I put a lot of effort into researching a vacation. I want to utilize our time to the best of our ability and see and experience as much as possible.
When we first started travelling, we did what I suspect most people do: hotels and eating out at restaurants. We quickly discovered that this was a swift way of spending money, and because it had become expensive, we could no longer travel as much.
We gave camping a try and have loved it ever since. Pitching a tent at a campground and cooking our own food was much cheaper and added to the experience we have when exploring this world. Additionally, there is a notable shift in perception regarding dirt. A single mess in a hotel is enough to turn us off the entire place, whereas in our tent, it is almost always dirty to some degree, and that does not bother us at all.
During our America the Beautiful summer vacation, the majority of where we slept would be inside a tent. I have places in mind that I want to see, and when a campground has a stunning attraction to it, it becomes a must-stop and a must-sleep destination.
Goblin Valley State Park, located in Utah, features numerous sights and trails formed by the beauty of erosion. Plus, there were scorpions! We have never seen a scorpion, and if we hike out at night, we might finally get to see one of these creatures! I was eager to plan our first-ever nighttime hike. The only thing I had to do was pick a campsite.
All the places we camp at have websites, and they provide a description of each campsite. Choosing the right site at this campground proved to be difficult. Because it is open and prone to wind, I wanted a spot that would be as sheltered as possible. Plus, it also warned that the location had loose, sandy soil. This would be a significant issue when it came to securing the tent to the ground to protect it from the wind. I had experimented using weights to anchor the tent on a previous trip, just as practice for this location; it worked. I even went as far as checking the direction of wind that the area usually gets for the timeframe we would be arriving. Of all the campgrounds that I have ever booked, planned and attended, Goblin Valley State Park was the most extensively researched.
I was prepared.
I was eager.
Goblin Valley has various areas to explore, and we can do so at any time, day or night. I was excited.
The weather on our trip up to that point had been cooperating. It was never overly windy, or raining, or anything that would be a nuisance. It was hot, but we expected that.
Still, I obsess.
I was obsessed with the weather for Goblin only because if it was windy, I was uncertain whether the weights I would be using would be enough. We had a bad wind experience before, which flattened our tent, and we did not want that to happen again.
I noticed that the wind forecast was higher than I had expected. I also noticed that the wind would die down by midnight and become tolerable for the morning, when we broke camp and explored the area even further.
We would arrive at the State Park a little later than expected. We found our site and realized the wind forecast was dead-on accurate – it was indeed windy. We have set up camp many times in the wind, with little trouble. But there was something different about this wind: it was lifting up everything. When I placed the tarp down, it would lift into the air. Simply standing on it while staking it down did not work, as the wind tried to lift it into the air. After considerable effort, I got he tarp secure and then worked on the tent. It was at this point that I realized a disaster was forming.
The wind was lifting up everything, including sand. When I started with the rain guard for the tent, I knew that the way the wind blew, it would funnel all that sand inside the tent. We could not stay here on this night. Even if the wind died down, as predicted, we would still have too much sand coming into our tent.
I was prepared for everything I thought would happen at this location, except for the uplifting wind. That defeated me. I was looking forward to our night plans and even those for the morning. We had to break camp and stay at the hotel for the night.
But before we left the park, we stopped to explore the closest section of “goblins”. The sun was setting, and we toured what we could. Charlene was relieved that we didn’t see any scorpions. After the brief tour, we would head to a location with cell service.
We would end our night at a hotel, rather than under the starry sky, looking for scorpions.
Not every trip goes as planned, even when that planning was as extensive as I had done.
- Goblin Valley is a place we would love to explore on any upcoming trip. It is a shame that we were unable to conduct a proper exploration due to the wind.
- Other tents were already set up at this location. It was only because of the design of our tent, which has served us so well in every other area, that we could not stay. Had we had any of our other tents, we likely could have been fine.
- There is plenty to see and explore here. The area is remote, so night skies will be clear, adding to the experience.
- There is no cell service for about 20 minutes in either direction.
- Check out the All The Places We Have Been Map to see this location and others near it that we have explored.
