There were free showers, so after breaking camp we both got washed up. Showers are pretty important to living on the road, we take them where we can get them. After doing dishes and refilling our water supply, it was 10 before we got on the road.
We left Cathedral Gorge and shortly thereafter were in Utah. Since we were on a scenic byway, it was long streches of arrow straight road thru pastures seperated by twisty mountain sections over passes. We are getting used to the cycle. Eventually we are making our way into St George. Holy Cow, this place can host an Entrance!! Cruising down a very steep highway trying to stay on the road while you gawk at all the amazing rock formations is hard!! Really hard! Very red.... as we venture into town we see neighborhoods planted on the sides of the hills, and they look pretty fantastic! All the way into town, we were gawking at the hills around town and all the color.
My house battery hadn't been lasting more than one night. Last year at tanacross, it easily lasted 4 nights so I knew something was up. I managed to loose the reciept, but I decided to wing it and see if I could talk someone into replacing it for me anyways. It had a 12 month warranty and the sticker said I had bought it 12 months ago. I pulled it out and took it into the Walmart and found the automotive section. It's alway at the exact opposite side that I enter from, so I start looking there and finally found it. I tell my story to a tech there named Junior, and he's cool with no reciept, unlike the customer service clerk the last time I tried this. Junior goes into the shop and returns with a battery tester, then quickly confirms my diagnosis of being bad. He also agrees to let me buy up to the 24 month battery for $15. Nice.
We fill up with gas, buy a few supplies (lunch) and hit the road. We took 59 out of town to the East, and are in Arizona shortly thereafter. We'd never been to the North Rim of the Gaand Canyon, and that was on our schedule for today. When we were about 30 miles from the Park we learned that the road was still closed for the winter. Dang. This has happened to us before.
Fortunately, it was scheduled to open the next day (lucky us). We check out the Campground and decided $18 was to much to pay for dry camping and pit toilets, especially since the day before we were in such a nice campground for $17.
We decided to cruise down the road a bit and see if we can find some dispersed camping. 1/2 mile away I spot a dirt road and we take the Donkey down it. The Donkey rides so nice on these dirt roads, it's a joy to travel on them. We see a couple others people setting up camp in the woods so we venture further down the forest road. About a mile into the forest we see a pretty nice spot, it even has a fire ring already set up. We pull in and check things out. It looks really cool! We're stocked to have found such a cool, private spot.
We decide a fire is in order and start collecting up wood. This area has just finished breakup, there are lots of deadfall laying around ready to provide us with a warm, inviting fire...