Oct 17 : Cathedral Valley Campground

Oct 17 : Cathedral Valley Campground

There is no place like home. Spent some time today on my rough back road drive towards Cathedral Valley Campground wondering if I would have made better use of this time if I had gone back home instead. I would have had community and some downtime to work out the “perspective” part of this time off.

Then I realized that if I had, I’d have spent a goodly amount of time wishing I’d gone on an adventure instead, logicing that an adventure would give me perspective on full-timing and real out of my head time. I felt like Dorothy all of a sudden – “there’s no place like home” and perhaps I had to go on this adventure to find out what is important to me: community and a home base.

It’s not my home-town that I want, but Home: Community. Location.

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I found out later that there are three ways to access the campground. All are 4×4 recommended, high clearance vehicle required. My route was no exception. The more common route, it seems, is to cross a wash which two days later was impassable. If you cross the Cathedral Valley to come in, you face a rocky, twisty, steep uphill. The way I came in wasn’t too bad, until closer to the campground. Then it got pretty rocky. Glad I have my very capable Tacoma!

Obviously nice road here, but the photo doesn’t capture how steep this is!

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I saw a couple of these dwellings, but I’m not sure what they are. For hunters?

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When I drove into the campground I spotted another FWC! Of course, I drove up to say hello. Turns out, they are on the Wander the West forum too! I parked two spots over from them in the small barebones campground, and we did a bit of exploring down to the overlook and had some wonderful chats that evening. Just when I start to get despondent about life on the road, I meet amazing people out there!

Pugsly used to be so photogenic. You can see the other FWC camper there in the background!

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Argos and I went exploring and found the cliff edge for some amazing views of Cathedral Valley

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Pretty spot to camp for the night.

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The dogs were not cooperating for picture-taking. Apparently, something elsewhere was far more interesting.

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The view was amazing.

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The rocky outcroppings out there looked rather flat when I first arrived. As the sun lowered, the shadows caught up, and gave definition to these structures. Lighting has such an amazing effect on view, perspective, appearance.

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I got these photos with my little Lumix point and shoot! Not too shabby!

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The dogs weren’t terribly impressed, but they did seem to like it up there.

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We had some nice evening clouds.

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and a lovely sunrise the next morning.

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