While staying outside of Moab, I made one more adventure into Arches National Park before heading out towards San Diego again. I didn’t get to see all of Arches or Canyonlands, but that just gives me more reason to return again some day! On the way, I stopped at the Grand Canyon North Rim, and headed home through Arizona and Imperial County, California.
On Wednesday, I headed into Arches one last time, visiting a few areas of the park that I had already missed. However, I never made it to all of Arches, and having only briefly visited one section of Canyonlands, I’m left with a strong desire to return some day. Nonetheless, the spot I was at outside of Moab became increasingly crowded with noisy, rather unpleasant people. I had a wonderful time chatting with locals there, but it was time to leave on Friday, where I headed out towards the Grand Canyon.
For Friday night, I scoped out a wonderful spot on the Northeast Rim of the Grand Canyon. I arrived late at night, after a wonderfully beautiful drive through Southeastern Utah and Northeastern Arizona, including a huge chunk of Navajo land that was absolutely gorgeous and by the beautiful Vermilion Cliffs. It was already dark by the time that I did finally arrive at camp, so I had to wait til morning to really appreciate the view. To my surprise, the spot that I specifically got even had some pretty good Verizon LTE, with my booster turned on (none otherwise), but I barely took advantage of it with my very short stay. If that wasn’t enough already, however, I continued on to visiting the North Rim of the National Park itself. I have spent some amazing time on the South Rim, including a Rim-to-River-and-Back hike, and I found it wonderful to actually pinpoint one of those trails from the opposite side. I spent the entire morning at the park, taking tons of pictures!
However, I couldn’t spend nearly the time that I would dream of spending at the Grand Canyon, so I had to continue heading South. I scoped out a wonderful spot just outside of Congress, AZ for Saturday night. Again, I arrived late at night, after an absolutely beautiful drive through parts of Arizona I had not seen before. Again, I arrived late at night, but I didn’t really mind as I had plans to get to San Diego Sunday, still.
I got a wonderful surprise in Congress, where I was able to fill up on gas at only $1.99/gallon! That was enough to take me all the way to my parents’ boat in San Diego, where I’m now spending the next week.
En route to San Diego, I passed through Imperial County, California, where I passed through the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness Area. This is an area I’ve always wanted to see and just never quite made it. I was excited to finally get through there, and I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the dunes!
After my stop in the sand dunes, I continued through the Pacific Coast Mountain Ranges (specifically, the Peninsular Ranges) of San Diego, and made my way to the San Diego Bay, where my parents live on their boat. I’m rather happy to be staying here for a week, while I take care of some of the tasks I need to get done while here.