It was the goblins

The plan was beautiful: drive down to Southern Utah Thursday morning, see Goblin Valley that day and camp there that night, drive over to Arches Friday and camp there, then get back sometime Saturday. We had meals planned down to the salt shakers (Lewis and Natalie even brought stuff for a gourmet Dutch oven teriyaki chicken), the flashlights, the sunscreen, we’d thought of just about everything. So much for great plans.

The drive was great - we had walkie talkies between the cars, which was too much fun - and we got to Goblin Valley without a hitch. Then we got out of the car and were knocked over by the wind - our first warning. Guarding our eyes from the stinging, flying dust, we set up the tents, holding everything down with rocks that we weren’t using at the time. The wind was really strong, so we staked them down better than ever. Those suckers weren’t going anywhere! As we were leaving to go hike, Lewis & Nat’s tent started caving in on itself from the wind - our second warning.

We hiked the Little Wildhorse Canyon trail, which was absolutely stunning! These pictures tell it all:

We were pooped and the girls had had it by the time we got back to camp. This is what we found when we got there:

The picture doesn’t do justice to the damage. The hole by Danika’s left hand is about three feet wide and not along any seam, and the pole she’s holding in her right hand is one of the main support poles for the tent and was completely destroyed in two different places by the wind. The hole next to Jimmy was made by Jimmy after we decided to scrap the tent (silly boys and their knives).

So we left our beautiful 6-man tent in the dumpster at Goblin Valley and went back to Green River to find a cheap motel to share with the Gunters and their 2 kids. It was an eventful night. Abby slept in a drawer and Hailey talked herself to sleep.

The next day, as planned, we did drive to Arches. However, we were all so tired that we decided to just do the drive-thru kind of site seeing. Still breathtaking from the road, but next time I won’t be so pregnant or something and we’ll have to get out and do some hiking.

Overall evaluation of camping trip: While the camping was lame to nonexistant, the trip was still awesomely wonderful.