the base of the desert in Arizona. Ava is ready with her sunglasses and hat and even a couple of dandelions as mini-umbrellas for some much needed shade from this heat wave.
Last night getting to Asheville, North Carolina was another late one. Google Maps let us down again and took us to a Walmart that was not there. Running low on fuel and driving in the windy and narrow roads of the Great Smoky Mountains looking for an alternate boondocking place caused just a little bit of anxiety for Marlene.
We woke up in the morning and got a real sense about what the Great Smokies are all about. The fog sure makes everything a little blurry. Or maybe that’s just our camera..
Our night in the parking lot of the Flying J just outside of St. Augustine was great. We had obviously no hook ups of any kind but we felt safe and had a great connection with our Sprint Air Card which allowed us to get a bunch of work done. Thinking back, I don’t think we have boondocked in a parking lot since the night before our visit to Sanibel Island at a Walmart in Fort Myers. That was a month and a half ago.
We got into Corpus Christi, TX pretty late the night before and found a Walmart to boondock at for the night. It was our first night of boondocking since replacing the house batteries in Tucson. I wanted to make sure it was working properly and it would handle our power load when we are not plugged in. The last time we boondocked in Tempe, Arizona, we woke up in the morning with not enough electricity to even run the fridge on propane mode. Our new batteries on the other hand performed like rock stars all night. They provide enough juice to let us even run our TV in the morning for Ava to watch PBS kids before we left for Padre Island with power to spare.
We have now finally left our comfort zone. Treading on new grounds with every rotation of the tires as we head east with Mali Mish in tow is more thrilling than we have imagined. And it is only getting better by the minute.
