Day 4 – Canyonlands National Park

We got absolutely hammered last night. The wind picked up around midnight, and we got pounded by thunder and lightning before the torrential rain gushed forth. Although we were tucked safely inside the Teardrop, Dad and I fretted that the aluminum siding turns the trailer into a really adorable, well-traveled lightning rod. I also worried that I left the windows down on the car (they were up), or that I forgot to put my shoes in the dry box (I did not forget). I reached out for Dad’s hand and grasped it tightly as the raging thunder rocked our tiny Teardrop. Truly, one of the more terrifying storms I have ever endured.

 The rain subsided after about an hour. We awoke at 5:30 to perfectly blue skies – and a huge pool of standing water beneath our picnic table. That explains the mosquitoes. It also explains the thick red sludge in the middle of the streets of Moab. Our neighbor at the next campsite told me that it was the second storm in the four days they camped here, and that the road into Moab was closed because of a mud slide a couple of days ago. We heard someone today mention “monsoon season.” In Utah?! Who knew?!

The rest of the campground seems to have weathered the storm fairly well. Most of our neighbors have trailers or sprinter vans, so they were all high and dry. One neighbor had a tent perfectly pitched on the tent pad last night. This morning, there was nothing but the soggy, boneless skin of a tent draped over the picnic table, and two groggy campers emerging from the back of their SUV. Looks like they had a rough night.

 

It's been fun, actually, to peer into the campsites and check out the different rigs. One neighbor has a fully electric Ford 150 – the Lightning – which apparently pulled an oversized teardrop trailer – one of those big puffy ones with a kitchen and a dinette inside – all the way from Nebraska. Dad is fully geeking out.

 

Dad and I set out early to beat the heat. We drove into Canyonlands National Park, then drove all the way to the Grand View Point, at the end of the Islands in the Sky mesa, for a park ranger talk about the geology of Canyonlands: hundreds of millions of years of deposition, lithification and erosion, building up layers upon layers of rock, then carving it all away. Not centuries. Not millennia. Not millions of years. Hundreds of millions of years. It kind of puts this next election – whatever happens – in perspective. The earth has lasted this long, we can last another four years, right?

 

From there we hiked along the rim of the mesa, with broad views of the canyons cut by the Colorado River to the east and the Green River to the west.

 

So: Boom. Dad and I just crossed off National Park #43 out of 63. 

 

As we hiked along the rim behind a family with three young children -- we listened to them laugh and chatter, and we noticed that the little girl hung onto her mother’s hand for the entire hike --   it struck me that this is our first every national park visit without kids. And I got a little teary.  

 

After lunch, we sat in on another ranger talk about kangaroo rats … not because we are fascinated by the tiny nocturnal rodents, but because the program was presented on the visitor center’s front porch, and we were looking for a cool, shady spot to sit down.

 

The heat and the unrelenting sun are wearing us down. We spent the afternoon back at the campsite, moving our camp chairs to follow the shade as it shifts under the shelter. Tomorrow, we’ll pack up and move on. We’re covered in layers of sun screen, bug spray, sweat and grime, so we’re hoping that we can find showers!