Beautiful Places to Camp in Utah

At Monument Valley

Dixie National Forest, just above Natural Bridges National Monument

Route 66

Alaska? Yukon?

No. Arizona. National Forest Road 305 in Kaibab National Forest, just south of Grand Canyon.

Road trips are great - as long as the parks are not shut down...

That was yesterday as I was heading south through the Petrified Forest National Park. What an interesting landscape. Whole trees made of stone and millions of years old.

Today I am camping in Glenn Canyon, as there is a severe weather warning for a winter, yes a winter storm for northern Arizona I thought it might be good to come down some feet from the high eleveations I have been the last couple of days. The other challange might be whether the park is still open tomorrow. Should the goverment shut down tonight, that would also mean that the National Parks would all be shut down by tomorrow. The ranger came already by and told me just before I paid my camping fees at the self pay stations, that I should not check in for more than one night as I might have to leave tomorrow.

We'll see, if I am snowed in they can't through me out...

Good night.

Sometimes it's just better to be on top

The most basic RV I have seen so far

"That didn't sound quite right, did it?" - Please confirm that you are over 18 years old before reading the following post!

The scene is a Starbucks outside of Tucson Arizona, a Thursday morning, quite a busy place. I am in line, in front of me a mother with her two kids, one on her arm, probably some 2 years old or so, the other maybe a year or two older on the ground, playing with a little colorful rubber ball. Of course the ball is flying all over the Starbucks place, once I pick it up and put it back in the kids hands, another time some other coffee hungry person in line does. Just when the mother is approaching the desk to place her order a gentleman probably in his seventies somewhere behind me picks the ball up and gives it to the little one on the arm of the mom instead, the little one quickly put the rubber ball in her mouth. The mother takes it out and hands it to the kid standing on the floor looking up with his cute big eyes. Just as the mom was at the desk to place her order the little kid on the floor takes control over the scene that morning at Starbucks: “She just licked my ball, mommy!” loud and clear, the little one says. I burst out laughing; the cute blond girl behind the desk quickly tries to safe the situation: “That didn’t sound quite right, did it?” Mommy didn’t think it was very funny and gives me a killing look. While the blond one behind the counter would love to join me laughing but very professionally bits her lips instead. None of the other guests seem to have picked up on it or their mind is just not as messed up as mine…. or here people do not let their thoughts drift away to such fun things, do they?

Eventually everyone gets his or her coffee, the little one has his ball back, the world is back in order. A beautiful sunny day as I step out with my Espresso, still a little smile on my face.

If only mommy would remember and tell the boy the story in some 15 years. They could have a good laugh all together.