Paria Rim Rocks

We realized that we have exited Utah into every single border state this summer - and came back every time! We'll see Arizona at least once more, and then Colorado again in October. It has been quite a journey this year.

Coming back into Utah after our Grand Canyon jaunt, we made a brief foray over to the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument. We'd like to see more - maybe someday do a long run or a camping trip down the Paria River canyon to Lee's Ferry, for example. But we were running out of time, and really wanted to spend a couple days in Zion. So we saw a couple things and made a note to come back again.

Near the Visitor's Center, we took a fun little hike to see some mushrooms, or toadstools:


Ah, so that is a toadstool!


A neat one:


Yoga with the mushrooms:



There's one way up high on the side of the white cliff:


Fun little fellow:


Relaxing on a mushroom:



The view out the back of Howie - this time in dispersed camping along the road to Buckskin Gulch. It was a bit of work getting Howie in there, but it turned out to be a wonderful, quiet place in the middle of nowhere. No mosquitos even! We loved it.

We also started experimenting with a cheap solar shower, and this worked out great. Finally an easy way to get somewhat clean while dry camping, without filling our gray tank or running the water pump. Marvelous.