Travelogues
2015 New Mexico & Utah Trip

Monday, September 29

Chores Day

Today was a maintenance day. We cleaned up the motorhome, went grocery shopping, and did laundry at the Laundratopia. We also did maintenance work on our images by backing them up to a second drive and completing the metadata. It wasn't a fun day, but we got all our chores done before enjoying dinner and a movie.

We also wanted a nice easy day because tomorrow will be our most challenging hike of this part of the trip. We're returning to Bisti Wilderness and hiking to the Wings Section. This used to be a relatively easy hike, but the BLM closed the access to the northern parking area. That changed it from a 3-mile round trip to a 5-mile round trip. The greater challenge will be that we hike northeast for 1.5 miles and then have to cross a series of ridges as we hike north to reach the wings. With no trails or signs, we will have to depend on the GPS route I created in Google Earth. It should be a fabulous area to photograph, but we're going to have to work for the images.

Tomorrow's weather prediction calls for 90-degree heat, which will be the hottest day since we've been here. It's going to cool dramatically on Saturday, but I'm not sure we want to wait that long for cooler weather. There's still plenty to see here, but we're already cutting days from Monument Valley and Moab. The GOP is threatening to shut down the government again, so we may have plenty of extra days when Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument are closed. We just went through this the last time we traveled to Utah in 2013. Didn't the GOP learn its lesson?