We left Bryce around 10AM to go out to Grand Staircase Escalante. We were up in the air about where we were going to stay for the night. The plan was to try our hand at BLM camping. BLM is the Bureau of Land Management which is an entity out west that I really wish we had in the south. Basically its massive swaths of wilderness open to public use. You can stay anywhere you want to with no permit.
As we arrived in Escalante we went to the visitor's center to get the skinny on the BLM situation. We were kind of let down after talking to the ranger because she said there wasn't much to be found out where we were looking to stay.....but months ago we had gone so far as to scope out Google Earth for some spots along the main highway so we were determined.
We headed on down the road to try and snag a site. After about 15 minutes of driving we spotted a little dirt road off to the side and decided to go for it. As we made our way through the rutty red dirt we saw some empty campsites and knew that we were in the right place. We passed on a couple that looked so-so when we found a left turn leading to what would end up being one of the top 5 campsites of our entire trip. We pitched our tent right on the side of a bluff overlooking miles of wild rock wilderness. Not a soul in sight. Absolutely awesome.
Unfortunately the high of finding such a beautiful site was quickly replaced by a low when I walked back to the van to find Stephanie frantically trying to fix the roof rack, which she somehow managed to totally screw up. My heart sank some because here we are in the middle of the desert, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and we cannot move the van like this. To make matters worse we had been fighting all day because of a silly matter earlier that morning. This did not make for a great outcome. We pretty much blew up on each other right there in the middle of the desert. So, we had to unpack the whole roof rack (which I hate doing anyway,) pull it off of the car and out of the blistering hot sun and fix it. Fortunately the guy at REI had warned me of this happening so I had an idea of what was going on. We got it fixed in short order and then decided to resolve our issues because honestly, we really didn't want to be fighting......we wanted to be enjoying the desert. So that's what we did!!!
We spent the rest of the day laying around camp and exploring the surrounding area. That night we watched a beautiful sunset and had some delicious boiled hotdogs lol. As we sat around by the light of the lantern that night a cute little packrat darted in and out of the shadows, never staying still for more than a second, looking for food. At one point he even jumped over my foot. That night I slept out of the tent under the stars for the first time while Steph got to have the tent all to herself. Tomorrow we leave for Arches National Park in Moab, UT where we will have a very special visitor.