Day 18, Friday, 09/25/15
Next, a stay at Lower Mule Canyon camping area, while in-transit to Natural Bridges National Monument. This ‘dispersed camping’ was quite an experience. (Dispersed Camping means there are no designated or obvious sites, but you should only camp in an area that has been previously disturbed.) The plan was to drive a mile down unpaved Comb Wash Road to the site of some Anasazi ruins. But the road crossed a dry creek bed, which looked deep enough that the RV could get stuck in it. Since we didn’t think it wise to go forward, and couldn’t turn around, we had to back up the road (a slight grade) until there was a modest clearing on both sides of the road that allowed us to do a multi-point turn. But once turned around and proceeding back toward the camping area, we got stuck in the sand. So we backed up a bit, then got rolling forward again using some ‘tractor treadmarks’ on one side of the road for traction. We had looked forward to seeing the ruins, but the road was too sandy for our bikes, and it was too far to walk to, at least in that heat.
After that adventure, we found a campsite, and enjoyed a cocktail while looking at the surrounding cliffs, a blaze of color at sunset. (Lower Mule Canyon, free)
Day 19, Saturday, 09/26/15
Today we swung through Natural Bridges National Monument. First, we took in the movie at the Visitor Center. (We saw several such films on this trip, and they always seemed to be well done, although at one of them, the acoustics in their ‘theater,’ combined with the female narrator’s voice, made it rather difficult to understand much of what was being said.) After learning a bit about how the bridges are formed, and eventually worn away entirely, we drove through the park and stopped at the overlooks to see the big three highlighted in the film: Sipapaku, Kachima, and Ochokomono.
