Boondocking at Escalante, Utah

Thursday, October 5th

Another glorious sunny but cold morning. (28 F) Plan for today is head out to check out our next destination, Escalante Utah. We tried to get reservations at the Petrified Forest SP but only able to secure October 11th, so we took it. It will enable us to dump and fill after almost 10 days of boondocking. So .... we drove to Escalante today to check out "Hole in the Rock" Road. A drycamping site in the Escalante Staircase National Monument. We'd picked up our permit several days ago, which is needed to camp in the National Monument. Here is a  picture Ray took on the way. Hwy 12 was repaved all the way to Escalante. Very nice drive. Apparently it gets a whole bunch more "windy" after this point but we will check it out once we're there. It should be under 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there tomorrow.

On the way back Ray snapped some pictures of the highest point and overlook of Powell's Point and what they call "The Blues".

We scoped out the campsites on the Hole in the Road and will go there tomorrow and find a spot. Lots available for our size.

Back at camp I did a water run to Ruby's Inn and Campground, got rid of some garbage and also topped up our propane tank that we use for the Big Buddy Heater. (We used 2 gallons in 4 days ... that is how cold it is. The tank hold 4.7 gallons.)

Friday, October 6th

Had a slow start this morning and did not get on the road until 10:30 am.  We didn't want to arrive too early to make sure anyone that was going to leave, did.

The wind played havoc along the highway. A tremendous cross breeze. Ray had to slow down and really pay attention to not get knocked out of our lane. Fortunately, there was not very much traffic and we did not have far to go. They are just finishing up with the new paving and are currently painting the lines so we had a slight delay of about 10 minutes.

By noon we'd reached our destination. There's a small pullout just before the turnoff to Hole in the Rock Road and we used it to unhook the car to drive in and pick our site. Ray and I were extremely lucky. One of the "prime sites" that we had our eyes on had become empty today so we quickly grabbed it. There is tons of area to camp here for any size of rig. Mostly a flat plateau with scrub grass and small trees.  When first pulling in the road splits in three.  The left road gets rough quick, the middle road leads to the main camping area, and the right road leads to the prime view sites.  There are five spots along the prime area.

We placed the coach so we had the best view and kept the front window out of the harsh afternoon sun. Once the jacks were deployed, I quickly opened up the slides, put some water down for the dog and off we went for lunch.

The town of Escalante is less than 5 miles back and we'd noticed a cute restaurant on the way in, The Circle D Eatery. They have fabulous burgers, made from local beef, homemade pastrami, and great craft brew on tap with reasonable prices. Once we were fueled up it was back to camp to finish setting up.

What a view out our front window.

Here are some examples of other campsites scattered around us.

As you see, plenty of room for any size rig.

 There is also a "dry waterfall" in the wash below us. There's still a puddle from the last rains about 2 weeks ago.

This campsite is the best "free" site I think we've ever had with the views. Wowsa. Looking forward to a road trip tomorrow up Highway 12 the Journey Through Time Scenic Drive.