Current Location: Valley of the Gods, UT
Current Song: Highly Compatible by The Motet
Current Beer: 805 Blonde Ale by Firestone Walker

We said goodbye to Arizona (for now) and headed into Utah. You would think in the middle of absolute fucking nowhere like this there’d be no driving stress. But it was a weirdly annoying drive. I mean, relative to everything obviously, let’s keep things in perspective. I’m not saying it’s equal stress of New York / Denver / DC traffic.

Mostly just lots of RVs and campers going REALLY slow. And I drive slow, these guys were fucking SLOW. Like 45mph in a 65mph zone slow. And that’s their right, you actually end up getting more pissed at the 5 cars in front of you that refuse to pass, leaving you with no choice but to deal with it. Also, there were a lot hills and valleys obviously, and no one ever even FUCKING TRIES to maintain their speed up and down, so it’s just a mess. Thank goodness for adaptive cruise control to take some of the edge off.

At one point there were four bikers pulling back into the road from the shoulder. Except only three of them made it out in front of the block of cars I was currently in. The last one pulled out behind me. And not only did he ride up my ass for the next few miles, but his buddies now in front of the pack slowed us down even more. Great combo.

So finally the guy behind me makes his move, passes the 5-6 cars/campers to get back to his buddies. At which point, you’d assume “yay, reunited, we can hit the fucking gas pedal!” And you’d be wrong, they still just cruised along at the same speed. Irritating. I eventually just pulled over and gave the puppies a quick walk to break out of that weird situation.

Anyways, I decided to spend a night at Goosenecks State Park before heading into Valley of the Gods, mostly because it just looked awesome.

At one point I was walking the dogs, and as we walked by our neighbor, a Golden Lab just cartoonishly poked his head out from behind the camper and looked at us. Okay cool, hello puppy.

Then we kept walking away, and every time I turned around he had walked a little bit closer to us and as soon as I was looking he stopped. Again, like a cartoon, I was waiting for him to start whistling a looking away. Leaning against a street lamp. Why do I have that image in my head? It’s a wolf in my head, is that a cartoon somewhere?

Anyways, eventually we got far enough away he didn’t follow us anymore. Then we turned around to head back, and sure enough I see a yellow blob sitting right next to the van. I finally get close enough to see what’s actually going on and his owner is calling him, trying to get him to come back to their campsite and he is not budging. Finally they have to walk over, leash him up and drag him away.

Poor guy just wanted to party. I SO wish I could have let them off the leash and play but absolutely zero percent trusted them in that situation. As I passed the owner I explained that two dogs live in that van and he probably smelled them, that’s why he was doing that. She was super relieved because she was super confused, out of character for him to do randomly.

Then the next morning, I’m working at the desk and I hear one of them start whining. Except when I look, they’re both up and attentive trying to look out the window. The lab had parked itself under our open window and was sitting there whining. Owner had to drag him off again. Like I said, poor guy.

Eventually we left and headed into Valley of the Gods. There are two entrances, one west and one east. The east one is closer to a little town called Bluff, and the west one is closer to… nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So I chose to head in from the west entrance to find a spot assuming that side of the park is a little less traveled. Within a few miles there was a small offshoot of a road that had a decent looking spot. Ever adventurous I decided to keep going to see what was further.

PRO TIP: Always keep going. There’s this weird feeling that hits when you’ve found “THE SPOT” and you know you don’t have to keep going. So unless you get that feeling, keep going. I’ve never regretted trying to go a little further, even when the following happens…

Within a few minutes, though, the road got rougher than I was willing to put the van through, so we turned around and settled into our spot. We were far enough from the main road that I was able to let the dogs off leash and roam around, which is always an amazing bonus. Especially after a campsite where I couldn’t do that.

The next morning we headed to the other side of the park since we’ll be headed to Bluff after this. That’s where we currently are, but will be leaving once I’m done with this. It’s fucking amazing here, but today is going to be super windy and I just don’t feel like being covered in even more red dust than we already are.

I’d say that’s the best picture ever of Goose, but that would be incorrect. THIS is the best picture ever of Goose:

You’re welcome.